The government will not help you

Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane the same morning this photo was taken. Ugh.

It’s not that government officials and employees do not *want* to help you in a natural disaster – or any kind of emergency – it is that they literally will not *be able* to help you.

When the widespread eco-disaster hits your area, do you think help is on the way from your local, regional, or federal government? The unfortunate answer has proven to be “No.”  It only takes one read thru this timeline to understand why regional and federal aid will be shortcoming.

Leave your personal political beliefs out of the equation when reading through the timeline; the US just simply is not prepared for this type of disaster response. This was an epic fail.

Like the frustrated firefighters who have to drive right by the home going up in flames in order to survey their entire small town before they can begin to dispatch the blazes one by one, when a large emergency hits the local level government folks will be overwhelmed and scrambling.

What’s the positive, citizen-led solution to this issue? For our family, it is the Map Your Neighborhood program.