Post-hurricane - or rather "Super Storm" as Sandy is now being called, has truly helped coalesce my desire to write on this subject of "Reinventing Suburbia." Twelve days with no power, gas lines, no internet (though I did have my smartphone), public schools closed from buildings without power, etc. Truly, I was shocked at how quickly the basic systems came back to life, given the enormity of the devastation. It seemed every street had multiple telephone poles snapped, houses with trees laying on them in precarious formations, and many, many crushed cars.
We made plenty of jokes about living in the Mad Max of Thuderdome movies (confession... I've never seen them (?) but I played along because I felt stupid not knowing yet another pop-culture reference). These jokes were often made while walking along with our gas can in hand (we had a generator to feed back at home), so I assume in the Mad Max movies, there's a gas shortage too.
When we left the house, we brought our headlamps with us (who knows, you might return after dark). We locked our gas cans up in the garage (I wasn't convinced that someone would sneak into the back yard to steal them, but we do live on the side of a highway, so I guess you never know). Neighbors locked their generators to their houses. The grocery store had many empty shelves (pasta was a big one, as was onions, potatoes, bananas and frozen pizza) and the general vibe in the store had a taste of panic in the air. It freaked me out. I left as fast as I could.
I will say, when the power was restored to about 99% of our town, the grocery was the happiest - I mean full-on, I've been huffing nitrous at the dentist HAPPY - I've ever witnessed. Jersey folks are not known for their friendly ways. I think people would have given their parking spot over without a fight... ok, maybe not that happy... but close.
Again, it freaked me out.
It was just so clear, so apparent, that everything about us was dependent on if we had power - or not. How quickly would our community devolve without being able to get everything we needed at the supermarket or - worse - at the pump?
Again, it freaked me out.
It was just so clear, so apparent, that everything about us was dependent on if we had power - or not. How quickly would our community devolve without being able to get everything we needed at the supermarket or - worse - at the pump?
I avoided the gas lines because my dad happened to have an old car filled with a ton of premium gas. Old cars are easy to siphon out of. New ones, not so much. So we just used that as our family gas station. John's commute is short, and without the kids to drive to school (cuz, hey! that's closed) there wasn't much need for gas for our cars (and we filled up before).
Anyhow - the point is - I felt good eating greens out of the garden, using the generator only to get the heat started in the house and cool the fridge back down. We had our camping gear at the ready, so everything was pretty much ok. But it showed the need to take this farther. More than just our .20 acre of land. More than just our family. Let's see where this goes...
