Doing it Themselves Rebuttal -- North Dakota Blizzard Forwarded Email

Since 12-17-05

North Dakota STILL Does It BETTER than New Orleans

From: Waspscpo@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 4:53 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Doing it Themselves Rebuttal -- North Dakota Blizzard Forwarded Email

Shipmates, Veterans and Military Retirees:

For those of you that received the "forwarded"  email I sent you with the subject
being "Doing it Themselves,' the story of the North Dakota blizzard that did not ask for federal help, please read what Snopes had to say about the claim.  My aplogies to all for not checking for the email's authenticity.

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/dakota.asp

The e-mail makes the claim of the snowbound Dakotans "No one howled for the government." Yet in a 31 October 2005 letter to President Bush, Governor John Hoeven of North Dakota did indeed "request that you declare a major disaster for the State of North Dakota as a result of a severe winter storm/snowfall, accompanied by record-breaking snowfall, rain and high winds, that occurred on October 4-6, 2005." Said request for official disaster status was spurred by an interest in obtaining FEMA assistance (e.g. "Additionally, eleven counties meet the criteria established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] 'for near record snowfall' and should be eligible for assistance with FEMA’s snow policy [9523.1]").

Midwesterners hit by this storm appear to have overcome their short-lived catastrophe without federal assistance (although as of 31 October 2005, North Dakota is seeking to recoup its storm-related expenditures from the government — see the Letter to the President above).

However, in comparing response to that weather-related disaster to what overwhelmed New Orleans, it needs be pointed out that the bulk of the digging out from under the snowfall and rescuing stranded motorists from snow-entombed cars fell to the state's police and emergency service workers and the National Guard, not (as the e-mail would have it) to rugged individual citizens who hadn't been "immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks." The nature and severity of the two disasters were different — the one could be coped with locally, but the other could not.

YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)
http://www.navetsusa.com/port.html
http://www.goatlocker.org/ncpoa/

Any man or woman who may be asked in this century what they did to make life worthwhile in their lifetime....can respond with a great deal of pride and satisfaction, "I served a career in the United States Navy."