UPDATE: Via Kossack peacearena, here is some contact information for a local community organizer named Fannie Bates. Send food, money, anything you think would help get the people of Emmonak through this hard winter.
Send to:
Fannie Bates
Emmonak Public School
100 School Drive
Emmonak, AK 99581
I can think of no better thing to do than to show that some bloggers and a community organizer can serve Alaskans better than Sarah Palin. Ms. Bates is an Okie like myself, and peacearena says she can help.
More aid contacts are below.
According to the Alaska-based blog, The Mudflats, rural Alaska is being hit hard by a double whammie -- an especially cold winter and soaring heating oil and gasoline prices.
Compounding the problem, the collapse of a local salmon fishery has left many people with less to go on in this hard winter. If you think you've got it tough where you are, you probably don't have to deal with the negative-degree temperatures of Alaska.
A snapshot of the mini-humanitarian crisis in the making, obtained by The Mudflats blog from the Bristol Bay Times:
Single, separated, with five children. (He chokes occasionally, holding back crying.) He and his children are staying in the same household with his brother’s family. Cost of fuel is so high and everything else and we’re able to get just a few things at a time. We have no other subsistence food left. Only thing we’re surviving on moose meat alone and it is almost gone. Everything is so high – only able to get little bit. We can’t catch up on our bills. We’re really hurting even we are given some from other people. Right now, we can’t eat during the day, only at supper time. And, it is still not enough. If there had been no school lunch, our kids would be starving. It is going to get worse in two weeks when our new heating fuel supply is airlifted in. Price of fuel will go way up again. I am lucky that the Women’s Shelter is able to give me some coffee.
What has the state government done to address this? According to another Alaska blogger, local Nicholas Tucker says, nothing.
And all day long we called the office of governor Palin, and were told repeatedly that they knew nothing about this village or of any crisis.
According to another reeking, misfit blogger whose fingers are no doubt stained with Cheeto dust, the state-level office for rural issues has been vacant since Octoberand no replacement has been found since. Gee. Seems like such a sparesely populated state would have a vibrant, active rural affairs office. Guess not.
The village is called Emmonak.You can donate at these contact points:
City of Emmonak, (907) 949-1227/1249
(They will take donations by credit card. Please specify the donation is for heating oil!)
Emmonak Tribal Council, (907) 949-1720
or send a check to:
Emmonak Tribal Council
P.O. Box 126
Emmonak, AK 99581
NOTE: If you're going to call, be sure to keep in mind the time difference. Check the local time first at www.time.gov.
The local temperature in Emmonak right now is 16 degrees, with a wind chill of zero. Also, there's a winter storm warning in effect there.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, heating oil prices could be as high as $11 per gallon there soon with supply lines running into trouble. Items like food and milk are running short.
I don't know why Gov. Sarah Palin and her staff are not doing more to combat this problem. According to some accounts, high heating oil prices and an extremely cold winter do not fall into the category of an emergency worth declaring.
If it were my family, I'd consider it a disaster. Hell, that's pretty much all most governors do, isn't it? Declare disasters? And since when is Palin shy about asking for help from "The Feds," as she so colorfully calls them?
Perhaps she's too busy scanning the horizon for Putin's head or complaining to the media about how unfair the media are? Shouldn't she be getting off her Neiman-Marcus-coated fanny and helping the people of her state?
I can't say, but I think it's time we showed Sarah Barracuda what a group of "bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers" can do. Are we better equipped to respond to a disaster than a sitting governor? We'll see.
(Special thanks to my fellow lazy, repulsive blogger tristan57 for bringing this issue to my attention. He or she makes me sick to my ass.)