Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board

Texas better prepared??

Posted By: Capt Patrick McCrary
Date: Thursday, 22 September 2005, at 7:14 p.m.

Just got this email from my British project manager at the Llano Ranchette... While it's really no laughing matter, I had to roll on the floor hearing it from a Brit's perspective.

Thanks, Steve!

--------------------------------------------------

"In the aftermath of the New Orleans debacle Houston's emergency planners decided they would show better judgement and get people out of the city well in advance of the impending hurricane. Of course, having had many years to polish and perfect their plans we now get to see that all they have really polished is their fat arses as they sat around and failed to do some fairly basic arithmatic. Given X number of people to evacuate and Y number of roads over which to evacuate them with a vehicular capacity of Z how long will it take to achieve gridlock.

The answer, of course, is - Not Very Long.

Meanwhile, communications systems are overloaded to the point where it is virtually impossible to communicate by phone - landline or cell. If one is actually able to get through without the almost inevitable 'System Busy' signal the conversation is likely to get cut off irretrievably after only a few seconds.

Motorists stand in line hoping to get some of the last few drops of fuel available - or simply run out of gas after crawling slowly along the freeway for hours. Their disabled vehicles block the freeways even further. The fuel delivery tankers are stuck on the freeways so the filling stations cannot be replenished. The plan now is for helicopters to airlift in fuel to stranded motorists on the freeways. So we use 300 gallons of fuel to power the helicoptor which delivers the two gallon can to the motorist. There is a rumor that in bumper to bumper traffic the smart motorist can turn off his or her engine and still get drawn along inexorably in the flow. Perhaps it is time to put this theory to test. Bear in mind that the theory only works when the bumper to bumper traffic is actually moving.

Meanwhile, stores all over the state are running out of bananas. Again and again I went into grocery stores and found these precious fruits to have been sucked off the shelves. Imagine my surprise to walk into our Super S store in Llano and see a veritable mountain of bananas. Don't these people know there is a desperate shortage of them?

So now everthing is OK. I am perched in my little eyrie looking out over the town with supplies to last for ages - or at least several hours. Send in the storm. When the power goes out I shall sit on the balcony and eat bananas and ice-cream.

Steve"

Messages In This Thread

Texas better prepared??
Capt Patrick McCrary -- Thursday, 22 September 2005, at 7:14 p.m.

Re: Texas better prepared??
bruce -- Thursday, 22 September 2005, at 7:31 p.m.

Re: Texas better prepared??
Capt. Dave Kosh -- Friday, 23 September 2005, at 9:41 a.m.