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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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When tragedy strikes others, we as humans have a natural tendency to comfort ourselves through rationalizing it. We find a way to believe that what befell the victims was to some degree self-inflicted. That way we don't have to feel as much empathy or survivor's guilt - inconvenient emotions that might otherwise stress us out.

I stand by my original thought. Anyone who is in a gas line on the third day of a storm catastrophe is an idiot who didn't prepare properly. Fortunately, they were a small group compared to the larger population.

The gasoline fueled home generator has proven to be a flawed strategy for storm survival. What a surprise . . they ran out of fuel after running their generators night and day to watch television, and then found that many of the fueling stations lacked electricity to pump more gas. They could not distinguish creature comforts from survival needs. Tough shit on them then. Shame on them for creating worse problems at the fueling stations.

Not a political statement. Just an observation. Fortunately, a number of posters contributed some good advice in response. Perhaps, you did not read their posts.

I would be amused by your diatribe except I suspect it only makes you angrier and more emotional. I feel sorry for you. Pity that.

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ORIGINAL: Kaliko

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ORIGINAL: DomMeinCT

Whomever mentioned a hand pump clearly doesn't have a deep well. ;)

I think there are a few hand pumps out there for deep wells.

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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

I forgot about freezing pipes!  Although once it is cold enough to freeze the pipes, we don't have to worry about powering the fridge, lol.

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ORIGINAL: DomMeinCT

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ORIGINAL: Kaliko

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ORIGINAL: DomMeinCT

Whomever mentioned a hand pump clearly doesn't have a deep well. ;)

I think there are a few hand pumps out there for deep wells.

Yes, they are available, but there are lots of drawbacks: You need to store and then set up hundreds of feet of hose, and then get it down to well below the water level. You may first have to pull up your regular electric pump (and all the hosing - due to room) before you can install the manual one. Breaking it down after use is a bigger bitch....that length of hose weighs a ton filled with water....you need a frame that lets you lift, drain, and wind it all, then store it. To safely use for drinking water, it's best to first flush and sanitize the hosing, all of which would have to occur with running water BEFORE a storm. Not impossible, but fairly impractical for a deep well.

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Being in line for generator fuel on the third day of the storm is gruel for social darwinian idiocy.

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users have posted 45, 50mpg real life experiences, not advertised faux experiences

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You're talking about surviving without electricity. These people are "surviving" without their homes, vehicles, clothes, jobs, money food and water,.

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ORIGINAL: nameonhold

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You're talking about surviving without electricity. These people are "surviving" without their homes, vehicles, clothes, jobs, money food and water,.

Honestly, it's moments like this that people amaze me. It still hasn't occurred to you that it would be a useful idea to live on higher ground.

Quite literally, most, not all, but most of the city of New Orleans is below sea level. Why does it come as a surprise to people that occasionally New Orleans floods ? Heck, New Orleans has only flooded 100-odd times since we bought it from Napoleon. Heck, it'll never flood again !

And heck, why would any town along the Atlantic coast flood ? That ocean is never going to flood out any of those towns. Heck, the water will go the other way. There's nothing to worry about. All those floods you hear about all the time in the newspaper, that's happening in some other ocean. Heck, the odds of the Atlantic Ocean getting up a tidal surge that would bring the ocean in land by a mile ..... is almost incalculable. Nobody with any brains at all could possibly take such a treat seriously.

And besides, it would be really too inconvenient if I couldn't walk to the beach in the summertime.

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By the way....It isn't just homes that were built on the friggin beach. We're talking about coastal states. Have any of you blow-hards actually researched any of the facts? Do any of you understand how much geographic area this storm covered? This movement was dropping something like an inch of rain per hour for 3 days. Anyone living within 10 miles of a babbling brook was subject to flooding.

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relentless rainfall

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the trees to smash into people's homes, their cars etc.

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ORIGINAL: nameonhold
Quite literally, most, not all, but most of the city of New Orleans is below sea level. Why does it come as a surprise to people that occasionally New Orleans floods ? Heck, New Orleans has only flooded 100-odd times since we bought it from Napoleon. Heck, it'll never flood again !

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ORIGINAL: nameonhold

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By the way....It isn't just homes that were built on the friggin beach. We're talking about coastal states. Have any of you blow-hards actually researched any of the facts? Do any of you understand how much geographic area this storm covered? This movement was dropping something like an inch of rain per hour for 3 days. Anyone living within 10 miles of a babbling brook was subject to flooding.

Geez Louise ! That's right ! What was I thinking ?? Babbling brooks 10 miles inland don't ever flood either !

All you people who did planning because you live near a babbling brook, or for that matter, near the Mississippi River, you wasted your time on preparedness. Those brooks and rivers don't ever overflow.

And I agree, those folks at the National Weather Service don't know their ass from their elbow. Their rainfall analysis indicated that the heaviest rainfall totals of 10.2 inches were over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The rainfall totals over 7.0 inches which occurred over land, took place near the Atlantic coast in New Jersey and South Carolina. But I know, you received an inch per hour for 3 days, which would make 72 inches. It's obvious to me that the NWS is a bunch of idiots and completely overlooked what happened where you are.

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ORIGINAL: Edwynn

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ORIGINAL: stellauk

I just find it telling that people are bickering over how people are responding to the circumstances they find themselves in.

Seven years ago almost to the day I started a period of street homelessness in Warsaw with knee deep snow and temperatures as low as minus 25 degrees. I didn't have a dollar to my name.

I spent four weeks in that situation before I managed to leave to return to the UK. The fact that seven years later today I'm posting this is down to a combination of my own survival instincts, kindness from strangers and a bit of luck.

Does it really matter how people are responding, as long as they are and they can both survive and recover from the situation?

I hear you.

The more I learn about other countries, the more I learn that along with having their own particular sense of humour, every region or society seems to have their own sense of 'drama.'

When hurricane Hugo struck, that particular hurricane was significant in that it was still at near full force more than 250 miles inland, so not a merely coastal region event, as usually should be the case.

Thirty- to one hundred and thirty-year old oak trees littered the street (Charlotte, NC, USA), everywhere. Likewise were 400-800 lb. transformers on the streets, five or six every block. No one could drive to get to the main roads for a week, if that lucky. I remember looking at the devestation and being amazed that there was only one death resulting from it, but people in the neighborhood were saying; "oh, this is so terrible, this is so terrible!" But no one was actually suffering, and nobody (but one, killed instantly, no suffering) died. I was amazed at the miracle, and all (seemingly) everybody else could do was whine and complain.

I don't even remember what I did to get through it because it was of such little consequence less than a year later, even gone by three months after the fact, certainly not worthy of memory retention now. All my nieces remember about it is me posing them aside or on top of these huge transformers and traffic lights that littered the streets and parking lots, to shoot some pictures.

Keep in mind that US news, whatever supposed political 'slant,' is all about the 'drama!,' so of course they are going to send their ferrets to sniff out the most self-perceived 'disaffected.'

Yes, a storm that stretched for over 1,000 miles, and the reporters found all the people that, on just the day after, were saying, "Why aren't they here yet? Where are they? They told us they were coming!", etc.

I know that looks pathetic, and it actually is, but all news 'reporting' is heavily edited, starting with the choice of what and whom to report and quote.

A $2.00 to $15 book on edible weeds is more valuable than a $1,750/troy ounce of gold at times like these.

But don't tell anybody that. I actually do go with the Darwinistic mantra, when it really matters.

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ORIGINAL: marie2

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ORIGINAL: nameonhold

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By the way....It isn't just homes that were built on the friggin beach. We're talking about coastal states. Have any of you blow-hards actually researched any of the facts? Do any of you understand how much geographic area this storm covered? This movement was dropping something like an inch of rain per hour for 3 days. Anyone living within 10 miles of a babbling brook was subject to flooding.

Geez Louise ! That's right ! What was I thinking ?? Babbling brooks 10 miles inland don't ever flood either !

All you people who did planning because you live near a babbling brook, or for that matter, near the Mississippi River, you wasted your time on preparedness. Those brooks and rivers don't ever overflow.

And I agree, those folks at the National Weather Service don't know their ass from their elbow. Their rainfall analysis indicated that the heaviest rainfall totals of 10.2 inches were over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The rainfall totals over 7.0 inches which occurred over land, took place near the Atlantic coast in New Jersey and South Carolina. But I know, you received an inch per hour for 3 days, which would make 72 inches. It's obvious to me that the NWS is a bunch of idiots and completely overlooked what happened where you are.

I've spent my whole life in NJ.... 44 yrs of it in Northern NJ....Bergen county to be specific; one of the worst hit counties in NJ during this storm. And no, we never had that kind of damage because of the rivers or a stream or whathaveyou. Of course we've had some flooding...but nothing ever like this where entire cars were submerged, and homes were actually torn apart by the winds and rain.

The state is a friggin national disaster area....Do you get that? Don't nitpick over the rainfall...at times it was falling that quickly, unless the news was lying to me...Either way, it rained hard enough long enough to cause 3 ft flooding in areas of NJ that have never had that. It caused tons of trees to come down. Sure trees have come done before, but not like this...not to this extent. Have you looked at the photos of some of these areas?. You just keep ignoring the facts and blaming anyone who lives near so much as a puddle of water for their own demise. Yeah, you're right, every person in every coastal state in the US should migrate to Kansas, Arizona or Nevada

Would it really kill you to sympathize with what some of these poor people are dealing with right now?

You just can't handle that. If you blame the people, then you don't have to feel badly. It's easier to be cold than to be compassionate, I suppose.

Have a good night.

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ORIGINAL: Aswad

Just some thoughts from these parts (where we don't get that level of storms inland):

A graveyard candle burns for 2.5 days and should provide enough heat to keep well insulated pipes from freezing if you put it under the inlet point. At least, that's the case at my house. The pipe will spread the heat effectively. How far down the pipe it prevents freezing will depend on how well insulated the pipe is. Since the water isn't moving, it remains a largely inert thermal mass. Such candles cost maybe one dollar apiece, and also work well as backup reading lights when the place is dark. Obviously not as useful when it's still blowing.

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Anything that needs refrigeration should be transferred to the freezer once the fridge hits 8°C (46°F) or so, and eaten before it spoils, or otherwise dumped. If it can't be eaten before it spoils (e.g. requires heating to be edible), then it should be thrown in the garbage before the storm hits, or as soon as possible after. Only keep what you can use or what will store well. Don't waste power on cooling food when you can avoid it. If you must cool the food, use dry ice sublimation to cool it in buckets or the like. Place the buckets on styrofoam cubes or the like to insulate them from the floor, and drape a blanket over a cardboard box or something to insulate against convective heating.

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- Layered wool clothing helps reduce the need for heat.
- Cover windows during the night if they're not double pane types.
- Some windows may benefit from thermally reflective trauma blankets (about five dollars per blanket?).
- Also, make some smoke and see if it moves around, as, wherever it's headed, you're losing heat; stop that.

No idea if any of that might be useful in the future, but it's what popped into my head.

IWYW,
— Aswad.