the whole ordeal is pathetic. people are driving 6 hours to fill up on gas for the generators.....what? why not use the gas you just burned driving. idleing cars in parking garages and charging people to charge their cell phones. people are "stranded" because they wont walk for a few hours(at the very most!) to get to the work and even less to get to a store. i dont understand our country or most of the people in it. we are SO "fortunate" that we have become extremely lazy, arrogant and lost all humility. we dont know what its like to truly suffer a tragedy. yeh i feel horrible for the folks who lost family members or friends, but honestly the true devastation is to our environment, ONCE AGAIN, as tons of waste from peoples basements and garages and also the sewer system is now in the ocean, many hundreds of thousands of bees in bee hives out there are dead, lots of loss of ecology....etcetc.
If I were still in NY and had a working vehicle I would definitely drive six hours to buy enough gasoline if I had enough containers to run the electricity in my home for the weeks it will take to get the electricity back on AND keep the food in my refrigerator/freezer viable AND keep the heat on if there is a freeze AND still have a vehicle with which to escape if I needed to. That's really smart if you ask me. Just how a New Yorker would think.
New York in 1991 went through one of the biggest tragedies this country has known and you are saying they don't know about tragedy?! People are still suffering from inhaling the debris. After a tragedy like just happened you want to stay inside to try to protect yourself from not inhaling something, picking up some bad bacteria and mostly from not getting poisoned with something which is inadvertently being released. For God's sake the power plant that lit up the entire lower half of Manhattan made a massive EXPLOSION. More things could be exploding and giving way. People lose their lives when building gives way in Manhattan even without the perfect storm hitting.
The amazing thing is that people are helping one another generally. You will get reports of some people trying to make a profit but most are just helping one another. Generally, they are not stealing, not breaking in all over and not looting.
It's really good to see New Yorkers when times get tough because they are being tough and in my view making good decisions. Sit tight and wait it out. You are just listening to the hype on the news trying to make everyone look bad as usual when in fact people are being really good.
As far as staying home from work and not walking a few hours over the bridges or through the debris or through possibility of people turning violent- again - smart. I wouldn't go out of my home for anything if I had enough food and water. No job is worth risking life and limb over. I've walked through Manhattan when public transportation was closed just for one day due to a glitch and I tell you, if you have never done it, do not judge those who are not doing it now. New Yorkers are usually big walkers. They walk more than any other place I've lived in this country or Europe. Walking normal streets is one thing. Walking in NYCity now if you don't absolutely have to - that's NY smart.
Of course the devastation to our environment is great. That doesn't make the human toll any less. Unless you've lived there and are present in what is happening right now - please don't judge harshly.
