Frankenstorm Sandy
Sandy turned out to not to be weather channel hype after all. As I wrote back on October 25th in my post Frankenstorm or Weather Channel Hype, TV weather folks were saying that zillions of people could be without power for WEEKS! Here at the Rubin Rodeo, we had no electricity for 12 days. We bugged out to the in-laws in Delaware for one weekend when the gas lines started to grow, but we returned and lived without trauma or incident in our house without heat or lights.
Once things started getting back to normal, I have to admit I was somewhat ashamed to witness the outrage that many in my town expressed towards ConEd and the town board for their slow and ineffective response to the biggest storm to hit the East coast. For us, this storm was merely an inconvenience, many folks out in coastal areas of NY and NJ were in some major trouble. Katrina-like trouble. I responded to this by rallying my neighbors and peeps nearby to bring some food out to the Rockaways for Turkey Day.
www.OccupySandy.org
The long emergency continues in places like Staten Island, the Rockaways and parts of the NJ Shore. If you’d like to help those in need, I would highly recommend that you check out the “bridal registries” that Occupy Sandy has set up. Here’s the link: http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/wedding-registries/. I continue to be impressed with the way that the Occupy Wall Street gang has morphed into groups like Occupy Sandy that delivers help from the ground up to storm victims.
Meanwhile back here in suburbia, the focus has shifted to generators. It seems everyone is putting out big bucks to prepare for the next storm with a generator that burns either diesel fuel, gasoline or propane. These generators are noisy, stinky and, in my opinion, not all that safe: they are a source of carbon monoxide and are also flammable. Fossil fuel powered generators will also be of absolutely no use if we have an extended power outage that would include gas stations and propane stations.
Suburban Storm Prep
So in response to the ongoing predicament we face as globally weird storms continue, I am focusing on creating a Suburban Storm Prep booklet filled with practical and inexpensive gadgets and strategies that will help you and your family to better deal with the next storm or power outage. What I learned in my research is that there are many “preppers” out there, getting ready for a Mad Max sort of collapse, that’s not my deal here. My goal is to empower folks to become more self reliant and my community to become more resilient.
I’ll be hosting a Suburban Storm Prep event next Sunday December 9th at the Black Cow Coffee Shop in Pleasantville from 3:30- 4:30. If you’re in Westchester, please stop by, have a cup of coffee or tea and chat with me about your Sandy experiences and check out the many ideas that I’m crowd sourcing for the booklet that will be available online in early 2013.
What information would YOU like to see in a Suburban Storm Prep booklet? Answer in the comments below or email me at DrSusanRubin@gmail.com Would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
