On the Hurricane and the Economy

Here's the lesson I learned from the (near) hurricane:

Things in this world are all kind of interwoven together.

Okay, maybe I didn't learn that from the (near) hurricane--I already knew that. But the (near) hurricane really reinforced this idea for me.

I learned that a lot depends upon the electricity, and not just keeping the eggs in my refrigerator from going bad. At one point Duke Energy (which is the main energy company in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area) had 1,205,240 power outages, which amounted to something like 96% of their entire customer base in this area. That's almost unfathomable. And I don't even know where the other 4% of the customers are who never lost their power. I've talked to dozens of people since the power outage and I've never had anyone tell me they NEVER lost power (And I'm not exaggerating about talking to dozens of people. "How are you holding up? Do you have power at your home?" has become the new "Hello" in this area.). And as of 8:25 last night there were still 258,873 power outages, representing more than 20% of the customer base.

By the way, if you're wondering what the status is right now, you can click here to find out.

With that large a blackout, repercussions went beyond just the inconvenience of no TV or electric lights. For instance, I'd never really thought about this before, but the gasoline pumps in front of convenience stores and service stations run on electricity. No electricity, no gas. That meant that Sunday 96% of the gas pumps in the Cincinnati area didn't work! As electricity was slowly restored more gas pumps came online, but lines--like the ones pictured here--quickly formed. This photo, by the way, was taken in Erlanger Sunday evening about 6:30 PM. Lisa snapped it out of the car window as we were driving around looking for an open restaurant or grocery store.

Anyway, getting back to the gas situation--With lines as long as the photo above showed on both Monday and Tuesday, I neglected going to the gas station, despite the fact that all of the driving around I'd done Sunday night had almost drained my gas tank. Tuesday on the way in to work, in fact, the yellow warning light lit up on my gas gauge. I decided that, no matter what, I'd get gas on the way home.

But here's the problem: When I left for home Tuesday night, I discovered that the gas stations that were bustling and filled with cars in their lots Tuesday morning were almost completely empty Tuesday afternoon. Why? Because the gas was gone! Their tanks had been completely drained. There simply weren't enough working gas pumps to meet the demand. I tried six different gas stations on the way home, and they all had "Out of Gas" signs taped to their pumps or "Out of Order" sleeves over their pump handles.

I got the car home and took the van to work yesterday. I had a dentist appointment at 9:45 (just a cleaning, nothing serious), and afterward I drove around looking for a gas station that was powered up and had some gas. After trying four stations with no luck I found that the Marathon just up the street from our house had gas. I quickly filled up the van in fear that all the gas might be gone before I could get back, and then I raced home and got the car. I went back to the station, which did still have gas, and I filled up the car's almost empty tank. And it's funny, too, how a crisis like that puts things in perspective. Gas is $4.15 a gallon in this area, and I didn't complain at all about paying that high a price when I needed it. As I got back in the car, I thought to myself, You know, in the last 15 minutes I've spent almost $120 to fill up two gas tanks, and I'm glad to have done it!

But gas wasn't the only thing in short supply. Monday I left work early and came home to help the girls clean the yard. I decided (foolishly, I now realize) to stop at LaRosa's and get us a pizza. But with 80% of the area still without power, I quickly found that any and all restaurants were absolutely swamped. I'd called my order in, and I could see it sitting behind the register when I got into the restaurant, but the line of people waiting to order or pick up their order was so long that it took me a good 30 minutes just to get up to the counter to pick up the food.

And today Lisa asked me to pick up some eggs at Kroger on the way home from work. I stopped at Kroger, but their power had just come on only a few hours ago, and they literally had NO perishables in the store. The dairy aisle, the meat counter, the freezers all were empty. I was told that a truck would be by sometime after midnight with a delivery for them, but that they didn't have anything now. I told them I didn't think I could wait that long and went on home.

So like I said, I know we all know that electricity is important, essential even, for our modern life. But it's amazing how interconnected everything is. It gives me an appreciation for what's been going on with the economy. Lots of people that I've talked with have complained about the federal government's bailouts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and AIG. Truth be told, I don't like that my taxes are going to prop up those companies any more than the next guy does. But if AIG is to the world economy what electricity is to life in Cincinnati, I don't want to see it fail anytime soon.