I’m talking about NON-perishable goods like bottled water, canned soups, pasta, peanut butter, and supplies such as flashlights, batteries, candles and (most importantly) generators.
Please see the following article from Thursday’s Houston Chronicle: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5996923.html
I don’t like doing this, but I’ve had to re-post this question a second time, because most of the answers I got before were so stupid, and here’s a sampling:
1. "Most people don’t have the credit or money to buy a generator,"
Well, they sure do have the money now, don’t they? There were 60 people lined up at a Home Depot in Houston for four hours on Wednesday. Had they gone to Home Depot a month ago, they could’ve not only avoided the long lines but also gotten a nice generator at a better price than what it’s selling for now.
Idiots.
2. "Part of it is because people live paycheck to paycheck."
Not enough money to buy a generator? What about the 60 people standing in line for four hours at Home Depot to pay 0 for a generator? Did all 60 of those boneheads win the lottery just last week, and that’s why they’re only buying a generator now? Less than 24 hours before a Category 4 hurricane is expected to make landfall? Great planning, people.
3. "Some people don’t have time to buy these things beforehand"
But they DO have time to stand in line for four hours at Home Depot, in the sweltering 90-degree Houston heat.
4. "People are defying the inevitable, and praying that it won’t happen."
I’m 30 years old, and I have life insurance. I certainly pray that I’ll make it through each day alive, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to prepare with the necessary contingencies in case something ever happens to me.
5. "The local media like to scare people"
If you live in Houston and you have even an ounce of common sense, then you should know that every year at around this time, you’re gonna get threatened by hurricanes. And you’re gonna need the usual non-perishable foods and supplies.
So why not go shopping for these items and store them away a month or so before hurricane season? If hurricane season passes without incident and the emergency kit goes unused, then you can use the food items before they spoil and then simply re-stock those items the following summer. What is so hard about this???
I would think that if anybody knew how to prepare for a hurricane, it would be the folks in South Texas. And I would think that Houstonians would have already learned their lesson after T.S. Allison seven years ago.