Thursday, May 5, 2011 - North Platte NE
< previous day | archives | next day >
Layers, Alcova Reservoir, Alcova WY, May 2, 2011
Night camp
Wal-Mart Supercenter in North Platte NE
Walmart Supercenter Store #1585, 1401 S Dewey St, North Platte, NE 69101 - (308) 532-5529
- Good level parking
- Verizon cell phone service- good
- Verizon EVDO Broadband service - good signal - service a bit slow
- Locate this Walmart on my Night Camps map
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
Disaster and the Failure of Authority
Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.
The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005