Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center is in a flood zone. Not a terrible problem since large portions of Harrisburg are in flood zones. Problem is emergency medical supplies are stored there.
Having friends living in Harrisburg when Agnes hit it's stunning to me that personal protective equipment emergency medical supplies are stored in a flood zone.
"Pennsylvania is looking for a new home for the huge stockpile of emergency supplies the state acquired to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — and the next pandemicto come down the pike.
Boxes upon boxes of personal protective equipment now sit inside the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex — and that is becoming an increasing concern to both lawmakers and tourism advocates."
"Pa. General Services Secretary Curt Topper said his department needs $6 million in next year's state budget to cover the cost of relocating the state's stockpile of PPE to a leased facility."
"Topper is the first to admit the Farm Show Complex is not the ideal location for any long-term storage of the PPE.
It’s in a flood zone, although administration officials said the stockpile is placed in an area of the facility not prone to flooding...."
Anonymous officials said, "The stockpile is placed in an area not prone to flooding." Them sounds like weasel words, tergiversation.
Grove, along with two other House committee chairmen, found that just walking into the complex is not always possible. On Wednesday morning, they arrived for what they said was a pre-arranged 9 a.m. visit to inspect the stockpile only to find the doors locked. Security officers inside didn’t let them in.
Kensinger, Wolf’s spokeswoman, said that’s because the lawmakers were advised the day before that their visit needed to be rescheduled. Grove said he didn’t get the message.
So instead of inspecting the stockpile, they held a news conference to complain about a lack of transparency by the Wolf Administration and its interference with their ability to carry out their duties."
Grove and House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee Chairman Dan Moul, R-Adams County, also objected to being asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, to keep what they saw in the facility confidential.
“It’s the constitutional duty of the legislative branch to provide legislative oversight of executive agencies,” Grove said. “If we were to see something in here and not report it, we’re not doing our jobs.”
Seth Grove is from York County Pa. Having lived in York County in the 1960s, when the election of a Catholic, John F. Kennedy, revived the JBS, I assume an active Republican from York County is a John Birch Society extremist.
Fearful conspiracy people attracted to the John Birch Society and QAnon are a small segment of human population. On November 22, 1963 when JFK was assassinated the streets of the City of York PA were silent. We were in a state of shock.
There is a constant re-supply of hardwired fearful conspiracy believers that we now call "social conservatives" in each new generation. Some politicians take advantage of their fear:
"Placing blame on conspiracies is seductive to social conservatives because of the way their brains are hardwired, says Colin Holbrook, an evolutionary psychologist and research scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s not a pathology, nor because they’re less intelligent,” Holbrook tells me.
Holbrook co-authored a 2017 study for the journal Psychological Science, in which subjects were presented with a series of false statements such as, “Terrorist attacks in the U.S. have increased since Sept. 11, 2001,” and “Hotel room keycards are often encoded with personal information that can be read by thieves.”
In Holbrook’s study, social conservatives were more credulous about claims of danger in the world, and the phenomenon has roots in evolutionary psychology—being hyper-aware of threats could potentially save your life. But that evolutionary advantage also makes social conservatives more susceptible to claims about things that could potentially hurt them, according to Holbrook. “That’s what you’re probably seeing with the John Birchers in Texas and the conspiracies they fear,” he says."
Bircher ideas, once on the fringe, are increasingly commonplace in today’s GOP and espoused by friends in high places. And the group is ready to make the most of it.
"Administration officials said on Wednesday the non-disclosure agreement grows out of security concerns.
'It’s important to note that nothing that was requested of the legislators would have impacted or interfered with their oversight,' said Wolf spokeswoman Elizabeth Rementer.
Nevertheless, a day later, the administration backed off the confidentiality requirement. Topper said during the Senate hearing on Thursday lawmakers touring the facility would not be required to sign the non-disclosure agreement.
Grove said he had yet to receive any information from the administration about rescheduling the tour but said he looks forward to it.
Schwank, who was given a tour Wednesday afternoon, said she saw no need for the Republican House members to turn their inability to access the facility into a political skirmish.
She said she happily signed the non-disclosure agreement. She said her purpose in going to the facility was to gain a better understanding of how full the facility was and why reopening at least portions to event organizers hasn’t been allowed.
The senator came away learning “the issue is somewhat complicated and it needs to be resolved but it’s going to take a little time,” she said. “We have to work with the administration to resolve. So let’s get at it.”
Shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, state officials moved to consolidate its emergency supplies inside the expansive facility
April 23, 2021 | 12:00 PM
By Jan Murphy/PennLive
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In colonial America waterways were the best travel & commercial transportation. Most of our towns & cities grew up on confluences of waterways. So flooding is normal in our older municipalities.
Just seeing and hearing the ocean or a river is mesmerizing and puts you at peace. It’s human nature to live near water and to build something on land that was underwater a decade before. It’s why we have stormwater regulations.
Incidentally, Bob Adams, Director of Stewardship at WISSAHICKON VALLEY WATERSHED ASSOCIATION INC was a planning commission member in Sellersville. He objected to putting the Sellersville Fire Department in a major flood zone of the Perkiomen Creek. Bob is a professional in floodwater management. The Sellersville Fire Department is often underwater with trucks moved to high ground. Additionally flooding on the Perkiomen splits Sellersville/Perkasie into two separate road transportation zones.
I lived in Schwenksville, PA when the Perkiomen flooded in 1996. A guy parked his pickup truck beside the Graterford Inn and went in for libations. When he came out his pickup was gone. We found it 2.5 miles downstream.
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