Winter Storm Threatens East Coast? Batten Down the Hatches

[Andromeda]

Just saw part of the news conference announcing that the city of New York is now rationing gasoline. Bloomberg said, "we have to do something and this is something. Doing something is better than doing nothing." Fascinating.

The things that come out of that guy's mouth...

 

[meta-agnostic]

Just saw part of the news conference announcing that the city of New York is now rationing gasoline. Bloomberg said, "we have to do something and this is something. Doing something is better than doing nothing." Fascinating.

He copied the even/odd days based on even/odd license plates thing from New Jersey/Christie which has been doing it since last week. Seems like just another way to exert control and Bloomberg said, "Hey, we should do that over here, too!"

Also, supposedly New Jersey's gasoline refineries were crippled by the storm which is a major cause of the shortage along with enduring power outages. Don't have a link as this is based on word-of-mouth but I will look for one. My source said this reason appears to be blacked out in the MSM so as not to cause panic.

Me too I am very sorry with all this tempest and for all you had to live under Sandy. I am sorry to have believed that Sandy was not so terrible. I thought that Sandy was exaggerated, hipped. I can see, thanks to the members here that suffered this hurricane, that I was wrong. And now with this tempest... You are in my thoughts.

Thanks loreta. I also feel a little remorseful. I wasn't directly physically affected and I had all my preps in place, so I noticed myself getting a little smug and complacent and even lazy during the storm itself. But after a week which seemed more like a month I can say everyone is profoundly affected by it. At a hardware store today, quite a few items were picked clean and it wasn't even in the City proper. Gas lines abound everywhere and I'm not sure even/odd rationing is going to be of any help in that regard. This is certainly New York's Katrina, without as big a body count but with at least as many people affected in long-term ways.


edit: Actually I believe NY governor Andrew Cuomo is just as much involved in the gas rationing as Bloomberg, as it is not just NYC but surrounding counties as well.

 

[seek10]

Just saw part of the news conference announcing that the city of New York is now rationing gasoline. Bloomberg said, "we have to do something and this is something. Doing something is better than doing nothing." Fascinating.

He copied the even/odd days based on even/odd license plates thing from New Jersey/Christie which has been doing it since last week. Seems like just another way to exert control and Bloomberg said, "Hey, we should do that over here, too!"

Also, supposedly New Jersey's gasoline refineries were crippled by the storm which is a major cause of the shortage along with enduring power outages. Don't have a link as this is based on word-of-mouth but I will look for one. My source said this reason appears to be blacked out in the MSM so as not to cause panic.

Based on my observation on the street , after this odd/even rationing , the traffic jams due to long lines came down drastically and I haven't heard the complaints ( on radio from callers) of people who are stuck. I have seen the cars with odd numbers on even days, though I am not sure whether they got the gas or not. If they got the gas, it may be "avoid if you" can type thing.

Sickening part of this episode is 'Helping' part is centralized to Red cross and FEMA. Media and state gov. promote these 2 organizations only. I wonder what help red cross did in this crisis, other than opening some shelters. FEMA doesn't even want to help people during Nor'easter , despite getting all donations and money from federal gov.

 

[meta-agnostic]

I managed to find this via startpage.com, the google alternative:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/two-east-coast-refineries-still-idled-after-sandy-2012-11-05

Two East Coast refineries still idled after Sandy
Nov. 5, 2012, 10:33 a.m. EST
By Claudia Assis

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A week after Hurricane Sandy made landfall, two refineries in New Jersey are still idled, keeping off line about a third of the East Coast's gasoline-production capacity. Phillps 66's PSX -0.93% Bayway refinery in Linden N.J. has power but remains "temporarily shut down" as the clean-up and equipment assessment continued, the company said in its latest statement on Saturday. A decision about when the 238,000-barrels-a-day refinery will resume operations will be made after such assessments, it added. Sources cited by Reuters said Bayway may be weeks from operation. Hess Corp.'s HES -1.73% Port Reading, N.J. 70,000-barrels-a-day refinery is also shut down, according to the Department of Energy. Philadelphia Energy Solutions 335,000-barrels-a-day refinery is operating at reduced capacity, and three smaller plants in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are running normally. On the retail side, the DOE's Energy Information Administration reported Sunday 27% of the gas stations in New York City's metropolitan area do not have gasoline available for sale, down from 38% on Saturday.

I don't know where they got that 27%, but I swear I heard on the radio today that only 1/4 in the actual city (5 boroughs I mean) had gas, or had the power to pump it. And most of the articles that came up in the search were about the refineries being shut down before Sandy and dated during the days of the storm. There could be something to the suppression of this info to avoid panic.

Also, as far as external considering and strategic enclosure and whatnot, the events of the past week have really brought things home. Even if you are prepared, you have to be prepared for everyone around you who is not prepared one way or another. I may have outed myself as a prepper beyond proper discretion in the last few days, although I'm not as worried about it as many of those 3D survivalist nutjobs are. You have to balance but it becomes hard to keep quite when these subjects are coming up right in front of you. I gave away some batteries yesterday because they were old but still good and I wanted them to just go ahead and get used rather than go to waste but now I'm wondering if it wasn't a mistake. I want to help as much as I can but there is no major damage near me and it looks like I'll be putting in some hours with work-related (as in bill-paying work) recovering help for a while to come. STO giving to STO is or as close as we can get is the goal, but maybe this whole area has outwardly become one big frequency fence energy suck?

seek10: yeah, I don't know maybe the gas rationing isn't the worst idea. There are certainly idiots panicking and filling up even when they don't need to, and I have to wonder how much gas they waste in the process. I haven't had to get gas yet and I'm hoping I can avoid the chaos but it doesn't seem to be letting up.

FEMA seems like a nightmare to deal with, never mind the supposed camps and coffins they have lined up for us. ;D Lots of registering and filling out forms and maybe you'll get reimbursed quickly if you're well connected enough. Seems like it would make more sense to give the money to a more local agency to figure out how to distribute.

 

[Mountain Crown]

Heavy snow here in Brooklyn.

Last night I had to walk a couple of miles in the blizzard to get home because the only train running anywhere near my neighborhood had track signal problems and couldn't go any further. Goes to show how quickly Nature can overcome our infrastructure.

 

[Zadius Sky]

quote from Supri yanoel:

I have been researching and looking at all the possible choices for I year and a half now. And there are lots of possibilities. The house has been up now for a few months and was up for a short time before that. I get opinions and ideas from many because I am always asking, which I appreciate. My idea was to, after the sale, rent a nearby place and actually visit the few places I had chosen. One of those places is Charlotte or Raleigh N.C. For various reasons it seems to make better sense than some others.

You may want to look into this before you buy property or move to North or South Carolina:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/02/2878205/nc-gov-perdue-vetoes-fracking.html

which sounds promising until you read this:

http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/07/the-crazy-late-night-vote-that-legalized-fracking-in-north-carolina.html

If you do choose to move to North or South Carolina, you may want to factor in this information before you do move
so you're fully cognizant of and prepared for what you might be getting yourself into.

I've found it interesting in the second link above where it said:

Late at night, the N.C. House was trying to override a veto Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue had used to block a bill that would give the green light to fracking. The Republican leadership needed 72 votes -- exactly the number they ended up getting.

One of those votes came from Rep. Becky Carney, a Democrat from Mecklenburg County. Carney had voted against fracking in the past, and had spent the day lobbying Democrats to uphold the veto. But when it came time to vote, she pushed the wrong button.

She said her "yes" vote was "very accidental." She immediately went up to talk to Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis about changing her vote, but he wouldn't recognize her.

Another surprising vote came from Rep. Susi Hamilton, a Democrat from coastal New Hanover county. Hamilton had been recognized by the League of Conservation Voters as a 2012 "Rising Star." She had also co-authored a letter to Gov. Perdue asking her to veto the fracking legislation.

But Hamilton voted in favor of overriding the governor's fracking veto -- and later recanted on her letter to the governor, saying she "did not read the letter before it was released."

Understanding how easily we can be under control of some outside "influences," I think the above is a good example. Surely, someone wants this fracking to happen in NC.

North Carolina has no history of oil or gas discovery - this makes me wonder if Carolina Bays (as resulted from cometary impacts) could hold some oil pockets that PTB wants to drill into and profit from?

 

[Divide by Zero]

As seek10 has seen, in the NYC outlying areas, gas rationing is helping. Lines are not ridiculous now...
Still, it is quite absurd that a week after the hurricane, there still is no catching up on deliveries. Maybe this rationing will slow down the irrational fear buying, like topping off as stated before.

The one big problem that I am hearing from co workers is that Long Island has the worst outages, some of which got worse by the snow. They have a State owned utility, LIPA, which came about after the private company, LILCO failed for many years.

However, this LIPA, contracts out the labor and management of the electrical system to a company, National Grid (PSEG in 2013), which to me is ridiculous. Whats the point of having the state take over it and then hand over the management contract to a private, for-profit entity?

 

[seek10]

Another consistent complaint is about blocked out hard hit coastal areas to the property owners. It has been 2 weeks , people haven't seen their houses and they blocked it with out proper reason for 10 days. Last couple of days they are allowing people in state assigned buses for 3 or 4 hours etc. The delayed reasoning for this is there is no roads, houses are on the roads, sink holes popped up etc. But why delay in explaining it ?. I hope this is not a preparation for disaster capitalism vultures.

 

[webglider]

I'm on the coop board in my building and yesterday after meeting prospective buyers, I brought up the idea of forming a committee among the people in the building to prepare for the next disaster to which the rest of the members of the board agreed.

My plan is first of all is to announce this undertaking at our General Shareholders' Meeting next week. At that time I will present my case for forming this committee and ask for volunteers to form a safety committee.

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Each floor should have two floor monitors who have the contact info for each resident or family on their floor. In
case of emergency, they will knock on people's doors to see if everyone in each apartment is okay.
2. The board will contact companies that provide shutters that people may wish to buy to protect their windows from
blowing out if there is another serious natural event. I would advocate that the building buy such shutters for the
windows of at least two floors so that the hallways could be used for shelter if the windows in the apartments
break.
3. I would suggest that the building store batteries, candles and food etc. This could be a building wide effort in which
each apartment would contribute what they could.
4. I would ask those residents who have medical training to identify themselves and ask if they could possibly train
others in the building about how to administer first aid.


I probably won't present all of these ideas on my list - probably only one or two. I find that people don't own a project
unless they have a say in how it is to be undertaken.

I would also like to start a block association so that everyone who lives on our block also looks out for one another.
One of my neighbors has been doing this for years and he knows everyone on our block. I'll run my idea past him and
see what he says.

I also think that we need to petition the city to replace the pipes that run under the street. During heavy rains the rain water and waste water from the toilets flow into one pipe and overwhelm the system. We need a bifurcated pipe which would channel some water to the waste water treatment plant and the rest to another facility the title of which I do not know.

A lot of research needs to be done, as I have only a general idea and I need to be more specific.. I hope I can make a good enough case to pull this off. If anyone has any other ideas for this project, I'd really appreciate if you'd share them with me.

 

[supriyanoel]

I n Staten Island we on still waiting on lines for gas, There aren't any odd or even days and I waited about 30 min.The Pele went above and beyond donating, and the main thing we are looking for is plastic chairs, cleaning products bags etc. So much clothing that I,ve seen being given out. This weekend is major cleanup inside homes and designated areas are posted in the local paper to volunteer. But people have stepped up to the plate in a big way for now. This however will take time and consistant volunteering. The obits were many, but certainly not conclusive. I saw many Mexican families left bereft, and no Mexican obits.My friend in Matawan N.J. just reported that everone in her area was homeless except her and one other. Many of the homes looked together on the outside, only completely gutted in the inside. She feels its very odd that she has been spared, however her foundation is very different than any of the others and this is what saved her. Still damaged but not gutted. They had $4O,OOO with the last hurricane Irene.This time strangely enough not as bad. They also prepared by moving the heating unit out in time, which is costly. She is also my real estate agent and she remarked that the word out there about real estate in the Staten Island area is that it is going to be better, although she thought the opposite, as did I. We'll have to see about that to believe it.This is what the agents are hearing, maybe due to people needing new homes. It sounds bogus to me.Its also interesting that at work, and I work in big fitness centers, it is hardly packed. More like a ghostown. Many are still without electric in areas away from the shore. It was noted in the local news that this was the worst S.I. ever encountered.I must say that in the last 5 months or so I've been feeling and telling some folks I know that something big is happening and I'm real uncomfortable about it. I mean to the point of constantly feeling a pressure inside and an upcoming doom sort of, that I never felt so physically before. It just didn't let up until about 2 weeks before. And then I forgot about it and became relieved of that feeling being replaced with a feeling of almost peace or letting go inside. I was sure it was a disaster somewhere,but not exactly right here in my backyard. Which it wasn't. Only down the road a piece. So we do feel these events that I'm sure a lot of others felt also.FWIW I also heard there were displaced animals being held at a high school, and this has got me in a state close to nausea. Its just like that for me. The thought sickens me , then I feel powerless. I have a real problem with it that does no help to me or the animals. My friend is going to check it out and adopt a dog if possible and I told her to report back.I'm in a quandary once again about this, not knowing where to draw the line on rational limitations.On whether I can handle another animal or if its wise. It seems selfish of me, and I go back and forth like this,trying to put it out of my mind. I deal with lots of horrific circumstances well, this one not so much. Unless its right in front of my face.I mean I have put intestines back into a dog and sewed her up, but going to an animal shelter, no..If a person is so overcome with emotion with animals and abuse in any way or if justseeing the giving nature of animals makes one feel as if their heart is ripping out, I would say this is a path one needs to explore.What I love I also fear.Food for thought. sorry to get of the topic with ME and MY personal foibles. I need to meditate and breathe. Again, thanks much for listening

 

[Yozilla]

Here are some photos taken from aircraft (i guess) flying - which could indicate the extent of damage caused by Sandy...

_http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/before-after-images-sandy-20121102?pageno=1

Hold on there guys!

 

[truth seeker]

From what I understand, the only way to overcome the stalling is to push through with the force of your will - basically push the envelope and make something happen. Others might have more input.

I may be off, but in addition to pushing through stalling with the force of one's will, what has helped me is asking myself what area or opportunities may best place me in a position to be of service to others when it hits the fan. That's helped me somewhat in putting a fire in my belly.

Another thing that's helped, and this can be much easier said than done, is having faith - that knowing when we trust in the Universe, make choices that are in the best interests of all and try to not anticipate or control the outcome, amazing things can manifest.

 

[Nook]

Heavy snow here in Brooklyn.

sorry for all you that are dealing with such problem, the media news said today in my country that NY Area have another Winter Storm with 80ph winds!!!!

Hope all of you can make in a better way!!!!

Actually, this one was pretty bad but I wouldn't consider it that bad and I would say 80 mph winds might be an exaggeration. Maybe 50-60 max. And it only lasted a day, left a few days worth of snow. That other blizzard two years ago that Puck mentioned was more intense but that was in December. I remember because I had a gig in the city the night it hit, - otherwise I would've never left the warmth of home - almost knee-deep in snow and walking to the trains, seeing 6th avenue completely covered with snow without any tire tracks and nobody around was quite the experience. That was the first time I actually saw what it would/will be like when something permanently damaging is going to hit the area. Like a wintertime 'I am legend'. (Sorry, I'm always thinking in terms/references of films)

Just wondering cause some news site reported that it is normal that it snows around this time of the year, would this be the truth or just a rationalization?

As far as I know, it's not exactly what usually happens this time of the year. Last few years, winter's been late and so has snowfalls. Generally not until late December but definitely December. (I moved to NYC in April, 2009 but I've talked to many people about what they observed in terms of weather and what changes they have noted with local experience ranging from a few years to all their lives)

From what I understand, the only way to overcome the stalling is to push through with the force of your will - basically push the envelope and make something happen. Others might have more input.

I may be off, but in addition to pushing through stalling with the force of one's will, what has helped me is asking myself what area or opportunities may best place me in a position to be of service to others when it hits the fan. That's helped me somewhat in putting a fire in my belly.

Another thing that's helped, and this can be much easier said than done, is having faith - that knowing when we trust in the Universe, make choices that are in the best interests of all and try to not anticipate or control the outcome, amazing things can manifest.

Thank you Truth Seeker for the additional insight. As we are not able to move immediately, we are weighing our options and saving up presently.

 

[webglider]

Another worry in NYC is one of which most people are unaware - the boiler conversion initiative spearheaded by the mayor and the city council that mandates all buildings convert from number 6 and 4 oils to the less polluting #2 oil which is fairly expensive. Since #2 oil is fairly expensive, the city is offering incentives to buildings that disable the ability of the boiler to burn #4 oil and convert the entire boiler to accept only natural gas from the mMarcellus shale upstate and Pennsylvania if fracking is permitted. The financial incentive to buildings will be given only if the building switches entirely to natural gas. This incentive is a trap though, because the price of natural gas will eventually go up and buildings that have disabled their #2 oil burning capacity will be stuck with it.

There are several other serious concerns with this proposal not the least of which is that the natural gas from upstate is very high in radon. As the travel time it will take the natural gas to reach NYC kitchens is relatively short, the radon, which is a noble gas, does not have time to decompose to the extent that is needed to be safe, with the result that radon gas will be coming to NYC kitchens through their stoves. As most NYC apartments do not have windows, (I know this because a friend of mine is a kitchen designer), it is expected that the rate of lung cancer will go up significantly.

Because I am on the board of my building, and have explained the issue to the other members, we will not disable the #2 oil burning capacity here.

But how many people in the city are aware of the implications of this change? I think not many.

The pipes are already being laid in heavily populated areas to transport the gas. This adds another danger to living in NYC: gas explosions.

So getting out of NYC is probably a good idea for a number of reasons. And I haven't even mentioned the risk to the water tunnels. I can't even imagine the scenario that would occur if those go down.

This link describes the boiler conversion initiative:

http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2012a%2Fpr212-12.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1

This link gives information from a study done by Marvin Resnikoff of Waste Management Associates. He is an expert on radon.

http://gdacc.org/2012/01/10/radon-in-natural-gas-from-marcellus-shale-by-marvin-resnikoff-radioactive-waste-management-associates/

There is currently a Health Impact Assessment, (which is compromised), commissioned by Governor Cuomo to study the effects of radon on human health

Having said all this, I have no idea about how to get out of New York City or where to go. All of this is just completely overwhelming.

 

[truth seeker]

Having said all this, I have no idea about how to get out of New York City or where to go. All of this is just completely overwhelming.

Yeah, it can feel overwhelming - the not knowing what to do or how to do it. I don't have it all figured out but I will say that it may help if you can attempt to approach this (as with many things in life) with a spirit of curiosity to see what might happen if you try something different. To be willing to let go of doing what you've always done, what makes you feel comfortable yet at the same time holds you back, it can be interesting to see what unfolds.

I won't say it's not scary, it is. But the times I've decided that I'd had enough of the way certain circumstances were going and trusted that perhaps my life didn't have to feel like one continuous uphill battle after another and tried something, anything different, there seemed to be more of a 'flow' to it if that makes sense. This, of course, doesn't mean that life is easy or that there still isn't a battle being waged on many levels, but it does seem to go a bit more smoothly when we are open to receiving lessons with a bit of faith and sometimes joy. Perhaps this is what is meant by 'Learning is fun'. For what it's worth.