Are you looking for some top notch entertainment before the roll-over??

According to a gallop poll while only 7% of americans are stock piling Food, A whopping 75% are planning to fill up their gas tanks on New years eve.

check out that afternoon the local gas stations. This should be very interesting!!

I ask you-- when was the last time 100 million cars drove over to the gas station to fill up? (times say 10 gallons equals 1billion gallons) in a few hours on a specific day!!

Fill up early folks--the self-fullfilling prophecy will begin at your local gas station!! (in my very humble acquiescent opinion)

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 22, 1999

Answers

I guess the other 93% will attempt to prepare in some small way next week. If you think there will be a line at the pumps, wait until they fillup and go to the store..

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.co), December 22, 1999.

Yeah, the last-minute rush was always a given. I tell people to stock for Y2k, but also to stock so they won't have to visit the store when the mob is there. Happy stories can delay the rush, and suppress the level of urgency. Suppressing panic is helpful, but a little urgency about a year ago would have let us pump huge amounts of food through the pipeline. Too late for that now.

We've done our last shopping, we're just waiting for what happens. 223 hours.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 22, 1999.

It is really scary the way our government has "managed" the Y2K story to induce such slumber of the masses. The media has charactarized the sensible action of stockpiling essentials to be "crazy" behavior. In our local paper, there was a story that mentioned "Y2K hysteria fanned by media hype." WHAT MEDIA HYPE. The only stuff coming out of the mainstream press is fluff. Y2K Hysteria---not. "Hysteria" means "excessive or uncontrollable emotion, as panic or fear." So far, we've seen none of that. The Y2K hysteria will begin when reality hits. Hysteria will happen because the people have not been informed or prepared (even mentally) of the possibilities.

Time to head down to the gas station...

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.

Well, hopefully it'll happen too late to kick off a real panic. But can the distribution network cope even if it's spread out over a couple of days?

BTW, was that poll "7% of USA citizens ARE stockpiling", or "7% PLAN TO stockpile"? Big difference...

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), December 22, 1999.

-- d-----,

Nice catch. This truly can be defined by the Oxymoron: Pollyanne Preparedness. And they are conserned that preppers are the problem. I really hope that they stand by what they have said and done, at least the shock will not be as bad. At least not bad enoff to result in immediate goverment inervention.

-- Lt. Dans (winkldb@dhfs.state.wi.us), December 22, 1999.

"But can the distribution network cope even if it's spread out over a couple of days?" No.

Let's see, we want to stock a week's worth in two days. We normally turn over grocery stocks every 3 days or so, so we're getting a 33% turnover per day. Somebody restocks shelves with 1/3 of their capacity every day. To let people buy a week's worth in "a couple days" we need to turn over the stock 3 1/2 times in each of those days. Plus we have normal buying for daily meals. Totals 3 5/6 turnovers per day (call it 4), which is 12 times as much as normally moves through the store.

Ok, for every truck that delivers food to stores, we need 12 trucks (or 12 runs by existing), we need 12 times as many drivers (or they better work damn fast). We need to move 12 times as much through the checkouts. It won't fit in one carload, I 'spect, so we need some multiple (but not 12) times the parking capacity.

All this food has to come from the warehouses, the bulk breakers. So we need 12 times the capacity, we need to hire more staff to move it. We need 12 times the fuel for trucks. We need several train runs per city, added in the next 222 hours, to ship this from distant suppliers. And on and on and on.

If we started a year ago, everyone could buy a month's food. If we started two years ago, everyone could have 6 months. It's all in the ramping up, expanding the pipeline. But starting today, all we can do is back off and let the shopple (the "day before the storm" people) have the store.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 22, 1999.

I cannot understand why the federal government has made January's food assistance benefits available on Dec. 31 (fearing Y2K disruptions in January, it made them available one day early for food recipients). Dec. 30 would have been better.

Having to buy your month's allotment at the grocery store on Dec. 31, when rollover has already started elsewhere in the world -- especially if "incidents" are beginning to occur and people in the U.S. REALLY panic -- seems the ultimate in hazardous missions.

-- (normally@ease.notnow), December 22, 1999.

As far as the 'food stamp' shoppers..... my neighbor has to do some shopping on Dec.29th because the goverment sent her a letter saying she would recieve all of her benifits on Dec 29th. They sudgested to get all of her alotted money from the ATM (they did not guarantee the ATM systems would be working come Jan 1,2000). They also sudgested to use all of the 'food dollars' on the Link card by Jan 1 (again they said they could not guarantee the food supply stores would be available on Jan 1,2000.

She has asked me to take her shopping. I will. She needs the extra food. I plan on going around 2 o'clock in the morning. Hopping we will be OK.

Yes, I did read the letter myself. I can reprint it, if anyone wants to read it. I do not know how to copy and paist.

-- bulldog (sniffin@around.com), December 22, 1999.

"I plan to go shopping about 2:00 am.." This may be the best idea. Those of us who are mostly prepared, and only desire some last minute items (fresh milk and cheese, for example), might well look at the best time to go and take care of business...avoiding the panicky last minute shoppers.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 22, 1999.