Fooling the Coast Guard?

On Sunday, the Coast Guard had received a distress call from a sailboat with four people on board off the coast of California. A family of four were reported from the boat, which had failing electronics. They abandoned the ship after floating out 65 miles out to sea. For the past 48 hours since, the Coast Guard covered 20,000 square miles of ocean searching for this family. It was later reported that the call came from further north than they were told. Coast Guard member, Thomas McKenzie said, "We weren't able to find any vessel, any signs of debris, we couldn't find anything that would indicate there had been an incident." The message from the man on the ship was, "Coast guard, coast guard, we are abandoning ship. This is the [Charmblow], we are abandoning ship." The Coast Guard was unable to find any boat under the name Charmblow, and they discovered that no one was reported missing. 

I think the author of this article wants you to feel bad for the Coast Guard, almost, and annoyed at the person who made the false call. McKenzie points out that 'making a false distress call is a federal criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and a $250,000 fine and reimbursement to the Coast Guard for the cost of the search.' This is showing how much of a mistake making this kind of call was. It's a waste of time for both sides, and it's costly for both of them too. The article also has a statistic, 'the Coast Guard handles, on average more than 20,000 calls for assistance a year. Of those, an average of 18 international false distress calls and another 121 are suspected hoaxes, according to Coast Guard figures.' The Coast Guard has to treat every call as if it was an emergency, because for all they know, it is an actual emergency. The people on the other line could be fine, while the Coast Guard is worried sick about the possibly sunken ship and lost family. Just for the Charmblow case, they ran 34 searches, got the Navy involved, the Air National guard, as well as 10 Coast Guard boats and helicopters. 

I think that this is very serious, and I think that it's horrible that people would fake an emergency like that. Yes, I have made prank calls before, but only to my friends. The way the coast guard has to deal with the case, only to find out it's not real and theres no danger, it's just too much. I feel bad for the Coast guard. I also wonder if any other government-issued safety department has been prank called. My guess is probably, a lot of times. I think that if people have nothing better to do, they can go watch tv or something, instead of wasting someone else's time. If the Coast Guard were to get more prank calls, they wouldn't be able to tell which were serious and which were fake. It would be like the boy who cried wolf. 

Coast Guard calls off boat search after questions raised

Sandy Hook: Demolish or Renovate?

I read an article on how people are debating on whether we should demolish the Sandy Hook Elementary school, or renovate it. People have very strong feelings towards the shooting that happened at Sandy Hook elementary school, and it reflects in the quotes from parents. One mother said "We cannot pretend it never happened, but I am not prepared to ask my children to run and hide. You can't take away their school." Another mother with surviving children thinks that the building should be crushed because she can't come to terms with sending her kids back to that building. One mother thinks that it should be up to the victims to decide because the incident had the most impact on them. Additionally, there are facts about aftermath of past shootings. For example, Virginia Tech decided to renovate the classroom where the shooting occurred. 

The author tries to make you feel sympathetic yet open-minded about the fate of Sandy Hook Elementary School. The author does this by showing lots of different perspectives of families that may or may not have been involved in the incident. The author incorporates the quotes really well and includes facts that are thought provoking because you can see what happened in past situations. The author wants you to form an opinion based on facts not bias. For example, the article ends with the quote "I think we have to start that conversation now. It will take many, many months to do any kind of school project. We have very big decisions ahead of us. The goal is to bring our students home as soon as we can."

My opinion on Sandy Hook is that they should demolish the building because the memories are very tragic and traumatizing and it would be hard for the students to return. One mother says that she had very good memories there, her kids are older and previously attended Sandy Hook, and she thinks that they should renovate. I don't think that's a legitimate argument because she wasn't a primary victim. I didn't have an opinion prior to reading this article because I wasn't aware that this argument was being discussed. After reading the article, I strongly think that Sandy Hook should no longer be a school because I can't imagine returning to the scene of such a traumatizing event.