Hello everyone. I apologize for the near month-long delay in long form writing, I have been busy with school and work. While there has been much to talk about lately, I just have not been able to sit down and write about it. Make no mistake, I am monitoring multiple of these events at the same time.

The issue that I am going to address today is the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. I live in the Tampa Bay area, and while we did not get hit as hard as those poor people in North Carolina did, we suffered from a lot of storm surge and flooding. Part of the reason I have been so busy lately is because many people have been coming in to purchase electronic items damaged during flooding.

Despite all of this, the Tampa Bay area got off easy this time. The real damage was up north, from the panhandle all the way to lower Appalachia. Hurricane Helene was a category 4 storm, with 140-mph wind speed, a diameter of 822 miles and a wind field of 370 miles.

To contrast, Hurricane Katrina was a category 3 storm with a 125-mph wind speed, with a diameter of 400 miles, and a wind field of 230 miles. Despite this major difference, Katrina will keep the top spot as the Hurricane of the century. The graphic below shows the difference between the two storms.

Of course, the issue isn’t the storm. Hurricanes are a fact of life in the South. We call it hurricane season for a reason. That won’t ever change. The issue is the federal response to the hurricane. I was five years old at the time Katrina hit, and to this day we kept hearing about President Bush’s lackluster response to it.

Same thing happened for Hurricane Maria under Trump that hit Puerto Rico. We had the mayor of San Juan on air every day talking about how everyone was dying yet she wasn’t even handing out supplies. Never mind the fact that PR is an island, and everything had to come by ship or plane.

However, I have heard next to nothing about the lackluster response from the Biden-Harris administration regarding Hurricane Helene. Except for the typical right-wing leaning news outlets, you would think it has been just another week.

Most of the relief efforts have been generously given by private individuals, organizations, as well as neighboring state national guards. In fact, our traitorous Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, is admitting that FEMA does not have the funds to deal with all of this.

Most of our funds had instead gone to foreign countries such as Israel and Ukraine, as well as the resettling of illegal aliens within the homeland. However, Kamala Harris was able to spare $750 for each affected resident. What a grand expense for people who will most likely have to spend thousands.

If that wasn’t bad enough, our amazing Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said that private drones would be restricted from flying over hurricane areas. This prevents civilian volunteers from helping from the air. A bit silly considering it took the feds five days to actually do something.

Thankfully, the people of Appalachia are resilient. There have been multiple videos and reports of people building makeshift roads and using old fashioned means such as horses, donkeys, and mules to deliver supplies where wheels cannot tread. Many have taken private helicopters and drones to conduct search and rescue.

However, that is beside the point. The death toll as of now is not finalized. The federal government should have been on the ground on day one. Biden and Harris should have personally been there. Don’t give me the BS about logistics. Trump was able to go.

We are the world’s foremost superpower, we should have the ability to respond swiftly to disasters within our own interior. The fact that private citizens have had to take matters into their own hands while the federal agencies built for these purposes sat on their hands says a lot about our national decline.

Not a single cent should go towards any foreign nation as long as Americans are in danger or suffering. Not a single scent should go towards any migrants or refugee programs or whatever as long as we continue to have these problems.

How can anyone continue to believe that there is nothing wrong with the government when the Homeland Security Secretary straight up comes out and says that there is no money for the Homeland?

Why is this not a national scandal? Had Bush not secured his second term prior to Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans, I dare say he would have lost 2004 in a landslide given how much flak he was given for it. Yet we don’t hear a peep from the media on the current federal lackluster response.

The only places you will actually hear about the issues are online. As shown in the videos above, residents have taken to X and Tiktok to share their experiences on the ground. When are legacy media going to go out and interview people?

You might say that my outrage is purely partisan, that if Trump were in charge and this was happening, I would just shrug my shoulders. To that I say, no. I, like many other people in this country, simply want a functioning, competent system that protects Americans instead of giving excuses.

There is no reason as to why we could not have military boots on the ground as soon as the hurricane dissipated. Appalachia is one of the hardest areas to navigate, the government should have had a clear contingency plan from the getgo.

All this tells me is that the federal government is not as concerned with the well-being of the citizenry than they are with their other adventures. This is a problem. It needs to be fixed. When public trust in the institutions break down, the people will start to go their own way.

On top of everything, it is now being reported that a possible hurricane will be headed directly towards the central west coast of Florida by the middle of next week. Right towards me. Hopefully after it hits we could get some Appalachians for the relief efforts because FEMA sure as heck aren’t coming to save us.

I have barely scratched the surface as to how bad it is up in North Carolina. There are many videos and accounts from people up there who have basically lost everything. Many people have lost family and friends, we may never actually know the official death count for months.

I hope that what I have written will help both my domestic audience who aren’t in tune to what is going on in Appalachia as well as my foreign audience who don’t normally see American affairs understand the damage.