Feds failed with fire relief

Duck Valley is a federal Indian reservation on the Idaho/Nevada border that lost power last week when the Murphy Complex fires destroyed power lines in the area.

It was nothing short of a disaster, since almost everyone on the reservation gets water from wells, which require power, and with refrigerators out, food spoiled quickly in the heat.

We commend all the groups and organizations and even individuals that sent resources to the reservation, from food to ice to other basic supplies. The National Guard and the airbase both helped.

But after that, federal and state responses were, at best, poor.

Where was FEMA? Or any other federal support for the people who live as wards of the federal government? Power companies worked as hard as they could to get the power back on, but the federal emergency disaster relief response was noticeable only by its absence.

As Katrina victims can attest, federal response these days to people impacted by natural disasters has not been stunning. It probably didn't help that this was on one of the nation's Indian reservations, which also are often largely ignored by the federal bureaucracy.

This was a disaster salvaged largely by the hard work of volunteers and the military.

But the federal response was an even worse disaster.

-- Kelly Everitt