Citizen Cartwright

Scathing assessment of Red Cross' 'secret disaster'

The charity botched key elements of its mission after Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Isaac in 2012, "leaving behind a trail of unmet needs and acrimony," while diverting assets to public relations, according to an investigation by ProPublica and NPR.

During Hurricane Isaac, Red Cross supervisors ordered dozens of trucks usually deployed to deliver aid to be driven around nearly empty instead, “just to be seen,” says Jim Dunham, one of the drivers.

“We were sent way down on the Gulf with nothing to give,” he says. The Red Cross’ relief effort was “worse than the storm.”

The Red Cross responds in a statement to ProPublica and NPR: “While it’s impossible to meet every need in the first chaotic hours and days of a disaster, we are proud that we were able to provide millions of people with hot meals, shelter, relief supplies and financial support during the 2012 hurricanes.”

House votes to aid Syria rebels in fight against Islamic State

As President Obama works to put together an international coalition to take on the Islamic State, an unusual coalition in the House that included both House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., voted 273-to-156 on Wednesday for an amendment to train and arm the Syria rebels.

The amendment was backed by 159 Republicans and 114 Democrats, while 71 Republicans and 85 Democrats voted against it.

The amendment was attached to a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running through Dec. 11 and extend the life of the Export-Import Bank into next June, which passed 319 to 108.

D.C. residents: Better update your emergency supplies

Living several blocks from the U.S. Capitol, I pay attention to emergency preparedness issues.

For years, local police have told me that because of all the overlapping jurisdictions in the nation's capital, there would be chaos during a major emergency.

And now a D.C. police report on last September's mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard — several blocks from my house in the other direction — says communication problems among federal and local authorities complicated the search for the gunman.

The Washington Post says:

"The report echoes some problems raised after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the inability of all responders to talk to each other over their radios. Although some kinks have been worked out in recent years, such massive, multilayered responses are still difficult."

So we residents need to prepare to be on our own, as first responders try to figure out what's going on in an emergency.

The ultimate in (capitalist) disaster preparedness

The third annual (though it's the first time I've heard of it; how about you?) National Preppers and Survivalists Expo was held over the weekend in Tulsa, Okla.

"Natural disasters, man-made events and global unrest can trigger panic and disrupt our social or political order without warning," says the expo website. "Preparing for such emergencies can help you and your family survive if ever an event occurs."

The expo didn't get much media coverage, but The New York Times did send a reporter.

"Ever since Isaiah, someone somewhere has been talking about the imminent demise of civilized society," the Times article says. "Still, one could argue that today’s connected world of globalized supply chains and multinational banks is especially susceptible to a catastrophic failure."

And that's is not just a fringe opinion, says the Times.

Last month, a study financed by NASA found that, because of financial inequality and environmental problems, the industrial world could suffer “a precipitous collapse” within decades.

Yet the weekend expo seemed to be less about politics than consumer economics and was, if anything, an exercise in modern-day capitalism, says the Times.

"Apparently, there are endless ways to commodify catastrophe," the Times says.

Obama's Obamacare mess compared to Bush on Katrina

The "disastrous" rollout of Obamacare not only threatens the rest of Barack Obama's agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency, says a New York Times news analysis.

House leaves without Sandy aid vote

Northeast lawmakers and Democratic leaders were "in an uproar," as Roll Call puts it, after the House held its last votes of the 112th Congress late Tuesday without acting on a Hurricane Sandy relief bill.

Simpson and Bowles: Only one-third chance of avoiding fiscal cliff

And plunging over the cliff would be "devastating to the economy," says Erskine Bowles, who co-chaired the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles debt commission.

There's another one-third chance that "we'll go over the cliff and people will come to their senses in the first week or so," Bowles says. A third possibility, that a deal takes even longer, "will lead to chaos" he says.

The stock market hasn't factored in the possibility that the country will go over the fiscal cliff, says Bowles. "They don't think we're stupid enough to do that."

Bowles says that if it happens, the stock market will crash.

To contemplate going over the cliff is "like betting the country," says Alan Simpson. "Anyone with that attitude — party above America — is missing the boat."

Houses designed to withstand any disaster

Those homeowners who are determined to protect themselves from every type of disaster scenario imaginable are testing materials and technology that could change home building for everybody, The Wall Street Journal reports.

After Sandy: Talk of climate change

Media are reporting that climate scientists don't know for sure if the hurricane was caused or made worse by human-induced global warming.

But the storm is reviving discussion of climate change and ways to adapt to it.

For example, there's new talk about proposals to wall off most of New York City from the sea.

The coming weather forecasting gap

As my family spent the weekend getting ready for the approaching Hurricane Sandy, it was disturbing to read in The New York Times that satellite forecasts on which we're relying probably won't be there in a few years.

Experts have become increasingly alarmed, the paper says, because polar satellites are nearing or are already past their life spans and the launch of their replacement has slipped to 2017 — most likely too late to avoid a coverage gap of at least a year.

The reasons are "dysfunctional" management and lack of funding, says the Times.