I am so discouraged with our city. Our beautiful little town has become a dirty infested body of water that has bugs, worms and other bacteria growing, and it's only going to get worse. I have seen this myself, and it's not a very pretty sight.
I am about to get on my soap box.. if this offends you, please stop reading now. But to be perfectly blunt, this is my blog.. so I really don't care if this pisses anyone off or not. I have a few things to say tonight .. I am not the most eloquent writer.. or the smartest person in Minot but I do have common sense.. so bear with me. I was not able to see the press conference that was held at the Minot City Hall tonight at 5pm. But I was able to read some of the notes and what I read really disturbed me greatly. You know, that is putting it mildly. I am furious!! The following is a direct quote from those notes.
Before the city can buy out properties, it must develop a plan to determine where it wants green ways to mitigate future flooding and whether it wants to take unsalvagable houses off people's hands so properties can be re-developed. The city is not forging ahead with a plan because there is NO money.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2,400 of the 4,100 damaged homes have at least six feet of water in them and 805 houses have at least 10 feet of water. Questions have been raised about the feasibility of repairing some of these homes. If a buyout program materializes, it probably is a year to 1-1/2 years away, the committee concluded. Committee member ----- said a buyout program is the hope, but it's only a hope.
My response to these comments : This is so wrong. Where is the money, city state, federal.. what the hell!? Maybe if our Federal Government would not bail every country out of their own problems, we would have enough money to take care of our US citizens!! Maybe.. just maybe if our own city government had ordered those dikes to be built up more and higher, Maybe.. I wouldn't be homeless right now!! People are blaming the Canadians for all of our problems.. but we need to look right here in Minot too. I understand that our mayor has never had to deal with a disaster of this nature , but he sure wasn't up front on a lot of things and we should have had more time to get our personal belongings out of our houses!! He didn't want to deliver bad news.. he waited until 4 pm on Monday to tell us we had to be out of our house by 10 pm on Wednesday night. Then it became 6 pm and finally at 12:57 pm those emergency sirens sounded. It was like someone punched you in the gut!! I don't think this was handled properly, I think that a bunch of people dropped the ball on this whole situation. And now over 11,000 people are displaced. Shame on you Mr. Mayor.. you won't be receiving this vote if you ever run for office again.
My friend asked me tonight on Face Book.. "where are we all going to go, what are we all going to do"? I have to say.. I don't know, I have a child to think about next month when she comes home from Mississippi. Housing was already hard to find in Minot, now.. it's impossible to find. This town is going to lose a lot of residents, it's just bound to happen. This town may lose me and my daughter as well. I love North Dakota don't get me wrong.. but I have to do what I think is right, and I might be forced to leave. This will just be another heart break to endure. My God.. when does it end? How much more do we all have to take.. I'll be sure to ask this same question again when I finally get to see my house for the first time.
I have been so upset about this tragic situation.. again there are 11,000 other folks feeling the same as I do, I am sure. I see people crying out in public and you automatically know why. I was in WalMart purchasing something two days ago and I am paying the cashier. My sister Paula calls, and I fell apart right there in front of everyone. I was so embarrassed.. but this cashier told me.. "it's okay.. you're not the first one".. Emotions are running high across this city and the town of Burlington as well. I visited with a very good friend today, he name is Sharon. She and her husband not only lost their home, they lost their cabin at Mouse River Park too. My heart goes out to them, she asked, " what did she do to deserve this" !! I said, " none of us deserve this".. and we don't!!!
So , I stopped crying tonight.. I am not saying that it won't start again tomorrow. But for tonight, after reading the notes from this press conference, I would say that we are ALL screwed!! And I am really pissed off but, it feels good to be angry!! Thanks for reading and allowing me to vent. Again, this is just my opinion on this.. regardless if it's wrong or right.. it's MY voice!! My therapy!!
As Always~
Trish
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