"Along with the now-familiar candles, downed trees across the driveway and the thawing hamburger meat taken from the freezer and tossed in the trash, the region’s latest freak storm, which left three million people without electricity, has left something else in its wake: increasing unease about just what is going on and what it means for the vast majority outside the relative stability of an underground urban power grid. No one can know for sure if this is just the eternally unpredictable chaos of weather on earth or it is something more ominous; call it the new abnormal. But in recent years, suburban and rural residents have found themselves facing multiple disruptions like Mr. Frohne’s. Experts say the violent weather of the past few years in the Northeast is stressing the 20th century above-ground utility grid as never before, along with the people who depend on it. Few solutions are in sight."
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But if you listen to this dipshit we have no problem at all!
@Van Buren Boy – Man, that article is terrible. His sole criteria seems to be a family vacation and the fact that we have more airports than Barbados.
@Van Buren Boy Jesus, no kidding. "I haven't personally been inconvenienced by this, therefore the problem doesn't exist".
This is obviously a big issue, but what do they mean by "the vast majority outside the relative stability of an underground urban power grid"? Even if you assume that NYC is the only place in New York that has an underground grid, that still represents 43 percent of the total population of the state (and an actual "vast majority" of the population that the N.Y./Region section covers). They say 1.7 million people in the entire Northeast remain without power, compared to 8.4 million people in NYC who, ostensibly, didn't lose power. (Although I'm sure some people in the city did lose electricity!)
@boyofdestiny The vast majority of land, acreage?
Just a heads up, most likely, if you lost power and had to throw out a bunch of food, your insurance covers it. There's most likely a deductible, so if its just a normal week's worth of groceries, it may not help, but if you have a separate freezer and had to throw out tons of food, you should be able to file a claim. And since the snow is considered a "Catastrophe" loss, it shouldn't be held against you.
Probably not going to apply here to the city folk, but its one of the most under-reported losses out there.
My parents live in New Jersey and still don't have power, and there's no indication that they'll be getting it back soon. I just talked to my dad and apparently he can only get work done on his phone or in the common seating area at the Short Hills Mall.
@metoometoo The silver lining is that Short Hills is a very nice mall!
@boyofdestiny It's a very expensive mall. I guess it's nice, in a nauseous-and-dizzy-from-recycled-air-and-fake-fragrance, Night of the Living UGGs, once-saw-a-girl's-purse-dog-poop-on-the-floor-and-she-ignored-it kind of way? Or you could view it as a kind of hell.
@metoometoo It makes for a better working environment than Jersey Gardens, I think we can all agree.
generators are the best sign of a third world country you can find. that said, i welcome the genteelness of generators and "do what you feel like" that accompanies third-worldism, as long as we dont get ourselves a real dictator…