Please bear with RantWoman and her shopping list of
disasters du jour.
First RantWoman needs to send out giant prayers to
anyone of any religion shot down while praying or who fears being shot while
praying or basically anyone who has even the slightest relation to praying.
Also, if you are even THINKING of shooting up someone’s faith community, PUT
DOWN THE GUN AND GET HELP.
And Boeing, FIX YOUR DANG AIRPLANES.
There. Now that RantWoman has gotten those
sentiments off her chest, consider internal monologue: RantWoman, post the Trevor
Noah Ebola video. Come on, pretty please.
Um, NO! RantWoman is trying to pay thoughtful attention
to disaster preparedness, resilience, climate change, and other SERIOUS TOPICS.
Now is NOT the time to post the Trevor Noah video.
RantWoman has learned that during the
#SeattleSnowpocalypse2019 most of the people who usually sleep in the basement
shelter in her faith community actually were able to stay someplace 24 hours a
day. Good thing because any travel would have been affected by the Metro
Emergency Service Plan with half as many routes serving the nearby bus stop.
RantWoman spent the snow emergency thinking people
were probably doing the best they could. Who are we kidding? RantWoman also
spent part of the time having grumpy thoughts about the plight of people who
were not even coming to visit unshoveled sidewalks anyway. RantWoman greatly
appreciates the above information about what actually happened and apologizes
for any sour taste in the atmosphere from the grumpy thoughts.
No wait, speaking of plight, RantWoman is not even
going to go look up info about the numbers of unsheltered people who died on
the street or by violence in the last couple months. That would require more
prayers and RantWoman can do that without even looking at the numbers.
RantWoman keeps reading in social media gripes about
unshoveled sidewalks and how hard it was for people with disabilities to get
around.
Look, it was hard for EVERYONE to get around. This
includes property owners and the people responsible property owners pay to clear away snow,
caregivers, paratransit and transit drivers.
It was a freaking disaster. The POINT of a disaster is that EVERYONE is
affected. Everyone is GOING to be affected so it’s a fabulous idea to befriend
neighbors before the snow hits.
RantWoman thinks preparedness would have been
enhance by having Metro and SDOT publicize their maps of the Emergency Snow
Network and the plowing priority map as soon as the chances of snow seemed
pretty high.
RantWoman can tell at least SOME caregiver agencies
prepared for the possibility of not being able to serve clients.
LOTS of people need to plan for medical issues.
RantWoman for instance still has not checked whether a medical device has a
battery. Can you say acres of tiny print and hard to identify web presence? Luckily, RantWoman’s building never lost
power, something that happens more often in Seattle’s nearly annual ferocious
windstorms than for snow.
Back to medical issues. People on dialysis can and
should talk to their medical providers about tips if they cannot do their
dialysis as scheduled. But dialysis is ONE service ACCESS maintained, though
RantWoman would check that all those rides were completed.
Random snarky comment: RantWoman grew up in MT.
RantWoman has lived in Seattle more than long enough to stop being astounded by
how easy it is to shut Seattle down with snow. Now RantWoman just rolls with it. There are SO
many reasons to believe people who say just stay home if you do not absolutely
have to travel. Plus, honestly, thinking back to last summer and the wildfire
haze, RantWoman found the snow emergency A LOT easier to deal with than the
haze. For one thing, although cold air does affect breathing for some people, RantWoman
did not have to worry about breathing during #SeattleSnow.
Seattle made it through #snomageddon2019 without,
say, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, but, but what about Infectious
Disease???
RantWoman knows of two retirement communities where
NOROVIRUS has popped up. The dining hall gets shut down and meals get delivered
to individual rooms. People are discouraged from congregating. Visitors are
discouraged. People are discouraged from even leaving the building. Both of the
people RantWoman knows best seem just to be able to roll with it. RantWoman,
though, thinks asking people not to get their regular level of exercise is a
recipe for other medical concerns besides norovirus. But what does RantWoman
know?
RantWoman, can we see the Trevor Noah video now, pretty
please? Pretty please with salsa on top.
Okay. Okay! Here goes.
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