Evacuations

As you may or may not have heard, the US Federal government has decided to relocate people from the disaster-affected area to each of the unaffected states, placing them in temporary shelters, and eventually transitional housing, with the expectation that these people will not be returning but settling in the new area.

I want to go on record as saying that I think this is a bad bad bad, bad bad bad, bad bad bad, BAD idea. Relocations like this never, ever work out well historically. You can't just uproot people and plop them down somewhere else. People fragile from their recent experiences in the hurricanes won't be emotionally helped by suddenly being strangers in a strange culture (and I spent much of today with people who have already come up from the Bayou to New Hampshire and they went on at length about how different the culture is here than there), and often the existing residents resent new people coming in and taking jobs and putting strain on social services.

I will be heavily involved in this relocation effort. I have a duty to perform my job, no matter how ill-advised the decisions of those in higher pay grades than mine are. I simply want it known that, just because I am participating in this foolishness, I do not endorse it, and believe that it is likely doomed to failure.