Featured Columnists
Preparing for the Big Flood
From Issue: Volume XX - Number 13
6/29/2012
Les Robbins
In my last article I touched upon some of the dire predictions that I am hearing from City Hall sources as they pertain to the upcoming release of the City of Long Beach budget. That release is still about two weeks away. My last article garnered a lot of responses from folks.
The purpose of my article was to not exude doom and gloom but to prepare everyone for the reality of what things will be like with respect to services and programs in this town that many of you, like myself, have become accustomed to over the last 60 plus years or so.
I can predict that things will change and in some areas drastically. I would love to say that I think that the best years are ahead and while my heart wants to go there my brain sends me in a completely different direction.
Speaking of different directions, my wife Cindy and I are about to embark on our first trip outside the United States (other than previous trips to Canada and Mexico). We are leaving soon for a trip to Arctic Svalbard, which is an Archipelago about 1,100 miles North of Oslo, Norway. It is Norwegian territory and a very popular place for explorers these days.
We are going with a group of wildlife photographers and naturalists from The National Geographic Society to photograph our targeted species which is the Polar Bear. We will be on the National Geographic Explorer cruise ship, which is a unique cruise ship that is converted to function as an ice breaker. The flora and fauna that we expect to see should be incredible.
I have made many trips to Alaska over the years and am very used to seeing wild animals and glaciers and high mountains. This trip should be a bit of a departure though in comparison. I have never mentioned, in my Beachcomber articles, my photography website but I will now as after we will return I should have some nice pictures to share with everyone. My website is www.greatlandphotography.com . You can access it and look at virtually hundreds of photos that I have taken over the past several decades, mostly in Alaska.
Just when I didn’t think that things could worsen I read about the proposed Congressional mandate that most all of the residents in Long Beach purchase flood insurance, again! As some of you know we went through this back in the 90s when FEMA mandated most of the city to purchase flood insurance. Thanks to Supervisor Knabe’s efforts, the Los Angeles River’s banks were raised enough to qualify the city from removal from the flood plain. That saved all of us several hundred dollars a year in additional insurance costs.
This whole thing is nothing but a ploy for raising money for FEMA, pure and simple. It angers me that we have to share in this burden when we clearly have absolutely no chance of experienc-ing a flood like we see all of the time in other parts of the country. We enjoy the finest flood control systems in the country and it seems very unfair that we would have to be burdened, once again, with this mandate.
Oh, speaking of mandates, how does this differ from the requirement, under Obama Care, that everyone purchase health insurance? Not sure that I see a significant difference between these two federal mandates. Perhaps someone out there can explain to me the difference in these federal mandates?
les@longbeachcomber.com
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