Wary of all the tornados, Better Half and I are looking into installing an underground storm shelter. A guy’s coming tomorrow to check out the backyard, in fact, and BH started jumping through the hoops last weekend for that shelter-rebate program being offered by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. NTCOG, which only had dough from FEMA for about 440 rebates of up to $3,000 apiece, had an announcement on its website Tuesday that applications would be accepted starting the next day at an undisclosed time. Wednesday morning at daybreak, though, guess what? The council, turns out, had opened up the process in Wednesday’s wee hours, at 1:15 a.m., and in a few hours had 825 applications.
So, they pinched the process off at 5:30 a.m. and started talking about a “waitlist” to be made available later. NTCOG claimed to be astonished by the demand, which seems strange. Surprised by 800 applicants, in a region with nearly 7 million people? Beyond that, who in hell’s sitting up at 1:15 in the morning to fill out an online application form? The organizers or their pals? Nora Castaneda, a NTCOG spokeswoman, denies any insider dealing and says that, in fact, NTCOG staff and their spouses specifically were barred from applying to avoid just such a perception. The early-morning hour, she adds, was picked simply to avoid crashing the group’s servers. Okay. When the program’s offered next time, though, they might want to think about a lottery. Or at least post the application-start time in advance, so everybody’s got a fair shot.
