There was definitely a lack of organization between the different departments. The fact that  public agencies even rejected volunteers is baffling, but understandable in the sense that if  the agencies themselves didn’t know what they were doing, what would they tell the volunteers to do? The Mayor’s role in pushing the blame away from himself and onto the people is disturbing. He basically refused to acknowledge the fact that the government was at fault and instead says that the “residents themselves must take responsibility for securing their own welfare and keeping themselves out of hospitals and other places that provide public assistance”. Klinenberg also states that the idea was so that “the best way to protect the poor is to force them to protect themselves”. How are the poor even supposed to protect themselves in this case of a huge heat wave? All the reasonings just seem like excuses because there was no overall plan to combat the heat wave. On another note, the fact that the “government alone cannot do it all” is true to some extent. How can you help people if they don’t want to be helped? Although they’re slightly different, the elderly who didn’t want to leave their house reminded me of my friend’s grandma who refused to leave her home in both the hurricanes of this year and last year. During Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy, my friend’s home was in Zone A, but her grandmother refused to leave, and as a result my friend stayed with her. Most of the blame usually gets placed on one main person or a group of people. In this case, because of the way the media portrayed the disaster, the blame was mostly put on the government. However, there is always two sides to the coin, and not all the blame should be put on the government. The second time the heave wave hit, the government were more prepared. This time, the mayor didn’t keep his stance on how the people should protect themselves; there were actual plans. I feel this is the same for what happened in New York with the huge blizzard that hit. The first time it hit, MTA was unprepared. Roads were blocked by snow, trains weren’t running, buses weren’t running and so on. The response to the blizzard was slow as well; I remember having to walk to another train station because the one near my house was blocked off as a result of the snow. Although this isn’t really on par with the Chicago heat wave, it shows how a change in the response plans the second time the blizzard hit New York City, a year after.