State officials arrived in Emmonak on Tuesday to listen to residents describe how crushing fuel prices and the collapse of the king salmon fishery are tearing apart their village.
Like their neighboring communities, Emmonak residents want Gov. Sarah Palin to declare a disaster for villages along the lower Yukon River.
The five bureaucrats, including mid-level representatives from the divisions of Public Assistance and the Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said they were on a fact-finding trip that was initiated after a group of state commissioners met Monday.
But Tara Jollie, head of the Division of Community and Regional Affairs, maintained that a disaster declaration — if possible at all — would not come quickly.
That wasn’t enough for Nicholas Tucker, whose letter about families struggling to buy food and heating fuel has drawn national attention.
Tucker, a slight man with a salt-and-pepper crewcut, wasted little time in an urgent and sometimes combative tone.
“People can’t wait right now, they just cannot wait. As we talk, people are without food and heat,” said Tucker, 63.
“When you see a child with a 103-degree fever, you don’t wait to find out how he got sick. You take him to the hospital. Right now!” he said.Anybody with young children will have no problem understanding Mr. Tucker's utter frustration at the lack of empathy from these bureaucrats.
These "State officials" were sitting in the village. They could SEE just how bad things were. Wouldn't you think that witnessing such a thing first hand would inspire them to cut through the red tape and get assistance to these people immediately!
Not in Sarah Palin's Alaska.
Jollie warned that declaring a disaster could take more than a year. State officials must follow federal guidelines and need time to gather data such as annual incomes and cost-of-living information from village officials.
“It’s not something the governor can just walk out on the front steps of her office and declare,” she said.Are you fucking kidding me? If she can't "just walk out on the front steps of her office and declare" an emergency, then who the hell can? And why isn't that person our governor?
Emergencies don't wait for "data to be gathered"!
They don't hold off until people have time to address them!
Emergencies are called "emergencies" because they require immediate goddamn attention!
This is unconscionable! This is criminal! This is a fucking embarrassment!
Even Katrina had a faster response from the Bush administration then our citizens are receiving from their Governor. How is that for putting things into perspective?
In 1964 we had a
devastating earthquake which was responsible for the deaths of 131 of our citizens and caused $300 million dollars of damage in 1964 dollars ($2.08 billion in current U.S. dollars).
Can you imagine if we had the misfortune of having Sarah Palin as our Governor back then? Would she have told my grandparents, my uncles, and my cousins to just wait for another year and help would be on the way?
No she would not have, because Alaskans back then had too much common sense to elect anybody as unbelievably inept as she is to run the state. It simply would not have happened.
So currently the only hope coming to the people of Emmonak for the remainder of this winter is coming from churches, charitable organizations, native corporations, and progressive radio hosts and bloggers.
Until Sarah Palin came along I had never known how ashamed I could be of my own state. But thanks to her I now know what that feels like.
I think it is time to start talking impeachment again. Don't you?
