Musings from Brian J. Noggle: St. Louis City Makes Do Without FEMA

St. Louis City Makes Do Without FEMA

When searching for a scapegoat or man-made entity to shake its impotent fist at after the recent storms, the city of St. Louis settles on Ameren UE:

City officials expressed frustration today that Ameren Corp. has kept them in the dark while more than half of the city remains without power.

Mayor Francis Slay -- whose own home has lost power -- said the utility has been "playing it very close to the vest" about when power would be restored to St. Louis.

"They have been very, very vague," Slay said in a briefing to aldermen at City Hall. "They don"t really promise anything specifically -- I think intentionally so."

Dear politicians:

When dealing with actual concrete things, such as incompletely troubleshot interruptions of service, undiagnosed downed lines, and incomplete timetables of unknown repairs on undiscovered problems, people in the real world don't make rash promises that they probably cannot meet. Although this is commonplace in your industry, how about you just shut your yap, sweat with your constituents, and never consider about how your efforts to hamstring public utilities might actually have helped lead to the situation you're in now?

Nah, nevermind. Use this as a pretext to puff your three-pieced chest up and to further meddle with all the incompetent power of preening government.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:13 PM