After about the third day, all those social niceties start to erode. People are hungry and angry. There's a feeling of desperation and even abandonment. What seemed to be a polite society two days earlier suddenly becomes more sinister. The survival needs of individuals begin to outweigh social boundaries, and what emerges is desperation... even panic.
"Dwindling gasoline supplies are causing frayed nerves as the region endures its third full day with massive power outages." reports Fox News. "Frustration with gas supplies topped the list of issues causing tensions to boil over in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, the states hardest hit by power outages in the wake of superstorm Sandy. Residents jockeyed for fuel at the few stations still pumping, searched store shelves in vain for batteries, struggled with sporadic cell phone service and found themselves unable to buy necessities at supermarkets."
State troopers have now been deployed to gas stations in an effort to head off near-riots as citizens lose patience and tempers flare.
On Twitter, fist fights are being reported over fuel shortages. Police have had to draw guns on some people, reports Brietbart.com.
That article includes posts from Twitter users:
You know things are bad when you ask the gas station attendent "when do you think you're going to get more gas?" and he just laughs at you. - Prede (@predederva) November 1, 2012
Just awful! RT @metrogypsy: Someone just pulled a knife at Greenpoint #gas station as line stretches with hours long wait #gettingrealFAST - Camila Xavier (@camilaxavier) November 1, 2012
Watching the breakdown of society at a gas station on Long Island. #sandysucks - Christina (@wooly_says) November 1, 2012
There are also tweets from some users who are intelligent preppers... like this one from JohnnyRH:
I live in Utah and the people here are big into "prepping"... I have relatives in NJ and just last week we were talking and they thought I was nuts to own guns, store fuel and water and have a generator. Most people are totally blind to what chaos will come with a really large power grid failure over half or all of the country. It will take little more than a week for all hell to break loose and riots will be the norm.
"We're going to DIE!"
Another report from ABC News reveals the desperation and panic now forming among residents in Staten Island."We're going to die! We're going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!" Donna Solli told visiting officials. "You don't understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It's been three days!"
The situation is so bad that even the Red Cross is being blamed for not showing up with supplies:
"This is America, not a third world nation. We need food, we need clothing," Staten Island Borough President Jim Molinaro said today. “My advice to the people of Staten Island is: Don't donate to the American Red Cross. Put their money elsewhere." (ABC News)
NBC News reports:
Staten Island officials had some choice words Thursday to describe what they said was a feeble disaster-relief response to people left dying, homeless and hungry in the New York City borough hit particularly hard by Sandy. Staten Island's top elected official blasted the American Red Cross response as "an absolute disgrace" and went so far as to urge its residents not to donate to the largely volunteer agency.
No gas for a week, no power for two
This situation, by the way, is only going to get FAR WORSE before it gets better. CNBC reports gas shortages will continue for at least a week, possibly longer. That's seven more days even while desperation has already taken hold on day three!And power? Con Edison says it will be another 10 days before power is restored to the majority of customers currently in the dark.
As long as the power is out, gas stations can't pump gas, and that means continued gas shortages. That, in turn, means more desperation, starvation and even panic as residents can't use vehicles to acquire food and supplies. The American way of life, remember, is almost unimaginable without gasoline. Half the population seems physically incapable of walking anywhere these days, and almost nobody own bicycles anymore.
Things are going to get a lot worse over the next few days
What happens when millions of people packed into high-density cities can't get food, fuel or electricity?People get desperate, of course. Desperation is about to set in. In the days ahead, you're going to see more fights and even weapons brought to bear in real-life survival scenarios. The federal government will predictably fail to reach people with the help they need, and people who neglected to prepare will find themselves in ever-more-desperate circumstances.
This is a time when nearly everybody suddenly realizes gee, it sure would have been smart to have been a prepper.
What's the value of having emergency food, fuel, a water filter, batteries and a fully loaded Remington shotgun in the hours after a superstorm? Priceless.
Preparedness is the solution
What's the solution to all this frustration and panic? Preparedness.If the people of Staten Island or NYC had been prepared for the storm that they knew was approaching, they wouldn't be in a state of desperation right now!
If they had stored some of their own food, fuel, water and emergency supplies, they wouldn't be panicked for the Red Cross to show up and save them.
If they had intelligently planned ahead and taken action based on the seven days of dire weather predictions that preceded the storm, they wouldn't need to beg for big government to bail them out!
The answer to disasters like Sandy is to be a prepper.
Preppers are the new prophets
In the wake of Sandy, preppers suddenly seem like geniuses. While being ridiculed by the rest of the population for as long as we can all remember, preppers are the ones still standing in the aftermath of the storm.They're the ones you don't see on the news, begging for help and panicking over the situation, because the preppers are sitting in their homes, eating their stored food, drinking their filtered water, double-checking their shotgun loads and staying off the streets. Preppers are the ones NOT looting, NOT complaining about the Red Cross, and NOT diving in dumpsters to find food while waiting around for the government to show up and save them.
Preppers are the new prophets. And those who failed to prepare are the new homeless.
