Colorado Snow Storm

EZ Rider

My daughter just sent me this email. Makes alot of sense.


A friend in Colorado e-mailed this & I thought it was kinda funny.

Weather Bulletin - Denver .............

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic
event--- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" ---
with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH
that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds
of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of
communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category 5
snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No
Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a
penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments
delivered it to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of
a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades
votes for 'sittin at home' checks.

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this
early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

"In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about
48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living

phinsher

EZ,
No hard feelings and I'll remain as respectful of your comments as I can, but I really don't think you can compare a snow storm in Colorado to a Flood in New Orleans.

Downeast

No one called out for W or fema because they knew that would be useless.....

Mike Finley

I understand your point, but probably the other reason is the national media loves to over report a good Colorado snow storm. These storms have been vastly over reported. 44 inches, 90mph winds? Trees broken in half? Must have missed all that somehow.

We got one nice dump of 18-26 inches depending where you were, in between we had perfect blue sky days and temps reaching the 50-60s. Made for a fantastic white Christmas. Half of the snow melted, before the next storm hit a week later that was supposed to dump 2 feet, it ended up being about 12 inches. That storm hit the southern part of the state much worse than the metro areas. That's cattle country and they were worried about it killing cattle, turned out so far not to be a big deal, but the media loves to film a Black Hawk dumping a bale of hale in a desolate area to save a cow and report it that the state is snowed in.

I can't tell you the number of times I'll talk to a relative on the phone and they will ask me about the big snow storm that they saw on tv and I'll have to tell them we got 2 inches of snow at my house.

Downeast

We got about 30" + or - of snow dumped on us the winter before last,and handled it really well.

Its the ice storms that make life real misserable with power outages,branches comming down.

If the forecast is a major storm,most people now have the sense to get home and hunker down till it passes. State will shut down and send non essentials home,leaving the dpw and police on.

EZ Rider

Sorry guys if I offended anybody. This was just an email that was forwarded to my daughter who in turn forwarded it to me.

Mike, I understand how stories grow, and how the media likes to put their own slant to it.

Dave

RYANINMICHIGAN

I have seen that before about people in th U.P. of michigan. They get 4+ feet of snow in one storm. I have been in it. Dangerous? sure. But if you have always lived with it no big deal I actually like alot of snow

EZ Rider

I DO think the email has alot of food for thought -- in different and less severe situations. You always have people standing around with their hand out wanting the gov't. to take care of them. Hence the term 'entitlement programs'. Then, you will see people in similar or worse circumstances who ask for nothing, make the best of a bad situation, and just get on with their life. IMO, there a just too many people who are fully capable of working and taking care of themselves, but are just too lazy to do so.

Dave

Downeast

Depending on the scope of the disater, I would think there aree many places in the nation where the local populus would roll up their sleeves and get to work the day after.

You can stare at that tree lying accross the road and waith for the town to get to it or you can break out your chainsaw and get on down the road.

R&S Exteriors

Actually it depends more on WHERE the disaster was at. Everyone likes to talk about Katrina BUT they only ever refer to New Orleans. New Orleans flooded after but did not take the brunt of the storm as was predicted. They were told to leave but did not.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina. The three coastal counties of Mississippi, populated by about 400,000 people (close to the population of central New Orleans), had been witness to one of natures most destructive events. Katrina's 30-foot plus storm surge along the Mississippi Gulf Coast was the most extensive, as well as the highest, in the documented history of the United States. Wiping out much of Biloxi, Gulfport and others

http://www.photosfromkatrina.com/
http://www.photosfromkatrina.com/ima...ssC-Beach1.jpg

Why do we only hear about New Orleans? Because it was (is) ran by Liberals that have the majority of it's population dependent on "entitlements".

And most of the reporting from New Orleans after Katrina was Hiped, False and sensationalized. Because Libs can't even resist politicizing a national emergency.

Mississippi was hit MUCH harder. yes they were helped but they never protested and looted, and sat on their butts waiting for the government to save them.

Oh yeah and they had a Republican Governor.

EZ Rider

I wanted to address the same thing in my post, but I couldn't remember the facts or where I had seen them. You said it very well.

EZ Rider

From what I understand, the Fed's (FEMA) don't go in unless invited/requested by the state/local gov'ts. That was the problem in New Orleans. Their state and local gov't. did very little on there own but didn't ask for help until it was too late. Like R&S said, they were warned well in advance to get out. We all saw the pictures of all the school buses setting in the parking lot unused???? Not too smart IMO.

747

Snow only a problem for states who aren't set up to handle it. Colorado definately is. So if your in a state which is set up to handle it and you get dumped on its just sit tight they will get you dug out after the main roads. I agree with the one poster ice storms are much worst then snow. I did see they had a avalanche in colorado over a section of highway now that is definately scary stuff there.

Tscarborough

When that snow makes 40-70 percent of your population homeless, and destroys all major roads and infrastructure serving the area, expect FEMA to visit. Until then, shut up and pay the plowman so you can get to the 7-11.

Mike Finley

That avalanche was freaky! I've been all over that area, up and down that road, at the top of the pass teaching wilderness school, skiing... they just got done with 2 years of improvements on that road, doubled the width, added all kinds of high dollar grading and controls. They are calling that a class 4 avalanche, which is classified as one that will splinter mature trees and destroy wood framed housing, can't imagine driving up that road and looking to the left and see that coming toward you with no where to go!

King of Crown

I just got back from Telluride, And let me be the first to say...

Thank Goodness For Snow Storms!!!

I cant imagine what it would have been like to wake board in New Orleans.
I haven't gotten a tan in a while, too bad I wasn't in Nagasaki when the bomb was dropped, I probably would never need a tan again.
One of my New Years resolutions is too loose weight, so I might move to Sudan.

__________________
Real nice guys

Randy Welch

Hi, guys -- I work for FEMA, as part of the team responding to the Colorado snow emergency. I just wanted to clarify a few things.

1. The initial posting is an email that's been floating around for a while -- sometimes it's supposed to be from someone in South Dakota, or North Dakota, or various other states.

2. In this case, actually, a lot of people did ask FEMA to come -- and we have. The state submitted its request on Friday, January 5, and the President signed snow emergency declarations for the two big storms on Sunday, January 7. (We added six more counties this last Friday, January 10.)

3. We only help with snow emergencies when it can be shown it was a record or near-record snowstorm. The logic, obviously, is that everybody should be ready for anything in the normal range, and federal emergency help is only available for extraordinary situations.

4. What we do is, basically, pay 75 percent of the emergency costs for any eligible government agency (and some nonprofits) over a 48 hour period. For example, Baca County can say which 48 hours cost it the most in snowplowing overtime, contractors, police and fire overtime, etc. FEMA, the state and the local guys get together to document the costs, and then FEMA pays 75 percent of whatever is eligible and the state may pay some as well. A school, as another example, might qualify separately. It helps the agencies get through a big, unexpected hit on their budgets. But the locals and the state are the ones who handle the response on the ground (plus, in this case, the National Guard and a firefighting management team).

Randy Welch
FEMA in Colorado

K2

Hey Randy thanks for stopping in and clearing some things up.

Can you fix my plow??

tkle

It hasn't gotten over 34* here in the last couple days.Thats out of the norm here.Where's FEMA?

K2

I'm ready for a couple of weeks of global warming.