kham wrote:Looking at the forecast, Duncan, don't be surprised if you smell smoke on Thursday or so from this thing
I have to travel to New Jersey this week for business so I'll be smelling something alright. I see what you mean though. It's been a relatively dry spring here and the summer haze might well be partly Canadian. Amazing when you consider the distance.
Mynock wrote:PM2K wrote:Green Heart wrote:Theres been a huge amount of help from everything in Canada being sent.
Shame the Federal Government seems to be being so passive about this. They actually WAITED for a request to send the military in to help.
I believe that is how it works here. I've covered disaster planning exercises on the municipal level, as well as planning, and apparently, a municipality in trouble has to ask the province to ask the feds for help, and it is then they send in military aid. My town has a base just down the road, but if a twister pulverizes us, our neighbours can't help unless they are ordered to by the federal government, and they wait for us to ask first.
US has the same setup. Keeps the government from being able to (legally) sic the military on it's own citizenry, they can't come in unless asked.
The first military assistance in most of the United States comes from the local militia, the National Guard, which is controlled by the governor of each state. While they can be federalized in time of national need this is part of the Constitutional system of checks and balances that keeps Washington from having too much power. In my most excellent state of Tennessee that is a relatively large and capable organization. We are also fortunate that mother nature is fairly benign so they are most often needed elsewhere.
The real mess will come with the cleanup as all of these displaced people try to get their lives back together. Are ya'll having an abnormally dry spring? Is this sort of thing typical?
It's a dirty job but I got to do it for 27 years. Thank you.
