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After what has happened in recent years with Katrina (even if it's a 100 year storm in an area that gets them yearly), Houston (more familiar with hurricanes bu

by scoggs 9y ago

After what has happened in recent years with Katrina (even if it's a 100 year storm in an area that gets them yearly), Houston (more familiar with hurricanes but not as clueless as New Jersey) and Sandy (hitting a totally unprepared area in the worst way we've had in my lifetime) I'm surprised there isn't so much more emphasis on prep for future natural disasters. I, obviously, worry that climate change denial and other science denial is preventing the masses from believing that these types of storms won't become more frequent or scarily the norm. I say that it can't hurt to better prepare if not over prepare and I scratch my head wondering why it barely seems like steps are being taken to do so. I can only speak for my local area but New York City and New Jersey were not prepared at all. I was in a pretty good physical location when the storm hit, all things considered, but we were without power for 10 days. Luckily we had a gas station within walking distance and they gave priority to people who walked up with gas cans over cars in the mile long line idling around our neighborhood. There were a bunch of news stories about people stealing generators. Necessities were sold out basically everywhere with little chance of restocking. Things got hairy, for sure. The amount of people who scoffed at warnings were most likely the ones depending on a handy neighbor who was better prepared and better suited to calming down and making the best of the bad situation. I think it was a much needed, although terrible, wake up call for unprepared folks. It was really nice to see so many people band together but the main takeaway I got from it was that I've never seen my area so close to complete breakdown and eventually mass chaos. Why we aren't doing more to prevent that exact type of fallout from something we KNOW is coming? It feels like the definition of insanity to do otherwise. After witnessing it first hand and having no idea what it would be like to live in a hurricane or natural disaster-prone area, having to deal with it yearly, I NEVER want to deal with that again. Since I really have no say in what mother nature does, all I can do is say I NEVER want to be as unprepared for another disaster as I was before. I also realize it's not so simple to pack your entire life up and move to a "more safe" location but there has to be some sort of graph where the cost of paying out insurance, cleaning up the mess, restoring supply chains, and all the other costs that come with a natural disaster equalizes with the cost of preparing as best as possible.

clebio 9y ago
Thank you. Living in a successful metro area as I do, I'm fairly sure that the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria. It doesn't take much (a few days without potable water or gasoline, say). And yet, we're balls-to-the-wall consumer capitalism all the way, baby. A bit of planning would make months of difference.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- scoggs 9y ago
  Sorry for the delayed response but: >the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria That hits the nail on the head about what I was trying to say. Thank you for saying it much more succinctly! New Jersey got hit in striations of severity so while 1/2 of the state was in maximum emergency mode the other 1/2 of the populous wasn't affected what so ever. They were awake Monday morning competing with all of the folks struggling to survive except they were on their normal routine of heading to work. They acted as if everyone else experiencing trouble were inconveniencing them, also. It was really shocking to see the cognitive dissonance of that group of people during Sandy. That striation of severity was odd although not impossible to conceive. It caused a sort of suspicion that things really couldn't have been that bad for "neighbors" considering the unaffected people had no damage, no flooding, no power outages, and no felled trees in their yard or local roadways. My area, on the other hand, was an utter disaster. I was living a bit away from my parents but my first thought after securing my home was to head to my parents house and ensure they were warm and taken care of. There are about 15 different routes I could have taken to get from my area to my parents area. Two were main roads and the other ~13 were back roads and other arteries that cut through the main routes I'd usually take. It took me 9 tries to find a route that wasn't completely blocked off by fallen trees. Once I finally did find a route to make it to my destination it was, of course, the steepest route. The entire roadway was covered in a thin layer of black ice and my poor front wheel drive Honda Civic was barely gripping that ice to get me to the top. Of course it was my luck to get behind a big SUV. That SUV had no trouble climbing the hill but the real problem was that SUV's decision to brake -- for no reason at all -- before the top of the hill. The slow down in momentum for me killed my climb and I wound up having to pull off onto the shoulder. I slammed on my horn out of fury but I doubt the SUV driver realized what trouble they caused me. It took me 15 minutes of dropping my automatic car into "1st gear" and slamming the gas pedal until my hot tires melted some black ice which gained me the traction needed to gain my momentum back. I was all but 75 feet from the top of a .75 mile hill. It was really shitty, for lack of better words. That scenario was playing out all over New Jersey since 1/2 of everybody was locked indoors and the other 1/2 was "free" to act normally. Quite an odd scenario. I hope I never have to live through another storm so wicked with a fallout so near Max Max-level, as you said.

by scoggs 9y ago

clebio 9y ago

Thank you. Living in a successful metro area as I do, I'm fairly sure that the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria. It doesn't take much (a few days without potable water or gasoline, say). And yet, we're balls-to-the-wall consumer capitalism all the way, baby. A bit of planning would make months of difference.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
scoggs 9y ago
Sorry for the delayed response but: >the _entire area_ is one or two failures away from Mad Max-level hysteria That hits the nail on the head about what I was trying to say. Thank you for saying it much more succinctly! New Jersey got hit in striations of severity so while 1/2 of the state was in maximum emergency mode the other 1/2 of the populous wasn't affected what so ever. They were awake Monday morning competing with all of the folks struggling to survive except they were on their normal routine of heading to work. They acted as if everyone else experiencing trouble were inconveniencing them, also. It was really shocking to see the cognitive dissonance of that group of people during Sandy. That striation of severity was odd although not impossible to conceive. It caused a sort of suspicion that things really couldn't have been that bad for "neighbors" considering the unaffected people had no damage, no flooding, no power outages, and no felled trees in their yard or local roadways. My area, on the other hand, was an utter disaster. I was living a bit away from my parents but my first thought after securing my home was to head to my parents house and ensure they were warm and taken care of. There are about 15 different routes I could have taken to get from my area to my parents area. Two were main roads and the other ~13 were back roads and other arteries that cut through the main routes I'd usually take. It took me 9 tries to find a route that wasn't completely blocked off by fallen trees. Once I finally did find a route to make it to my destination it was, of course, the steepest route. The entire roadway was covered in a thin layer of black ice and my poor front wheel drive Honda Civic was barely gripping that ice to get me to the top. Of course it was my luck to get behind a big SUV. That SUV had no trouble climbing the hill but the real problem was that SUV's decision to brake -- for no reason at all -- before the top of the hill. The slow down in momentum for me killed my climb and I wound up having to pull off onto the shoulder. I slammed on my horn out of fury but I doubt the SUV driver realized what trouble they caused me. It took me 15 minutes of dropping my automatic car into "1st gear" and slamming the gas pedal until my hot tires melted some black ice which gained me the traction needed to gain my momentum back. I was all but 75 feet from the top of a .75 mile hill. It was really shitty, for lack of better words. That scenario was playing out all over New Jersey since 1/2 of everybody was locked indoors and the other 1/2 was "free" to act normally. Quite an odd scenario. I hope I never have to live through another storm so wicked with a fallout so near Max Max-level, as you said.