Blowing It Off

Update 05/08: From Daily Kos, a refutation of Bushcorps mendacious response to Gov. Sebelius, and in particular, a partial list of other states feeling the lack of National Guard personnel and equipment that will be needed in emergencies.

It's started. According to Reuter's:

A shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment -- all sent to the war in
Iraq-- has hampered recovery in a U.S. town obliterated by a tornado, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said on Monday.

Here I am visiting in western Pennsylvania, about 10 miles from the town where I was born, that happens to be called Greensburg. When my sister heard the first reports on the radio of devastation and death in Greensburg, she was alarmed and confused--because the weather was clear here. Of course it turned out to be another Greensburg--in Kansas. But Greensburg, PA also gets the occasional tornado, although in the past they've hit in a few defined areas around but not in the town itself. Still...

The tornado that obliterated the entire Main St. of Greensburg, Kansas and damaged or destroyed most homes was a super-tornado, with winds estimated in excess of 200 mph. It's part of a pattern: extreme. Virtually every weather event of consequence in the past year or more has been extreme, or continues to be (as in droughts.) That's been the case this spring so far across the U.S.

But in not facing up to what's happening now, let alone what's going to get worse in the future, we're unprepared. We don't have the sense to get in out of the rain. And the brutal, fatal nonsense in Iraq is just the most obvious example.

There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Sebelius, a Democrat, told Reuters in Kansas where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12 on Monday. "Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap," Sebelius said...

This could be my town in ruins, my family in need of help. It could be yours.

"We're getting pounded in Kansas. We have the need for National Guard in two different parts of our state now. This is really going to be a problem," Sebelius said.

This really is a problem.