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2004 was a good year for strange hurricane paths
Sounds like she called in the overnight hours, and the police couldn't find her due to conditions:
NBC Philadelphia
It sounds cruel, but it seems like the senior citzen had a bit more common sense and wits about him than the 20-year old did.
More to the point, before she retired my step-mother (who lives on the upper east side) never did -- like many in her circle she ate out most of the time.
And I never have any bottled water. I don't buy the stuff normally. But it's a good idea to lay in some in these cases.
#398 72 hours is the typical length of time that you can expect to have to fend for yourself in a major disaster. And since anything in a 72 hour kit can be used for other things, it's not a big deal.
If anybody's interested, here's the government of Canada's Emergency Guide
Most of us will never need an emergency kit, but it's the cheapest possible insurance to my mind, since as I said anything in it can be used at other times.
I don't. If push came to shove I could probably make it 48 hours without going hungry, but after that I would be down to the dregs. What's the point of keeping a lot of food lying around?
This is like the best news I've heard about the storm all weekend.
How about if there was a way to suspend shipments in, so the only food available was the stuff already there.
How long do you think 3 million people could survive then?
edit: Also, the early damage estimate was up to 7 billion dollars... that's a lot of scratch for a "dud" storm, we seem to have gotten off pretty lucky overall considering what could have been.
These scenarios are ridiculous.
We don't have natural disasters where I live but I guess if we did I'd probably stock up on some canned food or something.
Edit: I guess that's not true. We have fires. If a fire is comin' I'm not hanging around...
Yeah the absolute disaster scenario (needing bleach to purify drinking water etc) was beyond improbable. As I said though, it's not like it costs anything to be prepared.
Yeah, I rarely have more than 2 day's food. Friday was the first time in years my girl and I went grocery shopping together and that was kind of fun. It was the most food we've probably ever bought at one time and when I got home I realized we had enough for 2 and a half days. It seemed like a lot, though.
How could that be? All there was was a few drops of rain and a slight breeze!
The point is, who cares why they rushed out to get it. Unless I've totally misread the situation. Were there stampedes to the grocery store with multiple deaths by trampling? It seemed like a reasonable weekend to make sure you had a back-up plan. If it turns out you didn't need it, now you can just eat the food like a normal person, and have some spare batteries lying around. It's win-win. What exactly is the loss here? The feeling that you've somehow immasculated yourself by being duped into playing it safe?
I get the network sensationalization complaint, but ######## about people putting together 72 hour survival kits just baffles me.
My neighbor has a whole-house generator. Which is great, and he let me put some ice packs in his fridge. But it's loud as all get out, and right under my bedroom window.
Tonight, I plan on grilling some canned corned beef hash.
The scenario in which a quarantine is placed on total azzholes?
Well, "people" make is seem like a lot of people are complaining when it's really like 2.
Another thing: for those who have kids, I'm guessing you're trying not just to have stuff on hand that you *can* eat, but stuff that they *want* to eat so as not to have kids even crankier than they may otherwise be cooped up with many of their usual diversions not available.
The hysteria is a politician's wet dream; someone like Bloomberg gets to don the duds of the common man and get hours of free publicity in front of a captive and vulnerable audience, raise hysteria, then appear "competent" when the storm isn't as bad as he let on. When you've got them scrambling around for food and batteries, tell them Monday morning's commute looks like it's going to be bad, then they'll credit you when it isn't.
For all the "liberal media" stuff you hear, you don't hear enough about the implicit pro-government bias that inheres in events like the weekend's.
I have to agree that Ray's scenario of having "weeks" of non-perishible food on hand sounds very unusual. I'm in a house with five "adults" and there's just no way. Maybe 48 hours. But most of our food is in the fridge or freezer.
If people really do have "weeks" of non-perishible food and yet went running out to stock up before the storm, then those people are kind of dumb (or clueless as to their current inventory). But for everyone else, stocking up on food and batteries seems sensible, and yes, you're going to use the stuff anyway, so why not?
SBB: here in Chicago, politicians know that the worst thing you can do is seem unprepared for a natural disaster. Ask Jane Byrne, who lost an election in part because she appeared totally unprepared for a huge blizzard that shut the city down.
Richie was always very careful: no matter the city's budget woes, he got the goddamned plows and salt trucks out in plenty of time to handle any snowstorm.
We do get tornados though. And these pseudo-tornados they now call "gustnados." Had one of those ####### pass right through my back yard, on it's way to my neighbor's house to rip off his chimney.
One of these days I am moving back to San Diego.
As for "weeks of food" on hand, I've got a cabinet above the sink of random canned goods and jars and such I've picked up over the years (that I almost never use). Soup, beans, tuna, etc., and then you get to the chips and other things. And with a gas stove I can get it going even in a power outage, so that picks up the boxes of rice/pasta/etc. This isn't "survival food," just food that ended up in one of my cabinets. And every house I've ever been into and happened to notice has a pantry filled with this stuff.
Then you get to the fact that even if you lose power, the fridge and freezer will keep for a while. So you've got access to whatever's in there for at least a day.
I still say most people can last 3 days with whatever the hell is in their house. And, again, the idea that even in a power outage they will have ZERO access to outside food seems fantastical.
Ray, I don't get this sense at all. Even with the Bloomberg whipped hysteria, only half the people in low-lying evacuation areas evacuated. My impression was people were expectant but generally relaxed. The city has to take the lead from the forecasts they get from the NWS and those forecasts were pretty bad. Connecticut got the hell knocked out of it so we should just consider ourselves lucky instead of mocking the city for being prepared. It was only 6 months ago everyone in the city was griping because the city didn't handle a snowstorm as quickly as they "should" have.
Yeah, you'll cling to that idea, and generalize based on your own experience, for another several hundred posts.
I don't understand your beef. If people heeded Bloomberg's suggestion, did an inventory check, realized they didn't have batteries or enough food for 72 hours, then went out and bought batteries and food, where's the harm?
With kitchen/storage space in NYC being what it is, a lot of people there don't have the food on-hand that people in other parts of the country do. I moved away from NYC 2 years ago, and my wife and I still shop like we did when we lived in New York-- small trips to the grocery store a few times a week-- even though we have a lot of cabinet space and a car to haul our food in.
I think people in NYC were fortunate not to get hit harder than they did. But a lot of people in the northeast got hit harder than they expected to. Where my family lives in upstate NY, businesses and homes got flooded, major roads were and are shut down, ect. But Ray is someone who has always confused good fortune with personal accomplishment.
That said, I just took a survey. Three boxes of Cheerios and one of Kix, half a jar of peanut butter, sixteen fresh flour tortillas, a tub of leftover kheema, four ounces of good Cheddar, a knob of liverwurst, some honey, some jam, and (I feel like Groucho Marx) two hard-boiled eggs. Given that I could stand to lose a little weight anyway, I think that La Dernière and I are OK for 72.
Because it causes hysterical runs on products, unnecessarily depleting them from store shelves.
Manhattan shops and stores should not be devoid of batteries and various foodstuffs.
You know that stuff goes bad, don't you? If it's really been there for "years", I wouldn't risk eating any of it.
Heh. The only thing we were fully stocked on was chocolate and scotch. And the supply of scotch was iffy as most of it is single cask stuff I'm saving for special occasions. D batteries were not an issue, though. I've got this cool headlamp that runs on AAA batteries. Love that thing.
Manhattan shops and stores should not be devoid of batteries and various foodstuffs.
But the runs weren't hysterical, unless people were stocking up for several weeks. Facing a storm that's threatening to knock out power (and did knock out power, for a lot of people, just not in NYC), it's rational to have batteries and food on-hand.
And I don't get the dictum in the second sentence of your post.
Where does "several weeks" as the demarcation betweeen rational and hysterical come from? Runs are almost by definition "hysterical."
People shouldn't be hoarding products for no reason, and politicians shouldn't be encouraging them to. There's almost no realistic scenario short of all-out war in which water and batteries wouldn't be available for 72 hours; the city would have to be practically under siege.
No, no -- let's encourage Ray to chow down on nothing else for the next 3 days, then give us a report.
I agree. Three days with what's in my cupboards is going to be no fun, but really easy. A couple boxes of cereal, a box of crackers, a bag of chips, a couple cans of veggies and soup and tuna, a loaf of bread, some tortillas, PB, honey, jelly, cheese, a few granola bars, a hand full of hardy fruit and veggies (apples, bananas, carrots), and a (cumulative) case of pop & beer for some variety. Add in eating whatever I can gnaw on or grill as it thaws from the freezer, my family of 3 couple eat for a week with no power (or natural gas) with few problems. I'd probably run out of toilet paper before food. I don't have the pantry of a hoarder or survivalist, do I? Do people really not even half that much stuff in their houses?
Yes. That's why I said above that people were almost envisioning Castaway scenarios. (See Ray James's #407.) Even with 9/11, IIRC, there was a single day's disruption, and then it was back to opened stores.
People simply weren't going to end up barracaded in their apartments for days, completely secluded from any contact with the outside world (neighbors, stores, etc.). Yet, that's what people were preparing for.
What were people on the upper west side of Manhattan raiding the stores for? It was utterly illogical and panic-driven. And to be "panic-driven" doesn't mean they had to be breaking down store windows to get inside; all they had to be doing was to be stockpiling ####### items they didn't need. I went for a leisurely trip to my grocery store last night, and many of the shelves were bare. Not a single loaf of bread in the place. So I couldn't buy a loaf of bread per normal because I live amongst morons.
That was Mike Bilandic, defeated by Byrne.
-200 Gracie? The lowest temp ever recorded in the US combined with the highest wind speed ever recorded wouldn't get you to -200. Probably more like 60-80 below, which is plenty cold enough.
I had the opposite problem this weekend. I ordered groceries to be delivered on Saturday (since I don't have a car). They arrived, and I unpacked them. Then I looked in the fridge for something to eat, and couldn't identify a single thing I wanted to eat. Bizarre experience. I mean, I know Peapod is more expensive than the brick & mortar, but c'mon.
Also, Irene's killed at least 22 so far, which is the same number of dead from Hurricane Andrew. ABC is saying property damage alone is between 7-13 billion dollars. This was a major storm, if only because of the size of the area affected, and it killed over a score of people and did a shitload of damage. Pretending it didn't so you can rap the media for being hyperbolic is a dick move.
Yes, blame your neighbors for buying bread before you. They're clearly the morons.
In New York there are people with no more than a bottle of ketchup in their refrigerators. Before I moved in with my girl I never kept food in my apartment. I just grabbed slices or ate at the diner or an Asian (Thai, Chinese, Japanese) place.
Having enough drinking water available is a far, far more serious issue than the "risk" of starving to death in your home over a span of 72 hours.
beer for some variety
Hmmn, I've got six bottles of wine, and about 200 ml of good vodka. That will last 72 hours at a cultured rate of consumption. I also have two full 750s of gin and three 12-oz. bottles of something called Woodchuck Raspberry Cider – one thanks to my partner and the other thanks to her daughter's boyfriend. I'm going to have to get way beyond the talking-to-volleyballs stage before I break into either of those.
It's not that they'd be unavailable, it's that getting to them might be difficult.
This seems to be complaining just for the sake of complaining. And ignoring that, while the Worst Case Scenario didn't happen for NYC, a scenario much worse than what was predicted did happen for a lot of people.
I live in Charleston, and people were in full-on "there's going to be a serious hurricane" mode a week ago; Home Depot and Lowes were pretty crazy, and people were preparing hurricane kits. Campus shut down early Friday, they shuddered all the windows, asked us to take our laptops home, and covered all of the remaining computer gear in trash bags. We got next to nothing. But no one is complaining this week that they bought too much food and bottled water or freaked unnecessarily-- we look a state north and feel lucky that it wasn't worse. Why is that concept so difficult?
and
So, according to Ray, even if the worst happened, people would still be able to get out and go shopping for food. But the best happened, Ray went shopping, and there was nothing to buy.
My point earlier, about Manhattan being an island, was not that people would be trapped in their homes, but that they would be trapped on an island. Yeah, there was little chance of that happening, just like there was little chance people would be trapped in the Superdome for a week. Why take that chance, however small? What's the reward in this risk-reward scenario? Feeling superior to everyone else? What if storm surge wiped out the bridges and flooded the tunnels?
Not in NYC, the city Michael Bloomberg serves as mayor.
Before I moved in with my girl I never kept food in my apartment. I just grabbed slices or ate at the diner or an Asian (Thai, Chinese, Japanese) place.
We effectively lease space in their refrigerators -- a great way to live.
I've seen Seinfeld....I know New Yorkers have cereal (and pretzels and chips).
OMG TEH HORROR!!
Maybe if you had bought a loaf of bread on Friday (to eat on Sunday!) you'd be OK. I'm still acclimating to life in the coastal south, but it's pretty much expected that staples go into short supply during hurricane threats. Maybe if you weren't a moron you could've come to terms with this and not suffered such a minor inconvenience.
No.
But that was only because New Yorkers weren't logical and rational, and didn't let loaves of bread go to the highest bidders. They let their sentimental emotions get the best of them.
My point earlier, about Manhattan being an island, was not that people would be trapped in their homes, but that they would be trapped on an island. Yeah, there was little chance of that happening, just like there was little chance people would be trapped in the Superdome for a week. Why take that chance, however small? What's the reward in this risk-reward scenario? Feeling superior to everyone else? What if storm surge wiped out the bridges and flooded the tunnels?
But since that didn't happen, therefore there's no chance that it could have happened. Q.E.D. and duh squared.
Agreed. The only prep items I bought were bottled water.
Ketchup in the refrigerator? Why?
No.
You have a very tiny imagination. Fortunately, the people who plan for and manage these situations don't.
I'm still not sure why you're complaining, other than your inability to get a loaf of bread when you're used to doing so. People over-prepared for a situation that did not come to pass.
The media's coverage of it was a touch annoying. Always funny how overblown things get when it has the potential to affect !New York! I remember a number of years ago there was wall-to-wall coverage because New York ... lost power. Okay? We lose power all the time, so what...
Of course, it's also easy enough to ignore.
Ray can speak for himself, but no one should ever be happy with hysteria and runs on products. It allocates resources ineffectively and generally reflects poorly on us.
There was no realistic scenario under which Manhattan would be unsuppliable for 72 hours -- unless a Cat 1 hurricane can cause such a thing, in which case our problems run deeper than a brief bout of hysteria.
But since that didn't happen, therefore there's no chance that it could have happened. Q.E.D. and duh squared.
The New York City subway shut down for the first time in its history at noon Saturday. That's ridiculous on its face.
For french fries. If you get a takeout sandwich/burger from the diner it always comes with fries. I don't like those little ketchup packs they give you. It's never enough and by the time you finish fighting with them the fries are cold.
Pretty balanced overall.
I read this as "why do you put ketchup in the fridge?"
Definitely agree there. It was tough to get information that was actually useful because they kept insisting on showing reporters in the rain. My sister was stuck at a crowded hotel in a power-less North Carolina town and we had no idea she couldn't get out due to I-95 being flooded.
But annoying media coverage isn't unique to hurricanes.
That's where I keep all my condiments after I open them. Other people don't do this?
My pantrt consists of a jar peanut butter, a jar of honey, 3 boxes of pasta, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, a pound of sugar, tobasco sauce, maple and brown sugar oatmeal, popcorn, and wortceshire sauce. My fridge/freezer has about 40 bottles of liquor and alcohol, two bottles of water, mustard, ketchup, a jar of tomato sauce, mayonnaise, grenadine, and butter.
In terms of advance prep for the storm I cooked some extra pasta off on Friday.
It has never occurred to me to keep ketchup in the fridge. I don't know how many people do...but to me Mayo has always gone in the fridge and Ketchup in the cupboard. Huh...
I feel like I've discovered a new tribe of people. I wonder if this is how Livingstone felt.
How else would you know if the refrigerator was working right if you didn't have anything at all in it? Ketchup won't spoil, so it's safe to leave it unused in the refrigerator for decades at a time. If it's cold, the refrigerator is working. If it's warm, it's not. Either way, the ketchup is fine. That's the only explanation that seems to fit this strange band of "New Yorkers".
Primey. I actually laughed aloud.
edit: Wait, people leave opened ketchup outside of the fridge? What sort of bizzaro world are you from? The one adjacent to the one where people call ketchup catsup?
Edit: Sorry, freedom fries.
Incidentally, if you lose power all the time, it might be time to move.
The one where we don't refrigerate things that don't need to be refrigerated? Do you put your uncooked pasta in the fridge too?
I don't know, man, I like ketchup!
Oh no.
Again, runs on products happened everywhere the storm was threatening. It's one of those things that happens when people get ready to deal with a hurricane. There was no bottled water to be had around here as of Thursday.
The New York City subway shut down for the first time in its history at noon Saturday. That's ridiculous on its face.
Not from what I've read. NYC really got lucky. The rest of the state didn't.
What luck? The storm turned out to be, in the immortal words of Dennis Green, "exactly what we thought" it was.
It hit NYC at the Cat 1/Tropical Storm demarcation line, as expected for days; it hit right about when and where it was projected for days to hit. I suppose it didn't linger quite as long as first projected, but there's no way that's the difference between a catastrophe and the complete nothingburger it was.
The people who couldn't survive for 72 hours on what's lying around the house don't have much lying around the house.
Water is the big need. If you can drain it from your water heater, you'll survive. The wife likes sparkling water, so we usually have a ton of it bought on sale. We also have a lake right here, and I keep meaning to get a simple water purifying gizmo and/or tablets as more backup.
I was a lot more aware of this right after I took a CERT course. Back then, I stocked up on canned goods a bit, now I will look to see what we have and add to them.
A hand-crank radio and flashlight are handy, too. The dog, he has enough dry food to last until the Rapture.
No. And, again, that doesn't explain the people in utterly flood-proof areas of the city, like the upper west side of Manhattan, stocking up.
This doesn't really apply to NYC, either. My girl filled up all our pots and a couple of empty Snapple bottles I had lying around, though! I'll tell you, water from a Snapple bottle tastes terrible for some reason.
And I'll echo DP here: The downside on "runs" on products is the average person being inconvenienced for a few days due to lack of those products. So?
On the positive side, you could probably set a market for D-sized batteries in Manhattan now, if you want to.
edit: You know, thinking of Manhattan and batteries makes me think about how the Ipod has killed the business of Asian women walking through subways selling batteries for Walkmen.
Ketchup will most assuredly spoil. Always be careful of the outdoor dining restaurants that leave their ketchup outside during the day.
What luck?
Just because the storm followed the revised projections doesn't mean you weren't lucky it did so.
I suppose it didn't linger quite as long as first projected, but there's no way that's the difference between a catastrophe and the complete nothingburger it was.
Look to the north.
It moved over NYC quickly. If it hadn't, the extra rain would have made a big difference-- from what I understand that was the fear all along-- not the Weather Channel/CNN fear, but the fears of people who get paid to worry about this stuff.
No. And, again, that doesn't explain the people in utterly flood-proof areas of the city, like the upper west side of Manhattan, stocking up.
People don't act 100% rationally in the face of an uncertain situation. This is news to you? It's better to be over-prepared for a disaster than under-prepared.
And other than SBB's ludicrous "runs on products are inherently bad" premise and your "I couldn't get a loaf of bread on Sunday!", I still don't know what the problem is.
I would imagine netflix and streaming movies in general is going to kill that business, too.
Right. It rained and blew at hurricane levels all through the night, and much of the early morning, but if only it had rained another half hour, all the tunnels would have flooded, every bridge would have collapsed, and Manhattan would have been cut off from civilization for at least two weeks, maybe -- after all, who really knows? -- forever.
Which leads to another point: if businesses try to jack up the prices of their goods and services, they'll be threatened with charges of "gouging":
And here's an article bemoaning a Brooklyn hotel's jacking up its room rates:
Because lord knows business owners don't see their costs increase during a crisis, and, beyond that, we shouldn't let actual market forces set the prices.
Well, I'm not giving you any of mine, dead beat.
No flashlight?
You just don't get how badly Ray wanted a sandwich.
I live in a one bedroom apartment, what in the world am I going to need a flashlight for? And what kind of trouble am I going to run into that requires me to have replacement batteries at the ready for my flashlight?
Don't most -- all? -- remote controls run on batteries? I guess it's possible to live without 'em (I mean, I'm the guy who won't get a cell phone of any variety ...), but I don't think most of the functions on my DVD player or CD recorder would work without their respective remotes, for instance. Maybe McCoy is living a live of self-reliance that would turn Thoreau green with envy, though, which I have to say would be pretty admirable.
OK, now you're just using this thread for free-association whining.
Yeah, because no shopkeeper should be heard to complain if his inventory gets picked clean by a politician-induced run.
You monster.
That's all he ever does.
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