The government monopoly on helping neighbors
Posted on February 3, 2007
Subtitle: Why I am not helping my neighbors this weekend.
Early Friday morning, horrendous and destructive storms tore through parts of Central Florida. As of now, there are twenty known deaths and at least two thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed. It has been national news since then, and rightly so, but there are elements of the government’s response, at all levels, that troubles me. Where my home is, it was very windy with strong thunderstorms, but we were not impacted by the tornadoes. My family is, however, not far away at all from towns like The Villages and Lady Lake. On Friday as I was wrapping up work for the day, my wife suggested that we and my teenage son drive to The Villages, a town with a largely retired and elderly population, and see if we could help someone out.
Her desire to do so sprung from our experience during the 2004 hurricane season. During Hurricane Charley, our roof was badly damaged letting a lot of water in the house. We lost large trees, the felling of one resulting in the water line to our home being ripped right out of the ground, rupturing it. In the days that followed, we had to make use of nearly all of our emergency supplies; water, gasoline, a generator, tarps, chainsaws, rolls of roofing felt, roofing tar, etc. We still have all of these things, and a truck to bring them to someone who might need them. Back in August of 2004, it meant the world to us that my father drove over an hour to help me repair the water pipe and patch the roof to the extent that we could, and to use the chainsaws to clear portions of the chaotic mass of twisted oak tree limbs that blocked access to the broken pipe and even the valve to shut it off. My wife’s cousin also drove to find us, as both landlines and cell phones were out of service, then stayed to help cover and patch the roof. We were grateful, of course.
Now we wanted to act in kind. I’ve been through this. I have roofing experience. I have the hardware. I am close by. Surely there is some elderly couple somewhere who could use a hand patching a roof and clearing some debris. More rain is coming down today, after all. So why am I writing this post instead of going out to help? To be blunt, I’m afraid I’ll be arrested if I attempt to do so.
Exhibit one: In Governor Crist’s news conference, he said plainly (at :31 into the linked video), “I understand that people want to check on loved ones…They should not try to get in to the area.”
Exhibit two: Various news sources repeat the need for people to simply stay away. “[F]irst responders focused efforts on search and rescue and requested that citizens stay out of the area until authorized by local officials.” “While the urge to provide immediate assistance in disaster areas is understandable, safety has to come first.”
Exhibit three: Law enforcement officials seem to imply that anyone driving in to help would be treated as looters:
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson established a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the affected parts of the county. “If we find anybody looting, we’re going to deal with it,” he said at an afternoon news conference. He also asked would-be volunteers to stay away. “We have everything in hand at this time,” he said.
There are many other sources I’ve heard on radio and seen on TV to which I cannot link that have echoed the “stay away, don’t help, the government has ‘everything in hand’” line. As a result I’ve stayed home.
Here’s my problem with all of this. Government is claiming a monopoly on, instead of a supporting role in, disaster recovery. I don’t like this trend. We used to help ourselves and our neighbors, and I’m sure people still do so where they can get away with it, but it seems that increasingly the government and the media would prefer it if private citizens who wish to take tangible, physical action just stay out of it.
We did not get here overnight. The trend really took off after Hurricane Katrina. I wrote at the time, in a piece I did for Free Market News Network, “Be careful what you wish for. In the case of political and press reaction to the horrific natural event called Hurricane Katrina, we need to be careful what we demand. I’ve been angry over the irrational path that many politicians and reporters are leading us down…a truly dangerous drumbeat of blame has erupted and promises to do much damage to all of us before subsiding. Why is it dangerous? Because, in the future, under this President, or the next, or the one after that, the political risks of “not acting quickly enough” will be far too high, and we will be living under a very different system of government, at least as long as the wind blows…I know that many libertarians and conservatives are familiar with the ‘“frog in the slowly heated water’” theory of losing individual liberties. The week of coverage and pontificating following Hurricane Katrina has instead convinced me that we will lose the lion’s share of our liberties because we ourselves will loudly demand it.”
(I can’t find a link to my old article, titled “Federalizing Weather”, on the FMNN site anymore, but the entire thing is posted here. In addition, you can listen to the interview I gave about the article here.)
I still believe what I wrote then, and believe that it is getting worse. When I turned on the TV today I heard the reporter “on the scene” describe her conversation with Florida Governor Crist. She emphasized that she asked again and again, “When will help get here? When will the help arrive? When will FEMA get here?” Click to the next local channel, and it’s the same thing. And the next channel, with each then repeating that private citizens need to stay out of the area.
There does not seem to be any shortage of media personalities traveling into the area from outside to do their jobs. There is no shortage of politicians, likely traveling with staff, using real estate and resources to stand in front of microphones in the middle of the disaster scene. Note to the media: when I want to know more about what has happened to my neighbors, and instead you put Bill Nelson or Mel Martinez on the screen, I change the channel. I can’t imagine what they could have to say that would be useful. Having said that, both media personalities and their crews and politicians and their staffs certainly have a legitimate purpose for being there, but I strongly suggest that their purpose and use of the roads is not more legitimate than one Floridian traveling into the area to help another Floridian personally.
I do not see any compelling authority for the government, whether local, state, or federal, to claim a monopoly over disaster response and dictate who will be allowed to participate in activities as mundane as moving debris around. Am I being to harsh on the authorities? Do you disagree and don’t see a trend? I’ll be discussing this as topic one on my WideAwakesRadio show Monday at 6 p.m. eastern.
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No matter how big and expensive government gets, it will never be as efficient in helping disaster victims as volunteers on the scene.
Perhaps the next step will be that if you see a person drowning, instead of throwing them a rope you’ll have to dial 911 and get a professional to do the rescuing— or recover the corpse.
I agree completely.
video), “I understand that people want to check on loved ones…They should not try to get in to the area.â€
Exhibit two: Various news sources repeat the need for people to simply stay away. “[F]irst responders focused efforts on search and rescue and requested that citizens stay out of the area until authorized by local officials.†“While the urge to provide immediate assistance in disaster areas is understandable, safety has to come first.â€
Exhibit three: Law enforcement officials seem to imply that anyone driving in to help would be treated as looters:
Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson established a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the affected parts of the county. “If we find anybody looting, we’re going to deal with it,†he said at an afternoon news conference. He also asked would-be volunteers to stay away. “
I listened to that news conference and had entirely different take on it. Government requested people stay out of the area until; search and rescue was completed and the area was safe for people to move around in. They also asked that if you wanted to volunteer that you do so through one of the NGOs like Red Cross so that there was some organization to the effort.
Until the government secures the area, completes the search and rescue, clears away the obstacles to travel there is every reason to limit access.
I had severe damage to my house from Katrina and was very glad the government would not let me or any one else in the neighborhood until it was safe. It would have been very dangerous to have tried to enter before the roads were cleared the power line shut off and search was finished. There was no looting because they kept everyone out that had no business being there.
The ability to move around in a disaster area is severely restricted, services are out, supplies are limited and we should expect government to exercise strict control and then gradually loosen it as circumstances dictated. To do otherwise is dangerous and counter productive.