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Tag: hurricane irene

Cantor Wants To Cut Disaster Relief — Unless It’s For His District

On Monday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor decided to play politics with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, declaring on Fox News that any money the government spends on relief for those areas devastated by the hurricane must be paid for by “savings elsewhere,” which means cutting other government expenditures. And not just any government expenditures; Cantor wants to cut funding for policemen, firemen, and other first responders who provide necessary help to communities — especially during natural disasters.

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu realizes the obvious problem with such an idea. “Does it really make sense,” she asks, “to pay for response and reconstruction costs from past disasters by reducing our capacity to prepare for future disasters?”

It’s not just Democrats who object to Cantor’s plan. Even his fellow Republicans realize it’s foolish. On his radio show, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said, “My concern is that we help people in need. For the FEMA money that’s going to flow, it’s up to them on how they get it. I don’t think it’s the time to get into that [deficit] debate.”

Cantor himself once realized the importance of federal emergency aid — at least when it comes to his own district. In 2004, after his district was stuck by Tropical Storm Gaston, he had no qualms begging for federal emergency aid. At the time, he didn’t seem to care where the money came from and certainly didn’t advocate cutting funding for first-responders. “The magnitude of the damage suffered by the Richmond area is beyond what the Commonwealth [of Virgina] can handle,” he explained in a September 2004 press release, “and that is why I asked the president to make federal funds available for the citizens affected by Gaston.”

Short-term memories are the rule in Washington, but on disaster-relief, the House Majority Leader is setting a new bar.

Windbag Damage: Tea Party Republicans And The Hurricane

Whether natural or manmade, extreme events often tell us something important about human beings, revealing their priorities and reflecting their character. So it was with Hurricane Irene, which allowed certain prominent proponents of right-wing ideology to expose themselves in full.

Irene happily turned out to be an event far less extreme than expected, at least so far as most of the East Coast was concerned. But nobody could be sure of that until Monday afternoon. So while millions of people still had reason to fear much worse, two of the leading Republicans in Congress sought to use the approaching hurricane for their own partisan and ideological purposes — and exposed just how little they care about the suffering of Americans who might be unlucky enough to be struck by disaster.

It was an object lesson in what we can expect from the right in power — and an irritating reminder of how badly conservative government failed six years ago when Hurricane Katrina struck.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor set the tone earlier in the week, when he issued a statement following the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that sent tremors northward hundreds of miles from Richmond, VA — the state’s capital and his hometown. Always more eager to display ideology than compassion, Cantor told reporters during a tour of the quake’s damage in his district “the problem is that people in Virginia don’t have earthquake insurance.” Of course, earthquake damage is exceedingly rare in the East, so most homeowner policies don’t include such coverage (as any insurance expert could have informed Cantor). To him “the problem” is not that his constituents suffered unforeseeable destruction and needed relief, but that they were not sufficiently clairvoyant to buy protection in the private sector.

Then Cantor insisted that before Congress approves any federal support for the earthquake’s victims — a category of aid usually approved quickly and without debate — there will have to be cuts elsewhere in the budget. Last spring he made the same egregious demand, after a series of record-breaking tornadoes ripped through the Midwest and South, killing hundreds of people and inflicting billions of dollars in damage. Holding disaster victims hostage to his agenda of cutting Medicare and Social Security is simply legislative strategy to Cantor, presumably because he feels that they merit no assistance if they didn’t insure themselves in advance.

Only days after the earthquake, however, Cantor signed a letter from the entire Virginia Congressional delegation to President Obama, asking him to issue a federal disaster declaration for their state in anticipation of the oncoming hurricane. Such a presidential directive, said the letter, “would ensure the full partnership and resources of the federal government to support the commonwealth’s efforts to ensure the public’s safety and quick recovery from the direct and indirect effects of Hurricane Irene.” So in the final days before the hurricane struck, even callous Cantor got worried about its potential effects on his district — and wanted the federal government to commit resources in advance for its recovery. This time he forgot to demand any budget cuts to offset such spending, which suggests that he is hypocritical as well as mean.

Then came Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman and persistent presidential wannabe, who laughed when asked on Fox News whether the government ought to help hurricane victims. “Where would the money come from?” he chortled. “I have precise beliefs in [sic] what we should do and I want to transition out of dependency on the federal government.”

Even more extreme than Cantor, Paul said he believes that we cannot afford to assist anyone injured or ruined by natural disasters, and that the nation would be better off without any federal relief efforts (and without environmental protections of any kind, or any regulation of the safety of food, pharmaceuticals, consumer products or transportation).

“We should be like 1900,” Paul said, without mentioning how brutish, dangerous and short life tended to be for most Americans back then.

To insist that we must revert to a more primitive and predatory way of life may well be Republican dogma these days, but it isn’t the ideal of America that most citizens have cherished for the past century or so. The coming elections will test whether traditional standards of community and decency — in other words, our national character — can survive the advent of the Tea Party.

Flooding Feared In Irene’s Wake

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. (AP) — From North Carolina to New Jersey, Hurricane Irene’s winds and storm surge fell short of the doomsday predictions. But the danger is far from over: With rivers still rising, severe flooding is feared across much of the East Coast over the next few days.

More than 4.5 million homes and businesses along the coast lost power, and at least 14 deaths were blamed on the storm.

With roads impassable because of high water and fallen trees, it could be days before the full extent of the damage is known. But as day broke Sunday, many places reported only light damage consisting of little more than downed trees and power lines.

“I think it’s a little strong to say we dodged a bullet. However, it certainly could have turned out worse for the Hampton Roads area” in Virginia, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Montefusco.

At the same time, officials warned of the possibility of extreme flooding as runoff from the storm makes its way into creeks and rivers.

Irene brought six inches to a foot of rain to many places along the East Coast. In one eastern North Carolina neighborhood, two-dozen homes were destroyed by flooding and officials feared more damage could be uncovered there.

Some areas of the Northeast had soggy ground even before the storm because of an extremely rainy August.

“We are going to look at a record flooding situation here, both at the shore and inland,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The storm was still pummeling the New York City area and New England on Sunday morning, dropping below hurricane strength but still dangerous with 65 mph winds and heavy downpours.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell had initially warned that Irene could be a “catastrophic” monster with record storm surges of up to 8 feet.

But in Virginia Beach, the city posted on Twitter late Saturday that initial reports were promising, with the resort area suffering minimal damage. And in Ocean City, Md., Mayor Rick Meehan reported: “Scattered power outages. No reports of major damage!”

In Lusby, Md., Constellation Energy Nuclear Group said one of two nuclear reactors at Calvert Cliffs went off-line automatically because of Irene’s winds. Constellation said the plant was safe.

Floodwaters were rising across New Jersey, and more than 2,000 National Guardsmen were helping with search and rescue work as officials assessed the damage. The Raritan River, which caused disastrous flooding after it was swelled by rain from Hurricane Floyd 12 years ago, was not expected to crest until Sunday evening.

Still, with skies clearing Sunday morning, some of those living on the coast were cautiously optimistic.

After spending the night hunkered down in his Pleasantville, N.J., home overnight without electricity, Harry Webber went outside in a fruitless search for place to buy a cup of coffee.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of my town is still in one piece,” he said.

Late last week, Irene was a fearsome Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of around 115 mph as it barreled across open water toward the East Coast. Forecasters predicted it could grow to a scarier Category 4 before blowing ashore.

By Friday, though, the storm began losing steam. It came ashore the next day in North Carolina a mere Category 1 with winds of about 85 mph, and had weakened into a tropical storm by the time its eye hit New York City on Sunday.

While the National Hurricane Center accurately predicted Irene’s track, the agency’s director acknowledged that forecasting the strength of the winds days in advance can be difficult because of the myriad factors involved.

“We’re not completely sure how the interplay of various features is causing the strength of a storm to change,” said Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.

North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said that Irene inflicted significant damage along her state’s coast, but that the full extent was unclear because some areas were unreachable because of high water or downed power lines.

Perdue planned an aerial tour Sunday of the hardest-hit counties after TV coverage showed downed trees, toppled utility poles and power lines and mangled awnings.

In North Carolina’s Craven County, officials said that as many as 25 homes were destroyed by swells from the Neuse River in a neighborhood that was hit hard by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. The fire department rescued people from a handful of houses on Saturday.

Officials in North Carolina’s Dare County said they were advised there was extensive flooding that needed to be checked out. About 2,500 people on Hatteras Island have been cut off by damaged roads, and there are plans to bring them supplies by ferry. It’s not clear yet how bad damage was on the island.

Elsewhere, authorities suggested Irene didn’t create the kind of havoc that had been anticipated.

“We were prepared for a lot worse, but we got lucky on this one,” said Bruce Shell, New Hanover County, N.C., manager.

He said many of the 70,000 homes that lost power Saturday were back online in the evening and a wastewater spill at Wrightsville Beach appeared to be minor.

Pinehurst dentist Harwell Palmer said his home in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., lost a few pieces of siding and there was some street flooding, but a pier that took a pounding from the waves was still standing. The storm did gobble up some of the sand.

“The main concern we will have going forward is the loss of beach,” he said.

The question still facing the region was whether Irene’s effects over the next few days would match the mess left behind by such storms as Floyd and Isabel.

In 1999, Floyd dropped at least 15 inches of rain on eastern North Carolina. The flooding was the most damaging in the state’s history, topping $3 billion in North Carolina. Four years later, Isabel brought hurricane conditions to eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia, causing about $1 billion in damage.

In the resort town of Ocean City, Md., damage appeared minimal. A few small trees along a major road had been uprooted. Scattered piles of sand about two feet high covered areas of the boardwalk. The end of a wooden pier was sagging and a wooden railing was askew.

At the Quietstorm surf shop on the boardwalk, part of a wall where the shop’s name is advertised had been torn off, exposing wiring and scattering insulation. Locals, though, said they had seen worse during ordinary storms.

“I think we dodged a bullet,” said LeAnn Price.

Associated Press writers Jessica Gresko in Ocean City, Md., Randall Chase in Georgetown, Del., and Dena Potter in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report. Foreman reported from Raleigh, N.C.

Obama Visits FEMA Storm Center To Check On Hurricane

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s command center on Saturday as Hurricane Irene began making its way up the East Coast, and 6,500 American troops were told to be ready in case they are needed for relief work.

The center helps coordinate the government’s response to natural disasters such as this weekend’s hurricane, and the president offered encouragement to emergency management staff from across the federal government.

“Everybody here, you guys are doing a great job,” Obama told dozens of workers who were at their computer stations. The workers wore red or blue vests with their job descriptions on their backs.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told 6,500 active duty troops to be prepared for a possible order for them to help with Hurricane Irene relief assistance. Panetta issued a prepare-to-deploy order for the troops from all branches of the military if support relief efforts are required, spokesman George Little said.

The request for the possible help came from states in the path of the storm.

Obama, accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and his assistant for homeland security, John Brennan, said he was monitoring the situation closely. He thanked everyone for their efforts.

“”This is still obviously going to be a touch and go situation for a lot of communities, but knowing that they’ve got an outstanding response team like this will make all the difference in the world,” he said. “Especially because you all are not going to get any sleep for the next 72 hours or so.”

Earlier Saturday, Obama got a fresh update on the storm from his emergency management team.

He’s asking to be kept alerted to developments throughout the day and overnight as the storm makes it way up the Eastern Seaboard. He also spoke with federal and state agencies involved in the response by video teleconference.

Obama said that when he discussed the situation Friday with governors and mayors, he asked if they could think of anything else they needed. “There was quiet on the phone and that was a good sign,” the president said.