If you want to know what this blog is going to be all about, then you will have to wait for another post, because right now I have something that needs to be said and I don't have time for all the niceties.
I am an Okie, born and bred. My feet are stained with red clay and Gary England is the closest thing to a prophet I have ever seen. The new tattoo on my ankle is testimony to the fact that as flawed as my home state is, I am forever bound to this land and these people. There is plenty to complain about as a progressive in Oklahoma (reproductive justice, lgbtq rights, education funding. . .yada yada) but I never thought I would have such a strong opinion about how the state handles weather related programs. For goodness sake, the National Weather Service is based here, and if there is anything we are famous for it is our violently active weather. We grow up watching storms from our front porches and jumping in cars to chase because we can't help our desire to rope the wind. As individuals we may seem a bit crazy, but as a community no one can fault the exemplary service that Oklahomans are willing to provide not only to our own, but to any community in need of help after disaster. Bombings, hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, you name it and we will come give relief. This empathy and generosity is one of my favorite things about my state.
Unfortunately, there is a piece of government business that has hamstrung efforts to help the community prepare for violent storms. In the wake of the May 3, 1999 tornado a rebate program was put into place to help families afford storm shelters. How this program worked was that on a first come, first serve basis (after providing assistance to families in areas affected by the tornado), anyone could apply for and receive up to 75% of the cost of their shelter (with a maximum of $2,000) as long as the shelter was up to certain FEMA set standards. There were no restrictions for the program that would have eliminated certain families and no preference to income of recipients. Since then there have been several more rebate programs initiated after different weather related issues that had basically the same parameters. In theory this sounds like a great program that would be helpful to many Oklahomans. It is how these programs have operated in practice that has me up in arms.
Since there are no limits on who may take advantage of this programs many families have taken advantage of the program to install more elaborate shelters than they could originally have afforded. This would not be an issue except for the fact that the program is funded by residual federal monies left over after dealing with problems related to whatever disaster preceded the rebate. This means that the amount of money available for rebates is limited. So when a more affluent family takes advantage of the program to purchase a shelter for say $5,000 dollars that is less conspicuous or more comfortable, then the $2,000 rebate they received means that a family that couldn't afford a shelter at all without the rebate is being deprived of that assistance. The more affluent family could have easily afforded a $2-3000 shelter since they had so much left to pay after the rebate. If they had purchased a shelter at normal price then the rebate would have still been available to a less affluent family and two shelters could have been installed. So the set up of these programs may be directly cutting the amount of shelters that a able to be installed, and thus contributing to death and injury tolls during disaster.
There is a problem with the priorities exemplified here. When it comes to safety these kind of programs should take NEED into context when writing up parameters. There is no reason that families who are struggling to get by should be passed by for assistance when they are the ones that need it most. First come, first serve prizes access to information and ability to quickly act over urgency. It needs to stop. So many people have died in the recent tornadoes and who knows how many of them could have been saved if more families had access to a rebate on a shelter. The priority that should be foremost in our minds is prevention of death and injury, not personal gain or ease of enactment.
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