NEW: ProPublica has identified at least 15 major disasters since 2016 in which officials in the most-harmed communities failed to use a federal system to send emergency alerts to residents — or waited until it was too late. By @jenniferberryhawes.bsky.social
Sounds like someone is too scared to act. I would think crisist training helps with that.
we need to criminalize dereliction of duty and strictly enforce it
At what point do we return personal responsibility to the American mind? Asking for the rest of us, who want to live. Please.
In what aspect?
I want the people in charge of using these systems to accept personal responsibility for the lives their inaction, greed, and political polarization are costing, instead of them blaming everything but their own evil, venal selves
(bad grammar)
I thought it could go a couple different ways. Thank you for clarifying :)
Now is the time for govt officials to step it up. More and more natural disasters with each passing year. It is deadly and expensive to ignore the needs of the community.
📌
Getting safety messages out to the public is not a new problem. But the technology to do so in multiple channels (SMS, IPAWs/cell alerts, email, and more) has been available. It's time for communities to act to save lives.
Why alert people when you can just give that tax money to billionaires with absolutely nothing to show for it?
(1) It’s profound how badly some govt orgs are screwing this up. The population carries on it, in vast quantities, a tool (in mobile phones) that the govt can use to send precise geographically targeted communication regarding life threatening events.
(2) Here in TX however they’re too busy using the system to “back the blue”, notifying the entire state when an officer is attacked. Never once received communications about flooding or fire, or more locally when EOD was in a neighborhood one over doing a controlled demo on some homemade explosives.
📌
Great work @propublica.org! This is exactly why we need government to work for the people again. We need a meritocracy again - To get qualified people who understand these systems hired. The reluctance to "cry wolf" is understandable, but how many of these failures to act were due to incompetence?
Public servants that are still in office have become afraid to use their authority. Swaths the US have become hostile to government at any level doing anything. They become targets of hateful culture wars for protecting Americans, or targets of their neighbors for failing. It's an impossible choice.
Finally, we can't discount the effects the GOP dismantling of EMS systems will have on future disasters. If you're angry at what's happened recently with TX, NC, & CA, just imagine how much worse it'll be when the GOP refuses to authorize aid because a city or state isn't "American" enough for them.