Latest Word from FEMA to Island: STOP

Give your donations through the RED CROSS*

Latest word from FEMA to Island: Stop
By Julie Lane | 11/12/2012 4:45 PM |

Main Story, News, Top News


http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2012/11/17890/latest-word-from-fema-to-island-stop/

Televised and published pictures plus personal appeals of Hurricane Sandy victims in New York and New Jersey touched the hearts of Shelter Islanders who generously filled truckloads of clothing and other goods bound for Island Park and Long Beach last week. But the word from the Federal Emergency Management Agency now is “stop.”

It’s not that the victims of Sandy have their needs met, but that FEMA has strict rules what can and can’t be accepted.

“We stopped taking things now,” said Marie Eiffel whose boutiques on Shelter Island and in Sag Harbor have been drop-off centers for goods that Sweet Tomato’s Jimi Rando trucked to neighborhoods devastated by Sandy.

“It was great,” Ms. Eiffel said. “We did get to those people before FEMA stepped in and it was a great turnout,” she said of the goods contributed by her friends and neighbors to boost the relief effort. Not only did Ms. Eiffel make her stores a drop-off point, but she contributed some of her own store inventory.

Shelter Island Police Officers Tom Cronin and Terrance LeGrady have suspended their efforts launched by Officer Cronin’s wife Susan, who posted a Face Book plea for contributions.

“We brought up a huge load and it was gone in 48 hours,” Officer Cronin said.

Officer Cronin said he understands FEMA’s need to coordinate what’s coming in and where it’s being distributed. At the same time, he resists the FEMA plea for people to give money, saying he prefers to know exactly what is being received by disaster victims.

Cash is the most efficient method of donating, according to the FEMA website, because it gives agencies flexibility in obtaining the most-needed resources. Cash also saves staff from sorting through donations in order to redirect them to where they’re needed.

FEMA suggests contributing through various trusted organizations in the community, including church groups. And in addition to national groups like the Red Cross, each state maintains its own list of volunteer organizations that spring into action when a disaster hits.


...
*NOTE: The Red Cross has proven to be untrustworthy
with their handling of the donations (many many$$$) they
have received!

I spent significant time in Mississippi after Katrina, and all the gov't did was get in the way.

FEMA SHELTERS IN NORTHEAST RESEMBLE POLICE STATE PRISON CAMPS
J. D. Heyes
Natural News
Nov 15, 2012

...
Doom, gloom and despair is growing in the Northeast in the weeks following Superstorm Sandy, as winter sets in with thousands of New Yorkers and New Jersey residents still reeling from the loss of their homes and property.

For many, the despair has grown into an intense anger, as tent cities set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency begin to resemble prison camps. Moreover, the aftermath of Sandy is a story the mainstream media is largely ignoring, unlike Hurricane Katrina. (http://www.alternet.org)

Stressed residents who spoke to the Asbury Park Press talked bitterly about the cold, harsh conditions in tent cities with Blackhawk helicopters buzzing overhead.

“Sitting there last night you could see your breath,” Brian Sotelo, a Seaside Heights resident who was at Pine Belt Arena in Toms River with his wife and three kids a half-hour before the shelter opened as superstorm Sandy approached last week, told the small press. “At (Pine Belt) the Red Cross made an announcement that they were sending us to permanent structures up here that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot showers and steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. We got (expletive).”

This is where people start falling through the cracks

Sotelo is at a makeshift shelter that is called – ironically – “Camp Freedom.” But no one there feels free or secure – or comfortable.

“The elections are over and here we are. There were Blackhawk helicopters flying over all day and night. They have heavy equipment moving past the tents all night,” he said, an apparent reference to the difficulty he and his family – and other camp dwellers – have in trying to relax and get some rest.

Reported the paper: “Welcome to the part of the disaster where people start falling through the cracks.” We suppose the paper was lucky to get any interview at all; no media is allowed inside “Camp Freedom,” which also serves as a base of operations for power company workers who are not from the area. Until recently, the camp was also a shelter where first responders, construction and utility workers could take a break, though the compound now contains a full-time shelter that is being maintained by the state Department of Human Services.

During the interview with the Asbury Park Press, Sotelo scrolled through pictures he took inside the camp as his wife, Renee, huddled for warmth inside their late-model Toyota Corolla which was stuffed with personal belongings, as they drove through the snow and slush to talk about what they have been through. Images he showed the paper included lines of outdoor porta-potties, of snow and ice penetrating the bottom of a tent, and of an elderly woman sitting alone, huddling beneath a blanket.

“All the while, a black car with tinted windows crests the hill and cruises by, as if to check on the proceedings,” the paper reported.

Everybody is angry over here’

Sotelo said “residents” of the tent city have recently become so frustrated with their situation, they are doing all they can to let the outside world know – but are being thwarted at every turn by the powers that be.

For instance, he says, officials have tried to stop camp dwellers from taking pictures, turned off the WiFi and have told residents they can’t charge their cell phones due to a lack of power.

“My six-year-old daughter Angie was a premie and has a problem regulating her body temperature,” Sotelo said. “Until 11 (Wednesday) night they had no medical personnel at all here, not even a nurse. After everyone started complaining and they found out we were contacting the press, they brought people in.”

“Every time we plugged in an iPhone or something, the cops would come and unplug them. Yet when they moved us in they laid out cable on the table and the electricians told us they were setting up charging stations. But suddenly there wasn’t enough power,” he continued.
Sotelo said there was a foot of water in his home when he was forced to leave. Now, he wonders why he isn’t allowed to return.

“Everybody is angry over here. It’s like being in prison,” he said.

http://www.naturalnews.com/037977_FEMA_shelter_prison_camp_police_state.html