Can’t leave this alone

The ongoing mess created by hurricane Sandy confirms a number of things I’ve been saying for years now. Of course, the big one is to get the heck out of big cities. For me, that means don’t live in one. Other people like cities. Good for them. Don’t like them so much that you don’t leave when trouble’s coming.

Imagine how much of a mess things would be should an unforeseen disaster happen? People had plenty of warning. It would have been worse if they didn’t. Look at the boatlift that took people off Manhattan Island during 911. When the towers came down, that was actually a very limited area of disaster. Horrific for the people there, but in reality a tiny geographical area.

Don’t depend on government to save you. I could not believe that cops are being assigned to help out with a marathon when there are still looters in the streets. The NY National Guard almost was sent to an exercise in Missouri, even though they knew the storm was coming. It was only at the last minute that they were assigned to the real disaster. That’s just a sampling. I could go on.

Connecticut closed the Interstate highways. So much for bugging out at the last minute. If that’s your plan, leave early. A good road atlas is worth its weight in gold. Don’t rely on a GPS that assumes the roads are all open. Be aware of choke points like bridges and mountain passes. Knowing the back roads doesn’t do much good of you can’t cross major rivers or get to the other side of the mountains.

Some people had generators. Some of those generators worked. Often people die because they don’t vent them properly. A noisy generator tells people you have power and probably other supplies too. Most people with generators run out of fuel to run them in a day or two. Refueling can be difficult or impossible.

People have to provide their own security. New York and New Jersey have very strict gun laws. That doesn’t seem to have hampered the criminals much. Nice for them that most of their victims are unarmed.

How many people lack basic tools and materials to do repairs? How many people don’t know how to fix things. Being able to secure a good tarp over missing roof shingles will save thousands of dollars of damage.

I thought I was don’t writing about Sandy, but I can’t. I have to point and say, “There, I told you so!”

I really hope people learn from these things, hopefully with as little suffering as possible.

With any luck I’m done venting about this. It’s hard when hugely stupid things keep coming to light.

-Sixbears