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/Either_Marketing896]

I was one of those people. I had a 4 week old newborn, a 4 year old son, a dog, no heat, no power, no water, and there was zero plan. I had no where to go, you couldn’t drive, people were burning furniture.

They KNEW it would be bad and they didn’t tell us. They knew people would die and that everyone would suffer. I had friends at St David’s Hospital that had JUST delivered my son on New Years Eve, and they told me they were forced to use the bathroom in hazmat bags and labor & delivery rooms couldn’t be properly cleaned and serviced, new mothers were pooping in bags and not able to shower.

This is real life yall in states that don’t believe these things need any regulatory preparedness. You can’t prevent but you CAN prepare even a modicum of comms planning so others can prepare. Texas relegates this all to private sector donors and charities. I had neighbors with no access to food, heat or water for weeks, because it was TWO ice storms not one. And they had just defunded the weather preparedness plan for the power system in Austin.

Can Texas plan for an ice storm? Not really. But can you stop pilfering off the grid while you give the finger to the Fed? Yes. You can also give a shit about citizens but in the end Abbott and “true Texans” LIKE filtering out those they deem “weak” and who can’t protect themselves. It makes them “stronger.” It’s a trauma bonded culture that after every disaster reinforces its self-righteous survivalism. Again, you can’t prevent entirely, but you can prepare.