4 ms·

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

by 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 clebio 9y ago

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.