Thumbs up
North Charleston. Hats off to the city for reaching a $6.5 million settlement with the family of Walter Scott, the unarmed man shot and killed by a police officer earlier this year.
Aid workers. A hearty thanks to all of the nonprofits, volunteers, and local and state government workers who have struggled tirelessly to help flood victims over the last week.
In the middle
S.C. leaders. Thank goodness you’re accepting federal aid dollars to deal with the flood. But we all know it’s pretty hypocritical on two counts. First, most in the congressional delegation ignored the common good and voted against Hurricane Sandy funding for northeastern disaster victims a couple of years back. [Yes, they’ll say they voted against the measure because it was laden with extraneous pork, but that rings pretty shrill.] Second, accepting the aid while ignoring federal Medicaid expansion dollars is a slap in the face to 200,000 of South Carolina’s poorest.
Thumbs down
Hucksters. Thumbs down and big raspberries to fraudsters and hucksters trying to take advantage of South Carolinians hurt in the flooding. A pox on you.
NUMBERS
11,000,000,000,000
11 trillion: Number of gallons estimated to have been dumped on the Carolinas during the Great Flood of 2015. More.
QUOTEThe flooding shouldn’t really be a surprise
“The convergence of these statistically more likely events with what are very clearly climate related changes in sea level is a cautionary perspective into the future. It’s one that we really have to pay a lot of attention to and not just write it off as something that isn’t going to happen again.”
— S.C. Coastal Conservation League Executive Director Dana Beach in a Time story on why climate change is real and flooding, which used to be once in lifetime, shouldn’t be surprising now. More.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!