blame all you want, what we need is a change

A great portion of my day is spent doing research, primarily on the internet, finding stories about towns across our country still in disarray from disasters mostly years after the fact. What I love about the web now is the ability to access it anywhere, anytime. In fact, right now I am writing this blog in a waiting room of a car service center, they have wireless access, meaning I don't have to page through the old copies of the popular rags on display and I can continue my quest to learn more about the goings on in our country at the moment.

I stumbled upon this article form the LA Times about the Army Corps. Of Engineers that I felt I needed to share - http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-katrina-flooding19-2009nov19,0,3370102.story. The events of Hurricane Katrina were like no other in our country. The news about how people are still struggling to rebuild can be found every day. We as a country all sat there and saw firsthand how unprepared we were with an event of this magnitude. This article to me really shows why we need to deal with natural disasters in a more proactive way. From what I understand about the Army Corps., they are a government agency. Like other government agencies, they are assigned a budget every year to deal with finding solutions and rebuilding to help alleviate the effects of natural disasters or to eliminate them altogether. Having to determine a budget for this type of need must be an unbelievable task. Frankly, this approach in my mind can only lead to more things being moved to the back burner and falling through the cracks. Think about it in terms of your family, we all have expenses, the car breaks down, the roof may spring a leak, the carpet needs replacing. Your budget will take care of needs and fixes that fall highest on the priority list. You may opt to fix the car and the roof but put off the new carpet until your budget opens up. We've all been there, that carpet replacement could take months or longer if something else pops up like it always seems to do.

I guess as a society we want to have someone or something to blame, this gives us closure on some level so we can move on. However, as the article states, this ruling will open up our government to thousands of new claims costing the government and ultimately us as citizens, billions of dollars. Looking at it in that respect is why I have started my organization Each One for US All. My town of Yardley, PA had a solution in place to control the water on the Delaware River provided by the Army Corps. Of Engineers since the 60's and still to this day, they won't move forward in its implementation. We as a united front can tackle these situations with a proactive approach with charitable donations coming from each and every one of us that has been, will be or knows someone dealing with the effects of a natural disaster. Unfortunately they way things are set up; we are already footing the bill for a system that doesn't seem to work.

DD