Originally Posted By DAR Let me preface that I got this in an e-mail so I don't know if it's real or not decide for yourselves: THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT. Denver Post: This text is from a county emergency manager out in the central part of Colorado after todays snowstorm. WEATHER BULLETIN Up here, in the Northern Plains, we just recovered from a Historic event---may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands. FYI: George Bush did not come. FEMA did nothing. No one howled for the government. No one blamed the government. No one even uttered an expletive on TV . Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit. Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else. Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either. CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards. No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House. No one looted. Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something. Nobody expected the government to do anything, either. No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera. No Sean Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found. Nope, we just melted the snow for water. Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars. The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a penny. Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families. Families took in the stranded people - total strangers. We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns. We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die". We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves. "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."It does seem that way, at least to me. I hope this gets passed on. Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.
Originally Posted By DlandJB I doubt it is real and I bet it will spam its way across the universe. The basic infrastructure of New Orleans is so much older and dissimilar to anything in Colorado that it is apples and oranges. There is also little threat of disease associated with a blizzard. With floods, a much higher risk of sewage overflowing into the streets and affecting the water supplies. Finally -- insurance. I don't know but I assume that in Colorado the average home owner can get coverage in case of snow damage to their property. Isn't it true now that you can't get flood insurance without going through FEMA? So already the private support available is limited.
Originally Posted By Lisann22 <a href="http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp" target="_blank">http://www.snopes.com/katrina/ soapbox/dakota.asp</a> Home --> Hurricane Katrina --> Soapbox --> Snow Comparison Snow Comparison Claim: North Dakotans weathered a severe blizzard without requesting assistance from the federal government. Status: False. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2005] North Dakota News Bulletin This text is from a county emergency manager out in the western part of North Dakota state after the storm. Amusing, if it were not so true... WEATHER BULLETIN Up here in the Northern Plains we just recovered from a Historic event — may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" — with a historic blizzard of up to 24" inches of snow and winds to 50 MPH that broke trees in half, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed all roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands. FYI: George Bush did not come.... FEMA staged nothing.... No one howled for the government... No one even uttered an expletive on TV... Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards..... No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.... No one looted.... Phil Cantori of the Weather Channel did not come.... And Geraldo Rivera did not move in. Nope, we just melted snow for water, sent out caravans to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars, fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Aladdin lamps, and put on an extra layer of clothes because up here it is 'work or die'. We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks. Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early...we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves. "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the worlds social problems evaporate." Variations: E-mailed versions circulated in November 2006 changed the location of the blizzard-stricken community from somewhere in North Dakota to Marquette, Michigan, and attributed the article to The Mining Journal News of that city. While that paper exists, it didn't publish the piece. December 2006 versions of this item changed the setting to Colorado, reflecting the back-to-back snowstorms that paralyzed portions of the state during the 2006 holiday season and twice shut down Denver International Airport. (Many of those versions falsely asserted the item came from The Denver Post.) In the wake of those storms, Colorado has requested assistance from FEMA to help ranchers recover their livelihoods. Origins: On 4 October 2005, portions of Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming were hit by an early snowstorm that Shoveling snowknocked out power, closed roads, and dumped up to 2 feet of snow. Some schools were closed by the storm, and thousands of power outages were reported. The National Guard was called out in North Dakota to aid the Highway Patrol in rescuing stranded motorists, of which there were hundreds. In Dickinson, snowplows led emergency vehicles that were used to deliver fuel to a nursing home and to the Police Department to run generators during a power outage. Sam Walker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota, said of the storm: "It is, on our records, probably one of the earliest ones, as far as our recorded history goes, in 126, 130 years." But that wasn't the only surprising thing about the storm — only days before, 90 degree temperatures had been recorded in the state (e.g., 92 degrees in Bismarck on 1 October 2005). The e-mail makes the claim of the snowbound Dakotans that "No one howled for the government." Yet in a 31 October 2005 letter to President Bush, Governor John Hoeven of North Dakota did indeed "request that you declare a major disaster for the State of North Dakota as a result of a severe winter storm/snowfall, accompanied by record-breaking snowfall, rain and high winds, that occurred on October 4-6, 2005." Said request for official disaster status was spurred by an interest in obtaining FEMA assistance: "Additionally, eleven counties meet the criteria established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] 'for near record snowfall' and should be eligible for assistance with FEMA's snow policy [9523.1]. Midwesterners hit by this storm appear to have overcome their short-lived catastrophe without federal assistance (although as of 31 October 2005, North Dakota was seeking to recoup its storm-related expenditures from the federal government). However, the bulk of the digging out from under the snowfall and rescuing stranded motorists from snow-entombed cars fell to North Dakota's police and emergency service workers and the National Guard, not (as the e-mail would have it) to rugged individual citizens who hadn't been "immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks." The comparison made in this piece to New Orleans' attempt to cope with the massive destruction resulting from Hurricane Katrina is also badly flawed, as the two weather-related disasters were completely different in nature and severity — one could be coped with locally, but the other could not. Barbara "one can shovel snow, but one cannot shovel water" Mikkelson Last updated: 8 January 2007 The URL for this page is <a href="http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp" target="_blank">http://www.snopes.com/katrina/ soapbox/dakota.asp</a> Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2007 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson This material may not be reproduced without permission. SourcesSources: Nicholson, Blake. "Winter Storm Socks North Dakota; National Guard Helping Drivers." Associated Press. 5 October 2005. Truong, Thanh. "Ranchers Hoping For Help From FEMA May Be Waiting in Vain." KUSA-TV [Denver]. 8 January 2007.
Originally Posted By DAR And for the records I've been through my share of blizzards they're pretty easy to get through. Driving in them sucks, but around here we most people learn to stay at home for the day.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Pretty easy to get through? Sure, if your house is well stocked, the power stays on and the roof hasn't collapsed. I grew up in Chicago in the 60's and 70's. Blizzards weren't that easy to get through for everyone.
Originally Posted By DAR Milwaukee my whole life and I didn't say everyone, but you get used to them.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 At any rate, #3 pretty much debunked the assumptions behind that email, not to mention its veracity of coming from Denver this December.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Well, urban legend or not I find it hard to fathom someone comparing the two events.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MOMENT.<< What I think about whenever I see these sorts of emails (and snopes.com is always the first place to check them out) is what exactly is the author trying to prove? And how desperate are they to prove it that they just sit and make stuff up, taking the time to draft fiction and attempt to pass it as fact? The pattern is always the same -- plain old homespun good ol' American values, about a pull-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps folk vs. someone who (in the email writer's mind) got all the breaks and had it easy compared to those silently suffering but enduring of their own accord. That's what I think about whenever I get one of these things in my email box. Then I junk it.
Originally Posted By friendofdd My DD lives in the Denver area and she was greatly inconvenienced by the back to back storms, but it could not be compared to the devastation of Katrina in any important way.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan You doubted it, but unfortunatly, more and more of these things are created every day, and a lot of people take what they say verbatim. I would say that a sadly sizeable percentage of folks using email buy these things hook, line and sinker. These things are created to promote discontent and/or self-satisfaction, superiority over some other group, or people of another era, political party, race, etc.
Originally Posted By friendofdd >>>You doubted it, but unfortunatly, more and more of these things are created every day, and a lot of people take what they say verbatim. I would say that a sadly sizeable percentage of folks using email buy these things hook, line and sinker. These things are created to promote discontent and/or self-satisfaction, superiority over some other group, or people of another era, political party, race, etc.<<< I certainly believe that.
Originally Posted By DAR No question. Though I think Katrina proved that you really can't count nor should you depend on the government for anything no matter who's in power.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Well, urban legend or not I find it hard to fathom someone comparing the two events.<< Exactly my thoughts. Blizzard's suck for sure. But after the snow melts the neighborhoods are still there and haven't been washed away from the face of the earth. Most of the criticism about Katrina revolves around people not leaving, ergo, people lost their lives or became trapped. In Denver, people didn't leave either. But they didn't get trapped or killed. Apples and oranges. There's definitely room for debate on what level personal responsibility should account for Katrina, the local government's culpability vs. the federal government, etc. But this analogy has no business being part of that debate.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>My DD lives in the Denver area and she was greatly inconvenienced by the back to back storms, but it could not be compared to the devastation of Katrina in any important way.<< We live north of Denver. Was it inconvenient? A little bit. We never lost power and were never stranded in the house. The biigest inconvenience was having to remove the snow from the driveway and sidewalks (required by law).
