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This is the new normal in the US. FEMA is being dismantled.[1]

Until a few years ago, being prepared for loss of services for 48 hours was considered sufficient. That's not enough any more, because there will be much less help coming from outside the area.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/26/politics/fema-payments-staffi...

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As someone who lived through a flood caused by a hurricane, without power for 10 days, I have first-hand experience with FEMA.

Some fat-ass government worker showed up with a tablet, checked a bunch of boxes on an electronic form to gather statistics on all the damage, gave us some information on government-backed loans, then left. This about 2 or 3 days after.

I will never forget how absolutely useless FEMA was.

That's unfortunate. I experienced a similar length outage due to a hurricane and FEMA had setup a location for the county to get potable water and food. I was a teenager then, so I don't know about any financial help, but the rapid availability of supplies was very welcome.

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