The Oroville Dam emergency--tragedy and metaphor

"Officials were warned the Oroville Dam emergency spillway wasn’t safe. They didn’t listen."

Officials were also warned that now-former national security advisor Michael Flynn might be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russian government, but they didn't listen.

The U.S. is falling apart, both physically and politically.

Now, roughly 200,000 Californians are temporarily homeless, and, for those whose places of employment are located south of the Oroville Dam, jobless as well.

And now, the National Security Council, apparently still in formation, excludes from permanent membership both the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence and includes among its permanent members a political appointee.  This is supposed to leave the U.S. well-prepared to deal with a North Korea that's making a hobby of lobbing nuclear-capable missiles into the Sea of Japan? 

In terms of both our physical and our political infrastructures, the United States is woefully unprepared to deal with dangerous situations.