Hurricane Dorian brings appreciation for shelter, power in Volusia, Flagler | LETTERS

Ready to serve

The logistics in opening Volusia County schools as shelters involves hundreds of people, most of which are Volusia County School District employees. School principals with help from assistant principals managed all of the 14 public schools that opened for Hurricane Dorian. The School District School Way Café managers and their respective staff provided hot meals three times per day for more than 1,500 people.

As the Chair of the Volusia County School Board and a former principal who managed shelters many times, I wish to thank all of the school administrators and other district employees who spent three days away from their families to ensure our community members had a safe place to endure the storm.

Superintendent TIm Egnor, Chief Operations Officer Greg Akin, and Director of Planning Saralee Morrissey are to be commended for their leadership in making sure the facilities were prepared to open as shelters, and ready to reopen as clean and safe schools. Again, this involved many people from the maintenance departments and custodial services.

People in our area can take comfort and pride in knowing when hurricanes approach our area, the Volusia County School District will be ready to serve.

Carl Persis, Ormond Beach

Kept the lights on

To all FPL employees: Thank you for all the tireless hours they put into upgrading our electrical grid. This is the first time, in over 30 years, that our power did not go out during a storm. Their hard and dedicated work has not gone unnoticed. Bravo and kudos to all!

Mike Malia, Daytona Beach

Palm Terrace welcome

Because of the impending hurricane and the need of electrical power for my machine, my wife and I took shelter in the Palm Terrace Elementary School.

We were so impressed with the professional and caring attitudes of every shelter staff member there. Always a smile, always an anxious desire to accommodate our needs, and always the willingness to do more: like making the effort to publicly acknowledge the 80th birthday of a "guest" at lunch time. They were just nice, caring people! Meals were well prepared and certainly sufficient; I added a couple pounds.

I don't think anyone enjoys leaving home to spend days in a shelter, but this group made an outstanding effort to make it much more than tolerable.

Barbara and Ron Richardson, Ormond Beach

Mark and the Tugas

The headline in the Sept. Sports section, "Tortugas set attendance record in abrupt end to season," describes a new attendance record for Tortugas fans at Jackie Robinson Ballpark.

It is my thought that responsibility for this record may in no small part be attributed to the passion and prose offered from time to time In Mark Lane's weekly column. Yes, Mark does love baseball. The Tortugas and fellow fans owe Mark a big thank you.

Mac Smith, Ormond Beach

Only in America

In a country with close to 1 million human fetuses aborted each year, how can we so foolishly lament the drowning of a few thousand sea turtles during a hurricane? ("Hurricane damages pier, drowns sea turtle eggs," Page 1, News-Journal, Sept. 6).

Grady Lusk, Daytona Beach

Plane wrong

I find it hard to believe the ineptitude of the officials at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. According to The News-Journal's reporting on Saturday, they sent all of their planes to Auburn, Alabama. Weren't they aware that President Trump's "sharpied" map of Dorian had the storm heading straight to Alabama? Shame!

Herb Jones, Daytona Beach Shores

Gun reality

A reader was quite correct when she suggested that banning "assault weapons" would accomplish only limiting their availability for honest citizens, while creating a black market to supply criminals. Suggesting they should never have been available in the first place demonstrates the widespread ignorance existing in the non-shooting community. It has been illegal for anyone in the U.S. to possess a firearm in the class of firearms that includes assault rifles since 1934, except for those with a special permit. There are increasing numbers of semi-automatic rifles being produced that merely use a somewhat similar operating mechanism as do automatic capable assault rifles; they are similar in appearance but are not identical and are not machine guns.

Some people think they look really scary so they must be bad. All semi-automatic firearms use one of several basic operating designs, the earliest of which dates back nearly a century and a half, long before mass shootings began to take place.

Magazine size is also misunderstood, especially by ignorant liberal lawmakers who want to limit magazine capacity, touting that lower is safer. Magazines can be swapped out in several seconds. That means nothing to attackers, but can be critical to those using them for defense, like the mother who used the entire of a 20 round magazine defending her three children and herself from four home invaders.

And the AR in AR-15 relates to the manufacturer, Armalite Rifle Co., and the 15 is design #15. It is not an assault rifle.

Edward Reese, Flagler Beach

Wrong priorities

My wife and I recently drove back from Alabama and decided to take Highway 98, the Gulf Coast road from Panama City. The devastation from Hurricane Michael is still everywhere we looked: Foundations and lone walls where once a business or a home once stood. Following 98, we came to Tyndall Air Force base. The last time we drove past Tyndall you couldn't see the base for the thick cover of trees. Now those trees are snapped in half -- thousands of them.

The next thing we saw were the remains of the hundreds of homes for the Air Force personnel and their families. All gone. Barracks, hangers and offices are heavily damaged. Some looked beyond repair to us.

These are the brave men and women who serve and protect us every day.

Yet President DonaldTrump wants to take $3.6 billion from the Armed Services budget, including $17 million intended for Tyndall AFB, to build his wall. Are Trump supporters really going to stand behind this leader? Trump is supposed to be the commander in chief of all the military. He is supposed to do anything he can to support them.Now he's taking money away from these brave souls to build his stinking wall. All because it was a political promise.

Maybe we can get Mexico to pay to rebuild Tyndall Air Force Base .Because they sure as heck aren't going to pay for the wall are they?

Lee Bent, Daytona Beach

___

(c)2019 The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla.

Visit The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla. at www.news-journalonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.