More lessons from Kentucky

Natural disasters arbitrarily bring death and destruction. They act beyond the control of mortal man and his institutions, no matter how grand and well-intentioned those institutions may be. - Jeff Taylor

The quote above comes from the article Katrina in Kentucky on reason.com. The author makes several interesting points.

remember that it was not until the Clinton administration that the federal government was even expected to deal with winter storms. ... Soon enough state and local officials were petitioning Washington for any and all weather-related expenses.

... Natural disasters arbitrarily bring death and destruction. They act beyond the control of mortal man and his institutions, no matter how grand and well-intentioned those institutions may be. Furthermore, the iron law of all disasters is that it is nearly impossible to get aid quickly to people in need. Two corollaries flow from this reality. One, that it is always better to evacuate potential victims than to attempt to rescue certain victims. Two, given that outside help will be unreliable at best, local ad hoc relief efforts are almost always more effective.

Bottom Line

The last point is very important. Local help is your 2nd best source for aid. The best is yourself and your own emergency supplies. If you have a local CERT team consider joining for the training and the neighborhood support.