FEMA's Rejection of More Money for West Seems Fair Enough

[white cloud]

Let me see if I get this. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is already paying Texas 75 percent of its costs for cleanup in West and making $8 million in low interest loans to individuals. But because FEMA ruled recently that Texas is capable of picking up the balance of the costs, our statewide leaders are accusing President Obama of being a lying son of a bitch.

Let's do the whole picture. The town of West did nothing ahead of time to protect itself from the April 17 fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people and damaged or destroyed half the town's structures. As Brett Shipp at WFAA-Channel 8 television in Dallas has reported in a series of stunning exposes, McClennan County emergency preparedness officials had no idea in the years before the blast what was in the plant, notified no one of the enormous potential threat and made no attempt to prepare local first-responders for a disaster.

After the mayhem, West Mayor Tommy Muska joined Texas Governor Rick "Oops" Perry in telling the media there was no need for increased oversight or community preparedness for potential industrial disasters. This is against a backdrop in which both U.S. senators from Texas, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, had joined Bill Flores, the congressman from West, in voting against the aid package for Hurricane Sandy victims in New Jersey, consistent with their ideological opposition to government assistance in general and federal aid in particular.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/06/femas_rejection_of_more_money.php

[pipoman]

1. The only part

I completely disagree with is,

"The town of West did nothing ahead of time to protect itself from the April 17 fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people and damaged or destroyed half the town's structures. As Brett Shipp at WFAA-Channel 8 television in Dallas has reported in a series of stunning exposes, McClennan County emergency preparedness officials had no idea in the years before the blast what was in the plant, notified no one of the enormous potential threat and made no attempt to prepare local first-responders for a disaster."

Blaming the victims. How many of those affected had any idea the potential threat? So the few who did know are the only one's to blame.