Proof Positive: WWIII will be fought over water.

Most of a week out from the worst of the storm, and this place is still chaotic. On post, over 400 houses have severe damage. Off post, there is a lot of damage as well due to burst pipes. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the metro area are without water. On a good note, the rolling blackouts have stopped, and as far as we know, gas service has returned to everyone, so everyone has heat.... of course, it's nowhere near as cold as it was. Temps are in the 40's now, not single digits anymore.

The post housing contractor has sent in hundreds of people from other states, with semi trucks full of supplies, to fix the houses on post and make them livable again. All housing areas were affected equally. Officers, NCO's, lower-enlisteds.... all are together in this disaster. The lower-enlisted families are still loud, and rude, and can't quite understand why they have to wait a couple weeks to get the water damage in their homes fixed. As always, the Officer and NCO families are stoic, but the fact is, a lot of people lost everything. Many lost not everything, but a lot. There are crews here to manage claims, and as one would expect, there has already been fraud detected. Our Garrison Commander is doing his best to get people to stop trying to defraud the system just to get new stuff, and to only list what was, in fact, destroyed, on their claims. This thing is going to be massively expensive.

The thing that REALLY gets me about it all is the way people are acting. The city implemented a city-wide water conservation order yesterday, effective for 24 hours. They said not to use water for anything other than consumption (oh, and we remain under a boil water notice when it comes to that). They said no washing dishes, no washing clothes, no showers, and some people say they also meant no flushing toilets. The thing is that word of this water conservation order took most of the day to reach a lot of people, so even yesterday evening, there were people who had no idea about it, and were carrying on as usual. If you have water, use it, right? God Forbid anyone mentioned that they did laundry, or flushed their toilet, or took a shower. Those without water more or less grabbed their torches and pitchforks. Those of us who have water are definitely the enemy. Hey, it's not like we wouldn't share....

Seriously, the way people have gotten over water over the past few days is like nothing I have ever seen. I've seen severe weather, even hurricanes, which are way more severe than what this was, but I have NEVER in my life seen people act like this. The problem is that people all want their issues fixed NOW, and things have to be prioritized. It's the lower-enlisteds who are the worst when they're told they're not a priority. They raise hell. The Officers and NCO's who have been told they are not a priority have accepted it, and done what they can to get through until the non-priority cases are addressed. Priority has nothing to do with rank. It has to do with need, extenuating circumstances, and things like that. The lower-enlisteds mostly do not understand this, and are ready to lynch anyone who has water, or who gets it before they do. It's getting ugly.

At this point, I think it's crazy that the brigade who was in the field during the storm, and came home for the weekend (our General doesn't allow training on the weekends) will go back to the field at 0500 hrs tomorrow morning, and be out there for the entire week. I think despite the wives acting stupid, accosting every officer up to, and including, the Garrison Commander, and calling the media about their guys being in the field in this weather, the Brigade Commander should postpone the remainder of the field training for at least a week so that these soldiers don't have to leave their families in disaster, with no cell phones. There is good training, and then there is common sense. In this case, the two are mutually exclusive. I don't think they're going to change it, though. I'm just glad we're not with that unit.

Again, we have been very lucky, but also, this whole thing proves what we've known for a while. Houses that cost a lot for the time they were built (even if they're old now and don't cost much anymore) fare better than economy builds. Our house was built right, even if that was in the 70's, and because it was built right, it stood up to the cold. Those in new neighborhoods, other than the most upscale of them, had massive damage. On post, all housing areas, old and new, were affected equally. All of those houses were built poorly, whether it was in 1950 or last week, the builds were all by the lowest bidder, all super fast and on the cheap, and boy does it show. If there is one lesson that this city, and this post, should take from this, it is to do it right the first time.