There is value in losing everything, in being destitute in a world of plenty, in a world of things. When you have lost everything you struggled and sacrificed for all of your life, rather than a void to be filled, there is a crystalline strength in you to be accessed. You see clearly. You feel, untethered. You know truth, You fear nothing. Possibility is unlimited.
Nothing worse can happen to me. I have nothing left to lose. Nobody can hurt me more. That is very liberating, and sad. I tell no lies.
The agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, called FEMA, is out-dated, and out of control. It needs to be investigated and held accountable for its actions and mistakes: re-thought, re-structured, re-designed. FEMA has become a pale shadow of its original intent, which was to coordinate response to a U.S. disaster that overwhelms local and state resources.
Present day FEMA runs rampant over people and circumstances, wrecking havoc on good and honest men, making a disastrous event into a human relations nightmare, an avenue to destitution and bankruptcy. FEMA treats people with callous disrespect, and gives them outrageous token assistance that is much more a hindrance to recovery than a help. People walk away from their homes, because they are being offered nothing: no help, assistance, options, no hope. People walk away from FEMA disrespected and bleeding. I watch broken peers walk into the surf, shoved out of shelters, with no place left to lie down, and I am diminished.
The problem is not the resources of FEMA or its limitations, it is the attitude, training, process, procedure and accepted outcomes. FEMA gives people only the ability to walk away from their homes, or paste together disorder and destruction, in the name of restoration: to become an unlivable sinkhole when FEMA is safely removed, working on its next disaster. FEMA is hindrance: negative help, professional bullies.
This is the country I love. I wish I could say something more positive about its effort to manage disastrous events. But, the only productive way to interact with FEMA is to point out their glaring failures, and hope that someone will respond with critical analysis and action. It is time to stop limping off alone, licking our wounds. We must stand up together and acknowledge how much damage FEMA does, for change to happen. There is momentum in truth, to action.
I am not afraid of FEMA. I lost everything. Then, FEMA destroyed all of the intangibles I had left. I join a crowd of survivors who have been hurt, not helped by FEMA. Perhaps we are irreparably hurt. Perhaps we can recover, despite FEMA.
Disabled During Disaster 