During the power outage, I began following my local utility's page, because the page is giving updates throughout the day, informing customers when power in their area will be restored.
One customer went to the page, and rated them one star. In the comments, he began saying that the power workers here were stupid and lazy, and if this storm had happened in New York, power would already been restored. I pointed out to him that when Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, it was of Cat 1 strength, with winds of only 80 miles per hour and a storm surge of 4 feet.
Northerners in general, and New Yorkers in particular, have this condescending attitude that everything "up north" or "up in New York" is sooo much better than here, and that is largely attributed to the opinion most of them share that the people in the south are stupid, fat, lazy, uneducated hick rednecks who spend their days humping their cousins and lynching blacks.
Even my wife and her family, being from New York, agree that the loud mouth New Yorkers are wrong. To illustrate:
Compare the strength of Sandy to Irma.
Irma hit Florida with 142 mile per hour winds. Twice as many people lost power here as did in New York during Sandy.
By the time Irma got to this area it had been over land for almost 14 hours. We had sustained winds of 85 mph, and gusts to over 100 mph. That makes Irene in my area comparable in strength to Sandy in New York. The difference? We didn't demand that they call Irene a "Superstorm" and didn't freak out. Except for problems with fuel delivery, most restaurants and stores were open by Tuesday, as long as they had power.
Part of my neighborhood flooded. The only way a vehicle could get in or out was 2 feet underwater. We were on our own, and our flooding was far from the worst.
When winds finally died down to below 35 miles per hour, the utility crews were able to safely work. They reported that 65% of utility customers were in the dark. Within 24 hours, that was down to 50%. (They restore shelters, hospitals, fire stations, and other essential service areas first.) They then concentrate on repairs that will bring on the most customers the fastest. By 48 hours, only 45% were in the dark. Another 12 hours, and only 25% are still without power. They are now down to repairing outages affecting individual streets. They plan on having all customers restored by Midnight on Sunday the 17th, six days after the storm hit. Less than a week.
Compare that with Sandy:
Sandy leaves millions without power for days or even weeks
Cleveland residents, who had almost no winds, complain that power was out from Sandy for days.
Even Manhattan, where sustained winds were less than 50 mph from Sandy, was without power for four days. The other boroughs, a week or more.
Millions without power in the outer boroughs for over a week.
So don't lecture me about how New York is better. I have lived through more hurricanes than I care to remember. I was a professional responder to nearly a dozen of them. If you don't like the way we handle them or the way we do things here, go back where you came from. We won't miss you.
If you like it here, listen to the people who live here you might learn our way is just as good, or even better. You might decide that you want to become one of us. We would love to have you. Heck, I married a New Yorker. I hold no grudges.
Remember: you joined us, we didn't join you.
1 comment:
I spent years working in the entertainment industry. There are two major areas where (historically) most of the work takes place and most of the work methods were developed- NYC and LA. The styles of working are very different.
In NYC, the work evolved from professional theatre, techniques focus on tradition, and it's a LIFESTYLE.
In LA, the work evolved from TV and film production, where the focus is on speed and efficiency, and it's a JOB, not a lifestyle. Anything that gets the job done better, faster, or cheaper is quickly adopted, no matter how long they've been doing it some other way.
NYC crews refer to NYC as "THE City" as if it is the only one.
You can imaging the culture clashes that result when people trained and conditioned to one style of working find themselves in the other place.
It got so bad, with the NY crew chief trying to "correct" every single thing we were doing that T-Shirts were made.
"I don't care how you did it in The City, you're on the Coast now."
I think that life in NYC is such a relentless grind that one of the coping methods is to convince yourself that YOUR way is absolutely superior to everywhere else. Otherwise, why put up with all the city hassles?
nick
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