Now’s Time to Prepare for Nature’s Next Disaster

Such a snow emergency as Cape May County just endured may not take place for several more decades, or one could happen next week. While the incident remains fresh in everyone’s mind, here are a few points I believe should be addressed to clarify what is and what is not allowed, and a few points for discussion.
Foremost in everyone’s mind: Driving when a state of emergency is in effect.
In Delaware, on Feb. 10, the governor declared a state of emergency. Nonessential vehicular traffic was forbidden. Those who traveled did so at the risk of incurring a traffic summons.
In New Jersey, on Feb. 9, I inquired of the New Jersey State Police about such prohibitions. The trooper in the communications office told me that the State Police had no such order to carry out. He said such directives were left entirely to the county Office of Emergency Management.
Since Cape May County had declared a State of Emergency at 3 p.m. Feb. 5, one would have assumed (bad thing to do) that such a prohibition of private vehicle travel would have been in place.
Not so, said Frank McCall, director of the county Emergency Communications Center, when I asked. He said such a directive would be left to the municipal emergency management coordinator.
This is a loophole that really needs to be clarified.
If a situation is dire enough to require a state of emergency, it ought to be dire enough to limit all unessential travel.
Too many joy riders went out in the recent blizzard exercising their feet on accelerators of their four-wheel-drive toys, and got in the way of police and rescue vehicles. Some who ventured out into the elements got stuck. Then, instead of police being free to tend to real emergencies, they were hampered by having to attend to those who should have exercised better judgment, but who lacked wisdom to stay home.
I heard, via the scanner, police issued some of those tickets. “Good,” I thought, “They got what they deserved.”
No one should have been out joy riding in that blizzard. Lacking adequate backup from a State of Emergency to be ordered to stay off the roads, I wonder how those tickets will fare in traffic court.
Why not ask for a copy of Delaware’s State of Emergency declaration, and change the name to New Jersey? Certainly, this state was never bashful adopting any other types of laws or regulations, why is this ban on non-essential travel such a black box?
Could it be no elected official has the intestinal fortitude to declare parts of the electorate “non-essential?”
Let’s put aside childish labels, if “non-essential” applies to newspaper editors, that’s life. We need to know, and thus remove that gray area in the law. It cannot be too much to expect from our representatives.
With the ever-greater acceptance of Internet as important to daily life, how about school districts putting together “virtual classrooms” so that snow days are not totally void of school work for pupils?
Even young children are astute computer users. With some parental guidance, they could take daily instructions from their classroom teacher, who could interact with them from a computer distant from a closed school.
We know the younger generation is more comfortable with the computer as a way of life than their seniors are, so this would seem to make a lot of sense. Is this a new idea? No way. In fact, I have read that some “virtual classrooms” are already in use in some districts as a way to reach children in far-flung locations.
If nothing else, at the most basic, such Web-based classrooms could list what lessons or chapters to review or what vocabulary words would be tested when school resumes.
Why hasn’t such an idea been hatched by a teacher or district administrator, funded by a state of federal grant? This could be the wave of the future in off-campus education of the masses.
With widespread loss of electric service, leaving some homes in the dark for days on end, are great minds seeking the next generation in power delivery? This isn’t 1948. There must be more advanced ways to deliver electric service that are not susceptible to ice and wind.
I am told in Germany, power lines are underground. Makes sense, what is the stumbling block to doing that here? Money? With the government money printing presses rolling non-stop, such a project would seem to be right up there with “job creation” legislation.
Let locals dig the trenches and hire them to lay the lines. That way, the county would be ready for whatever Mother Nature dishes out in the future.
One parting thought. We are urged by the Cape May County government’s Web site to turn on our radios for up to date emergency information. Those who did in this recent blizzard, at least on Feb. 6-7, found nothing but the sounds of silence. Not even the old trusted WCMC 1230 AM was broadcasting emergency information. Why not? Electrical problems? If so, and they are among those media designated to provide public safety information in the event of disasters, should they not be mandated to have back-up generators to enable them to broadcast?
If this was summer, and there were hundreds of thousands stranded here because of a hurricane’s direct hit, and no information was available, even via emergency, hand-cranked generator radios what would we do?
I hope these points bother you as much as they bothered me.
I am not here to point a finger and blame anyone. It is time for change and straight answers. The time for those answers is now.