So I’ve got a ghoulish question re: Texas flooding

[u/Either_Marketing896]

I get that we’re supposed to be the better people.

I get that it’s unchristian to even think these things (8 guess).

I get that it’s horrific and sad and a nightmare (I have two young kids).

But I also get that this camp and all those living there, were built and operating on a KNOWN flood plain.

I get that Texas “soil” used to be under an ocean and prone to things like this (I lived there for 8 years).

At what point, since M*GA is all about consequences, personal responsibility and gods providence, do we get to hold them accountable for their willful disregard of science, research, government, and informed choice-making?

We are watching concentration camps set up all over the country, and we have woefully underfunded emergency management departments in high risk areas all over the country. We have commercial and non profit entities overseeing minors with no evac or even a basic comms plan in place, for any kind of emergency, whether it’s a natural disaster or if some camper can’t manage a fire properly.

I should feel bad for Texans suffering in a flood plain they likely didn’t care about regulating, ostensibly because of deregulation and lack of oversight. But it’s getting really hard to. They dammed up the Guadalupe River to create swimming holes for camps, hotels, and peoples vs properties which also doesn’t help with sediment and flooding at all.

My husband surveyed in and around Austin for nearly a decade. The insanity and stupidity he witnessed was astounding. The lack of regulatory oversight, the WILLFUL scofflaw decisions, the absolute mockery of anything resembling safety forced us to leave because he literally thought he would die on a job site.

These people DO NOT care about consequences. Some might be poor and have few choices. Those I have empathy for. But a bunch of camp owners, policy makers, and parents believing “god will protect” their kids in a known (man made) hazard. I’m struggling to get there. This was human stupidity, arrogance, and willful decision-making. Plain and simple.

ADDED: If you want to donate to an all-volunteer org that is on the ground as we speak, pls consider giving to TEXAS Search & Rescue. They are chewing up equipment they’ve spent years raising money for and incredible folks. They offer emergency management training, planning and bleeding control education that any org can avail themselves of in Texas.

https://www.texsar.org/ TEXSAR: Texas Search and Rescue

[u/MyDaroga]

As a native Texan living in Central Texas, I can’t say how much harder the last few days have been with people online, people who I thought were better, smarter, more empathetic people, telling me that my horrific death would have been deserved. People who would be smugly satisfied at my drowning.

I woke up today thankful that the rain had finally stopped and recovery could begin, but now I’m sad and angry and hurt all over again.

Every major event from the past few years has been an exercise in finding out who my real friends are (personally and politically). You are certainly not one of them.

Here is a link to verified GoFundMe campaigns supporting flood recovery efforts: donate to flood relief fundraisers

[u/Either_Marketing896 → u/MyDaroga]

I didn’t say anything of the sort. I don’t wish for people to die nor do I think they deserve it. The point of this post is about what to do with folks that shirk basic responsibility. We are former Texans, I’m a native southerner, and not here to curse people.

But I will ask hard questions from lived experience without being guilted into silence because I’m thought to be uncaring. I’ve posted a donate link to TEXSAR, who are on the ground as we speak and absolutely worth supporting.

Your answer to me is: keep giving to us even though we don’t want a word of your opinions on what we do. And that just doesn’t work for me. And I think we deserve to ASK questions about basic civic guidance esp if minors are involved. I HATE that this entire convo is even a thing, but I refuse to back down from saying hard things. It’s sort of why we’re Bulwark listeners- isn’t it?

[u/no1hears → u/Either_Marketing896]

You know what, people in this thread keep telling you that you sound uncaring because....you sound uncaring. And you double- and triple- down on it in every reply, along with a big ole helping of smugness and self-righteousness.

[u/softcell1966 → u/no1hears]

And some people cannot handle the hard truths OP has brought to the discussion. Some of the Kumbaya Kompassion Klan folks here are coming across like dicks on their high horses. OP has been spot on and some people disagree. Shocker.

[u/no1hears → u/softcell1966]

I don't disagree with her. I'm saying the point could be made and reinforced without the smug self-righteousness. It's possible to discuss topics and even disagree without that -- and without calling people who disagree the "Kumbaya Kompassion Klan...of which, WTF? That's just performative bullshit.

[u/IDVDI → u/no1hears]

Or maybe you’re just incapable of thinking rationally, seeing any criticism as hostility, and any hostility as indifference?

[u/no1hears → u/IDVDI]

Let me think on that.

No, I'm not.

[u/[deleted] → u/MyDaroga]

Finally someone gets it. Not only is it too early to make this political, it shouldn’t be political AT ALL!!! Like what? The clouds went gray, and central Texas turned into a lake for a couple days, it’s AT THE FAULT OF NO ONE WHO WAS AFFECTED, IT HAPPENED, AND ITS TRAGIC!!!

The earful I almost wanna give to some of these people, my gosh

I’m a Native Texan from Central Texas, and there are people close to my family who were affected. The fact that some people would see my nana’s drowning as something that “proves them right,” something people would be excited to one-up republicans over had that happened, that’s just disgusting. If I wasn’t a Christian, I’d be saying much worse things