by IraRat » Sat Oct 29, 2005 9:56 am
Whew. I see that I missed a lot--but I collapsed from exhastion yesterday afternoon, was up for just a few hours, then collapsed again.
I guess the weight of the week finally caught up with me.
Didn't mean to start any tension here, and I apologize if my choice of words got some people riled up. I just think that since each storm IS so unique, and since politics IS a big part of the story, you just can't ignore it. But I'll try to be softer with my words.
So I'll continue here, and I'll go through my photos later to resize and upload them, and we'll take it from there.
First, I want to thank Mike TONS for the fantastic Budweiser metal sign that arrived here on WEDNESDAY! That was great of you, Mike--and I really needed that smile! Yes, miraculously, mail and the bills did indeed start arriving on Wednesday, and there was a liquor sales ban put into effect on TUESDAY and I had drank my last can !!!
It was sheer torture, so I started licking the sign.
Anyway, food-wise and supply-wise, we were all set to go. Problem was, I didn't yet have one of those extreme coolers, but I had a few decent ones. So ice that was in place on Sunday was just about gone by Tuesday, with no stores open by mid-day, and only 6 of the 12 Broward County FEMA ice and water distribution sites operational.
These sites are kind of a waste of time to the majority of the population, with hours-long waits, short supplies, and no way for most people to get there.
Granted, I found it pretty ridiculous how a lot of people complained about the lack of food and water just a day after the storm. For God's sake, if your roof didn't blow off and your stuff was still intact, how much stuff did you have there in the FIRST place?
A damn hurricane was coming, you idiot!
Ice--all I needed was a good daily supply of ice. And if it wasn't for "privilege," I would have been screwed:
We never lost phone service, but my wife's Wal-Mart did, where she works overnights. So I drive her there Tuesday afternoon to see if she's supposed to work that night, and lo and behold, they're open, with a line around the block. A lot of people were there who JUST remembered to buy a barbecue, to buy water, to buy food. She walks right in with her ID to get the info, buys two bags of ice, and we're cool. She works the next few nights, arriving each morning with fresh ice, so we're living large.
By the way--the store was only open from like 10AM to 6PM, because of the curfew. She worked nights to help stock supplies coming in from Wal-Mart trucks.
So lesson one:
The heck with FEMA trying to distribute this stuff. The government should contract with omni-present Wal-Mart to handle this task from now on. They have thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers, and warehouses and warehouses of food and other stuffs throughout the country.
In other words, leave this to the PROFESSIONALS. Reach some kind of an agreement with them, pay the price, and be done with it. To have only 12 distribution centers in a county the size of mine is absurd, and there must be at least 20 Wal-Marts here. they could also have set up 50 ice trucks in parks to distribute it.
Next, do not ever, EVER suspend liquor sales!!! Who the hell do you think you ARE!? (Tony, I'm now yelling at the liberal Democrats in charge here.) I'm stuck in this house for 5 days without power, with the wife and kids, and you expect me to do this SOBER, without killing anyone!?
Furthermore, and I say this loudly to all of the authorities:
When someone loses power and has to rely on generators, generators need GASOLINE. But if the gas stations can only pump when THEY have power, and they DON'T have the generators or kind of systems that allow generator use, no one can get the gas to use their generators!!!
Duh.
A federal law should be passed requiring every gas station in the country to have back-up power. This country needs its juice, and any interruption to that current, be it by natural disaster or terrorism, leaves us incredibly vulnerable. Mind you, there was plenty of gas here--there was just no way to get it from the pump!
I don't have a generator, but if I DID, I would have used it a few hours a day, with an icemaker, just to make ice to keep those food stuffs in the cooler fresh. (No need to run it 24/7 for the entire fridge.) As it was, every night at about 8PM, I would hook up my DC-AC inverter to my truck, plug in the TV and DVD player, and we would watch a few movies.
This helped retain our sanity more than anything else. (I wanted to make the kids popcorn with the microwave, but I didn't think my 700W peak inverter would handle it with our large microwave.)
So there were some good lessons learned here. As far as cooking, no problem--camp stove, plenty of propane, and in conjunction with the barbecue, I didn't even go through ONE of those little cans.
And another instance about "privilege":
One of my neighbors is a manager at the Whole Foods Market, and on Tuesday night he brought over filet mignon, prime rib RIBS (had never even heard of that as a special cut before), shrimp and lobster tails. So as you can see, we didn't starve at all, and we didn't even touch our canned goods the entire week.
We were VERY lucky, but 99.99999% of people weren't. We also consider ourselves lucky that we got our power back already, but two blocks over and blocks and blocks nearby are still out. (My office in Boca may be out until mid-NOVEMBER, and although I was frustrated, I knew Florida Power and Light was doing their best.)
In concusion, I'll say that I waited 4 hours for gas yesterday. They ran out after 3 hours, we were told another truck was coming so I kept waiting, then we were told it WASN'T coming.
And the manager called the police to chase me and a few other die-hards away who simply didn't want to give up. Today, I try again. My mom's power is still out in Delray Beach, her supply situation is awful, and I want to get some fresh stuff up to her, so I need the gas.
And she's not alone--there are still a lot of people hurting here, physically and emotionally.
Catch you all later!
--Ira
"My HD and Wal-Mart have been out of Titebond for weeks, and I think it's a communist conspiracy."
