In recent news, it was supposed to be a forum on federal assistance for those who were left without natural gas for seven days. But a crowd who packed into the Mission Museum in Espanola on Thursday seemed more interested in hearing from the New Mexico Gas Company directly, and began shouting when they found out gas executives had not shown up. About 200 people packed the museum building for a forum hosted by several federal agencies to discuss "post-storm aid."
Representatives from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development went through several grant and loan programs aimed at helping people who have lost live stock or had their houses damaged because of the cold. Those programs are typically offered with or without a disaster declaration. But many took turns venting their frustrations, one man yelling that they didn't want loans, they wanted results.
The crowd asked the speakers dozens of questions including, who would reimburse medical bills incurred because of the cold, who was going to pay for broken pipes, who would pay for lost business and who would pay high electricity bills that are expected to soar after seven days of space heater usage. Others began to question whether they should wait to file claims with FEMA or the New Mexico Gas Company— or file their claims with their insurance companies and risk higher premiums.
Representatives from federal agencies were not able to provide specific answers to most of those questions, but did offer to give hotel vouchers to those who had been temporarily displaced and gave out phone numbers and packets of information on grant and loan programs. An hour into the meeting one man demanded to know why New Mexico Gas officials were not in attendance to answer questions and was told company had been invited but did not show up.
Taos Mayor Darren Cordova began to address the crowd, speaking out against the New Mexico Gas Company and vowing to "hold their feet to the fire," and "make them pay." After the forum broke up a smaller crowd gathered at the front doors and began expressing their anger at the gas company with a loudspeaker while others complained that they still had not had their natural gas restored at their homes.
After reading this report and hearing about this on the news, what do you think about this incident? Should NM Gas Co. have to take more responsibility for the outages? Should people be reimbursed for their monetary losses?
-Noriega
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After hearing the crisis that NM is going through right now, I think that the gas companies should step forward and take responsability for this crisis even if its not their fault.
ReplyDelete-Tyler Walker
Ultimately reading this report, I say that the New Mexico Gas Company should not be chosen for the quandary of the crisis of power/gas shortage in New Mexico. Why shall they be blamed for the temperatures and deliberate power outages in Texas that played a role in jamming natural gas distribution throughout the southwest. In all says society should be reimbursed for their losses but should have been better prepared of cold days.
ReplyDelete-Ronnie Bowman
Benjamin Hall: I think that it is the New Mexico Gas Company's responsibility to fix these problems, and citizens who have had to deal with gas and power outages should be reimbursed, since it is not their fault that the outages happened, and the problems can probably be traced to the Gas Company being unprepared in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI think that the new mexico gas company should be better prepared for these issues with power outages and gas shortages. It is the NM gas companies responsibility to deal with these issues and be better prepared for them when they come so that all the citizens dont have to deal with them as long or at all even.
ReplyDelete-Chanse Miller-
I think that the Gas Company is at fault for damages cause by the severe cold. The Gas Company should have been much more prepared for severe weather such as this. It is the New Mexico Gas Company's, not the public's, job to be prepared for situations like these.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the New Mexico Gas company should be accountable for the natural gas line breaks, as well as reimbursing the residents within the State their money paying for it themselves. i would think that the company would already of been aware of what was going to happen or atleast be prepared for such.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the New Mexico Gas Company should be held responsible for the damages to peoples health and to their homes and I think that they should reimburse the people affected by this crisis for any money they spent to keep warm and to fix any illnesses they may have received.
ReplyDeleteI think that the gas company should not be held accountable because it's not their fault that the natural gas was running low. Citizens who suffered the cold because of the shortages should be reimbursed for their losses but also should have been more prepared for severe weather conditions, that were warned about previous to their occurrence.
ReplyDeleteFranz Said-
ReplyDeleteThe gas companies should have more responsibility for the gas shortages. I think this because the gas companies said that they are prepared for the cold and that there was going to be enough gas to last through the cold. It turned out that the companies did not really have enough gas and lots of people lost there gas. when people ran out of gas, they switched to electricity and the power needed was more than what we had, so power was lost too, resulting in the death of a men on an incubator. I think that the companies should have to reimburse people that lost money due to the gas companies' mistakes.
I personally don't believe the New Mexico gas companies are at fault. The recent weather was a freak accident and New Mexico in general wasn't prepared for temperatures that cold.
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