The definition of Disastar should be as simple as opening the dictionary and looking it up, and yet, it isn't. My dictionary says the definition of disastar, is an unfortunate event;mishap;reverse. And yet, anyone who has actually had a disastar befall them would say that this dry veined group of words nowhere comes near to defining the word. The Government would define it in terms of loss of life,and the cost in dollars and cents, and although on the surface of it, this might be what most individuals would be more likely to agree with, the reality of their estimation would be too high to appease anyone who had been through an unfortunate event, and lost property and lives of loved ones, simply because toting up the numbers does not tell the whole story. It is enough for a family who lost one house and one member of the family to call it a disastar, but the Governor would not declare the area a disastar for so small a loss. So the total lives lost,and the cost must mount up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars,and possibly hundreds of persons lost as well, before the bureaucratic heart is moved with compassion. For instance,earlier this spring, there was a super-cell storm that hit a town not too far from where this writer resides, and where it did not flatten the entire town, it completely demolished the student housing of the large University,as well as a large portion of the downtown area, and several private apartment complexes. Thousands of students,most of which were studying the medical profession, were thrown out of housing, and the red cross, who had been called in to help were completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. When the Governor saw the damage, he said that it was not extensive enough in area,or effecting enough of the populace as a whole, and therefore did not meet the criteria for disastar assistance, and as a result, thousands of students had to quit school, simply because there was no place for them to live while they resumed their education. Many of those looking on, this writer included, could not believe the Governor would be so short sighted as to not take into consideration the complete ramifications of the damage. The petitions and appeals are still taking place today, but the Cataclysm,and the resulting catastrophe from this storm has already altered thousands of lives. Those effected directly took their money and left town to attend collage elsewhere,and whole sections of the teaching Hospital have all but shut down, due to the lack of funds this drop in attendance has caused. In addition, in response to the aforementioned students leaving, the land owners whose apartments were so damaged that they were rendered unlivable, then found themselves unable to rebuild in order to recoup their losses, by being able to once again rent out their spaces, and with no tenants waiting for those spaces, the banks and loan companies that ordinarily would trust the contractors and landlords with emergency funding were then forced to deny funding. And on and on it goes. Therefore, it would be fair to say that a disastar is not just one event,but events,( plural) of such an extreme magnitude as to set in motion a chain of devastating occurrences,bringing about not only loss of life and the destruction of property, but to render an entire area incapable of recovering from the event, and sending the individuals who were formerly relatively untouched by the original incident into a reversal of fortune which in due course becomes just as serious, or even eclipses the seriousness of the original event.
OUI?
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