(no subject)

We are fine. Power back on. No internet. I saved halloween. The storm flooded everything btw us and the water. But we are fine here just bored.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Edit: Also, not reading more than a few hours back on my friends page. If it's important for me to see, link to it.

The two young boys were found.

Dead, of course. Staten Island certainly had more than our share of tragedies. Their mother must have been out of her mind with panic trying to leave when she did, and when her car stalled, I can not even imagine. People are blaming the residents where she lost the kids for not helping her, but if it was bad enough to snatch the children from her, how could anybody help? They'd die too.

The story just dwells on my mind. Of course she should've left when the evacuation order came through, houses there are right on the water, but people make bad calls all the time and nothing happens.

I'm watching the news, a man saved himself and his neighbors when a combo of fire and flood came, took power cords and tied them together. If this woman had had time to think clearly, she would've tied her kids to her, with anything, but....

As always, the brainwashing kicks in and I recall that baby wearing could've helped that poor woman. Tie one kid to your back, the other to your hip, and hope knots grip better than fingers. But really, her and everybody else, the only thing that would've worked was to get out earlier. If there is a disaster warning, and an evacuation order, it's good to take a sober and honest look at the odds before laughing it off. Even if, as another family that died in their house, you think that looting is the bigger risk, it might not be necessary for the entire family to stay in place.

I have this feeling that that poor woman and her two kids will be remembered here for ages, the watchword for "get out while you can". Certainly I can't forget this story, it just sticks with me. We shouldn't panic in every storm ever, but hurricanes can be one situation where caution is warranted.

I'm watching the news.

First, our confirmed death toll on the Island is now 23, and no doubt still rising.

Secondly, there was a very upset woman on the South Shore who called in and said conditions are very bad, there's muggings and looting and all the aid is in the shelters but people won't go there because they won't leave their homes. A family in Tottenville died that way, parents and a 13 year old kid, they stayed home and a wave washed it entirely away. Most of me is concerned and upset about this. A tiny part of me, though....

See, every time there is a crime on the North Shore, the various racists on the Island pile on to say that this only and always happens here, and that crime didn't exist on Staten Island until the invention of a. poor people, b. black people and c. poor black people. There was a huge drug bust on the Sout Sore a while back, and interested I found the Advance comments to see that crime only exists there if people move in from Brooklyn.

We do have more crime on the North Shore, but we also have more people. The rest of the Island is whiter and less poor, but that's not why the difference exists.

So a tiny, unkind and uncharitable part of me says "See? As a group, you aren't any better than the rest of us."

But most of me feels sympathy and concern. The nice part.