Catastrophe. A momentous tragic event ranging from extreme misfortune to utter ruin.
Hurricane Sandy was a catastrophe. Lives, homes, infrastructure, supply, business...disrupted or destroyed on a massive scale. Response to same cannot be achieved in moments..days..even weeks.
Tomorrow, depending on which candidate is to your liking, the outcome may not be . To wit...we're f*cked.
Thank you Phil for acknowledging that even an instant gratification world, mother nature has a way of reminding us, not only of who is more powerful, but that manmade "systems" built over many years, can become instant wreckage with a swipe of Ma nature's hand, be it earthquakes, tsunamis, blizzards, tornados or floods from any sort of storm.
It has been nice to see Democrat and Repubican alike working on solutions for a lot of people in the largest metropolitan area in the nation hit by a record breaking storm in breadth and power combined with other "perfect storm factors, like the timing of tides, location of other storm fronts, unusually warm water temperatures at such a northern latitude for this time of year. As you have mentioned and pointed out, while others from their easy chairs seem to think they know, as with the economic meltdown, just how long it "should" take to do things, having "been there" to survey the damage themselves and express their "expert" opinion on expectations.
Whether the aftermath of Katrina, blzzards, tornadoes, earthquakes, droughts or a storm like Sandy, people not only work to get people in need the basic essentials, but those people in need also need to realize that a switch cannot suddenly be flicked and all their troubles are gone.
I saw someone interviewed today while eating a hot meal from an emergency food kitchen complain about a lack of electricity. If the electricity were turned back on without checking out and fixing the damage and someone got electrocuted or a damaged gas line that leaked gas was ignited by damaged wires, would they complain about that?
Patience is considered a virtue. When mother nature or "god's nature" to some, demonstrates her power expecting all things will be back to normal in an unreasonable amount of time is perhaps contrary to learning something from life's and nature's lessons and demoinstrations and what (or who) is more powerful.
The difficulty in voting tomorrow for many who are now homeless may or may not be equally distributed amongst members of all parties. I imagine there are legions of attornies looking into how to deal with challenges to any equal accessibility and opportunities to vote. If specific districts known to be majorities of one party or another were damaged a great deal and many have sought shelter elsewhere with relatives who may not be close by or in other places, then there is likely to be some challenges to the vote based on disadvantages of some relative to those with little or no damage done to their communities.
I would hope all people have one interest in mind,
fairness.
If they don't wish it for others, I don't know why they should expect it for themselves.
