Camp FEMA Update: “We Feel Like We’re In a Concentration Camp”
Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Nov 12, 2012
Though
details are scarce and media coverage has been completely restricted by
officials, stories of what victims of Hurricane Sandy are experiencing
at the hands of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of
the storm have begun to emerge.
The few available images from
these so-called “tent cities” suggest that Camp FEMA isn’t all it’s cut
out to be, with one resident using some choice words to describe how
FEMA and the Red Cross have completely failed at their jobs.
…made an announcement that they were sending us to permanent structures
up here that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot
showers and steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. We got
fucked.
Via The Daily Sheeple
In other such tent
cities the conditions are about as bad as you can describe them; on the
order of third-world refugee camp, or worse:
One reason: the
information blackout. Outside of the tightly guarded community on
Friday, word was spreading that the Department of Human Services would
aim to move residents to the racetrack clubhouse on Saturday. The news
came after photos of people bundled in blankets and parkas inside the
tents circulated in the media.
But inside the tent city,
which has room for thousands but was only sheltering a couple of hundred
on Friday, no one had heard anything about a move – or about anything
else. “They treat us like we’re prisoners,” says Ashley Sabol, 21, of
Seaside Heights, New Jersey. “It’s bad to say, but we honestly feel like
we’re in a concentration camp.“
Sabol, who is unemployed and
whose rental home was washed away in the hurricane, remembers being
woken up on Wednesday at the shelter she was staying in at Toms River
High School. Conditions there were “actually fine,” said Sabol.
Sabol was told that she had half an hour to pack: everyone was
getting shipped to hotels in Wildwood, New Jersey, where they would be
able to re-acquaint themselves with showers, beds and a door.
Sabol and about 50 other people boarded a New Jersey Transit bus, which
drove around, seemingly aimlessly, for hours. Worse, this week’s
Nor’easter snow storm was gathering force, lashing the bus with wind and
rain.
After four hours, the bus driver pulled into a dirt
parking lot. The passengers were expecting a hotel with heat and maybe
even a restaurant. Instead they saw a mini city of portable toilets and
voluminous white tents with their flaps snapping in the wind. Inside,
they got sheets, a rubbery pillow, a cot and one blanket.
There was no heat that night, and as temperatures dropped to freezing,
people could start to see their breath. The gusts of wind blew snow and
slush onto Sabol’s face as her cot was near the open tent flaps. She
shivered. Her hands turned purple.
It has taken three days for the tents to get warm.
Source: Reuters
Access
to the facilities has been restricted by armed guard. The same holds
true for activities inside of the facilities, with guards posted around
the clock.
The post-storm housing — a refugee camp on the
grounds of the Monmouth Park racetrack – is in lockdown, with security
guards at every door, including the showers.
No one is
allowed to go anywhere without showing their I.D. Even to use the
bathroom, “you have to show your badge,” said Amber Decamp, a
22-year-old whose rental was washed away in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
The mini city has no cigarettes, no books, no magazines, no board
games, no TVs, and no newspapers or radios. On Friday night, in front of
the mess hall, which was serving fried chicken and out-of-the-box,
just-add-water potatoes, a child was dancing and dancing — to nothing.
“We’re starting to lose it,” said Decamp. “But we have nowhere else to
go.”
In the aftermath of this disaster, as well as the Hurricane
Katrina debacle, it should be clear where the government’s priorities
are.
They’ll buy billions of rounds of ammunition and won’t
hesitate to put 30,000 drones into the skies over America, but when it
comes to helping Americans who have lost everything, they are woefully
unprepared.
This begs the question, what happened to the hundreds
of millions of emergency rations, emergency blankets and supplies that
were supposedly regionalized by the Department of Homeland Security
fully two years ago?
Their plan is to complete the supply of
fifteen H.S. warehouses around the country in the next three months. Ms.
Bylier is quoted as saying “we have worked hard the last six months to
meet our local objectives.” She continued “the goals of Homeland
Security are in sight.” It’s difficult to know if this is a good or bad
omen. No comment was offered as to why this program has been given so
much urgency at this time.
It’s nice to know we’re ready. But ready for What?
Yes, exactly. Ready for what?
This
is a limited-scope disaster that the government and populace knew was
coming. While tragic, the worst-case scenario here is perhaps 50,000
people who can be deemed refugees who have lost their homes and
belongings. Additionally, another 250,000 required short-term assistance
like food and water in the immediate aftermath.
If FEMA and DHS
are incapable of dealing with an emergency that affects less than 1% of
the US population simultaneously, what type of response should the
American people reasonably expect in the event of a sustained wide-scale
disaster?
What if the New Madrid Fault cracks and causes a high magnitude earthquake across a multi-state region?
What if a rogue dirty-bomb or nuclear attack forces the evacuation of numerous metropolitan areas all at once?
What if a Tsunami on the order of Sumatra in 2004 inundates the East or West coast?
What if a massive solar flare or hackers take down our power grid
infrastructure leaving the nation without electricity for weeks or
months at a time ?
In all of these scenarios tens of millions of Americans would essentially become refugees.
Given
the abhorrent response by the organization upon which we have been told
we can depend in an emergency, the after-effects would be nothing short
of Apocalyptic. A die-off would start immediately after the collapse.
Many would die within a month’s time due to lack of food, clean water
and from the spread of disease. The rest will battle for resources as
their failure to prepare will leave them with no other choice.
Here’s the lesson: HELP WILL NOT BE ON THE WAY.
It will be so bad, in fact, that people will be praying for shelter in a FEMA concentration camp
.
Sandy Refugees Complain of Prison-like Conditions at FEMA Tent Camps
Adan Salazar
Prison Planet.com
November 9, 2012
Residents
of New Jersey, whose homes were ravaged by superstorm Sandy and are now
having to endure yet another wintery storm, are revealing through
first-hand accounts that camps FEMA is providing are more like prisons.
According
to the Asbury Park Press, some displaced New Jersey residents have had
to relocate to FEMA tent camps in the northeastern part of the state in
alleged efforts to secure better shelter, running hot water and washing
machines, but members of the camp are saying that none of what was
promised is available.
“At (Pine Belt) the Red Cross made an
announcement that they were sending us to permanent structures up here
that had just been redone, that had washing machines and hot showers and
steady electric, and they sent us to tent city. We got (expletive),”
distraught Oceanport camp resident Brian Sotelo said.
As if
adding insult to injury, the camp is referred to as “Camp Freedom,”
however, Sotelo says camp residents feel more like they’re imprisoned:
“Everybody is angry over here. It’s like being prison [sic].”
As
no media is allowed beyond the fences of the camp, what little news has
managed to escape the area is disturbing. Angered residents are
revealing that they are intentionally being kept quiet, being denied
electricity to charge their phones and suspect surveillance by roving
vehicle patrols.
Sotelo also noted that several members of the
camp had tried to contact the media regarding the horrendous living
conditions, but were met with opposition: “After everyone started
complaining and they found out we were contacting the press, they
brought people in. Every time we plugged in an iPhone or something, the
cops would come and unplug them.”
“As Sotelo tells it, when it
became clear that the residents were less than enamored with their new
accommodations Wednesday night and were letting the outside world know
about it, officials tried to stop them from taking pictures, turned off
the WiFi and said they couldn’t charge their smart phones because there
wasn’t enough power,” reports Stephen Edelson of the Asbury Park Press.
According
to Sotelo, victims are not being allowed to return to their homes, even
though, as part of a relief crew, he’s passed his own rented home
several times, noting it had only sustained about a foot’s worth of
water damage.
A FEMA spokesperson refuted Sotelo’s claims, saying
that “staff at the micro-city are providing for the needs of all the
evacuees.”
Reportedly, several FEMA centers in New Jersey and
Staten Island were also closed to due to the inclement weather
anticipated from yesterday’s nor’easter.
Yesterday, NJ Gov. Chris
Christie expressed confidence in his ability to “re-evaluate” the gas
rationing system put in place about a week ago after residents were
having to wait 3 to 4 hours for gas.
Today, Christie tried to
salvage FEMA’s reputation and deflect negative criticism by praising
utility crews and labeling the storm as the main perpetrator of all the
suffering: “The villain in this case is Hurricane Sandy.”
Also
today, FEMA announced that it would grant Governor Christie’s request to
provide Disaster unemployment assistance to those unable to work “as a
direct result of the damages caused by the storm.”
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