VivirLatino

Yesterday la Macha brought up some unresolved issues in terms of Hurricane Dolly, currently hitting the Mexico/Texas border.

One of the questions that many people asked in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was why did people not evacuate. For many, the answer was simple: there was no place to go. Noemi over at Hermana Resist reminds us:

Who was left behind? Who couldn’t afford to evacuate? Let’s see you need money, car, transportation. And coming from a person who lives in a place where 3-4 months out of the year is hurricane season, I could not afford to leave. I could not afford to drive off (if my car made it more than 50 miles), I could not afford hotel stays, I could not afford buying gas and food for the family of 3-5 that I support. I could not afford to leave my job everytime there was a hurricane heading to the valley, that would be 3-4 days without pay and that is half a bill, 1/8 of the rent. I never have been able to cough up the money to board up the windows, tape the windows down, go on a spending spree buying canned food, bottled water, butane, batteries. I know all the precautions of a hurricane and all the things I should buy and should. Do you know how expensive that is? People blame the parents who stayed behind in NOLA, who put their kids at risk. And I’ll tell you, they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.

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