Florida will rebuild, but climate discussion is needed

LETTERS LETTERS@USATODAY.COM As a student at the University of Miami

who’s originally from New Jersey, I was totally unprepared to deal with a storm of this magnitude.

As awful and devastating as this storm is, it has also brought out the good in people in ways I had never seen in Miami before. From airlines such as United that added flights at the last hour to help with the evacuation efforts, to the people handing out coffee in the long gas lines, the South Florida community came together.

Thank you to the neighbors who helped each other install hurricane shutters, and to people in the rest of the country who opened their doors to everyone who had to leave.

Our school mascot is an ibis, the last bird to leave before a hurricane and the first to return. When we return we will rebuild Florida together, to be even greater than it was before. Megan Howson

Miami

When the destruction of Hurricane Katrina

caught our country basically unprepared, people didn’t want to talk about climate change; it was too fresh and not the right time. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook, gun control discussions were resisted by the political right because things were too raw and it was not the right time. When Nebraska and Oklahoma were ravaged by tornadoes and loss of life because (among other things) building codes did not require basements, which are the safest places to be in a tornado, it could not be discussed. Again, it was not the right time.

And now, in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma through the Caribbean and Florida — accentuated by the historically warming waters — global warming cannot be mentioned because ... you guessed it, it’s not the right time.

Of course, none of those was the right time to talk about those issues because the right time would’ve been years ago, but it’s the best time because it’s when we have the most time left. Norman Bender

Woodbridge, Conn.

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The American Red Cross continued to be dogged on social media by people suggesting that donations intended to help victims of the storm might be diverted elsewhere.

There is no way 100% of donations go to relief. How would they pay for staff salaries and benefits? When you have a lot of people, like the American Red Cross does, it costs money to run a charity of that magnitude. Just the training of the volunteers costs a lot. Dennis Reid

It’s more than just overhead costs with the Red Cross. There’s no guarantee that the money donated to help people in Texas or Florida will be given to them. Once the Red Cross has your donation, it can spend it as it wishes — for example, on a new computer system in California. So don’t think that with the Red Cross, the people who need help are getting that money. More than likely, they are not. Donate to The Salvation Army or local charities. Thomas Cole

People should realize that transporting and feeding staff costs money, and donations naturally go towards that, as well to helping the victims of disasters.

If you think someone should be fronting all of the indirect expenses, you probably don’t understand how the real world works. Austin Revies