local newspapers had extensive coverage in Sunday's edition. Local TV last night went to Home Depot and our major local bottled water company. Manager of Home Depot said that people are buying kerosene heaters, said he sold 30 on Monday already, all 5 gallon gasoline cans are sold out, generators are huge interest but the people coming in do not know what size they need or how to hook them up. The bottled water company said daily deliveries are up 20 times above normal. He said he had orders for 400 five galllons containers on Monday, and a usual days order is 20. This morning I noticed at the three communications towers that were put up in the last week near me, generators were being installed. I drove by the Air Force Reserve base we have here and did not see anything out of the ordinary yet other than a police mobile speed limit item telling you how fast you were going compared to the 40 mile an hour speed limit. Maybe it will be moved into the center of the road at some point with a "ROAD CLOSED" message? Just speculating, but this item was not there last week. What's happening elsewhere?

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), December 28, 1999

Answers

Martial law

-- (ernie@wildville.org), December 28, 1999.

All quiet here in Pollyville.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 28, 1999.

Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary is happening here in Las Vegas. I'm keeping a sharp eye out though.

-- Can't Say (taking_no_chances@right_now.com), December 28, 1999.

Are you serious? Kerosene heaters in NE Ohio go like air conditioners is Jackson, MS in June. You'd be nuts not to have one, anywhere from Gary, IN to Erie, PA. Winterizing (extra fuel and alternative power sources) is an excellent idea. The longest power outage I ever experienced was in Toledo during a blizzard.

It was 2 degrees on Sunday in Northern Ohio, after a relatively warm December. Chalk it up to that.

-- Michelle (c@ntdo.it), December 28, 1999.

All quiet in the Northern VA area (near ground zero, Washington DC) although I did notice very busy gas stations in my neighborhood. Driving around the neighborhoods, very few homes had firewood stored in their yards.

-- fatanddumb (fatdumb@nd.happy), December 28, 1999.

Just got back from the grocery here in southern Indiana. I thought it was kinda weird that bottled water is lining the front of the store and has a big aisle display in the back. Most distilled water gone, "drinking water" plenty @ 59cents. The most telling thing was the prepared food section. Little stew, canned meats, Chef-boy-r- dee. O.K. not little, but maybe a 6-12 of each variety on the shelf. For this store, that's little. Pulled the last two Uncle Ben's boil in a bag off the shelf. Economy bulk packages of paper towels: 4 left on shelf. Interesting was when I was checking out. They are completely out of paper bags. None of the checkers could lay their hands on a paper towel (my guess the company-issue kind). I said, "Sounds like you guys are running out of some things around here". Checker laughs and says, "You aren't kidding. Yesterday, there wasn't a jar of Miracle Whip in the whole store." Miracle Whip!?! Sorry, but this stuff sounds like supply chain troubles already. Just a short report from my little corner of the world.

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), December 28, 1999.

Chicago (at least my scrappy little slice of it) still seems to be a spawning ground for general cluelessness. I'm out almost every evening filling holes in my preps and I have not seen anyone blatantly stockpiling. I also seem to be the only one buying the small bottles of propane at the Kmart.

-- Ludi (ludi@rollin.com), December 28, 1999.

central Indiana starting to prep. Filling gas containers and buying normal items for 3 days storm...bread out in one store.

-- More Dinty Moore (dac@ccrtc.com), December 28, 1999.

Interesting bit on the local radio station today. Doing their now- obligatory "Y2K preparaton loonies" story, they inteviewed the owner of just ONE local propane dealers. He stated that business was up THREE HUNDRED PERCENT with lots of people stating they wanted guaranteed heat and were also interested in his propane powered electric generators.

What was really a shock was that the radio commentator couldn't grasp why propane sales would be up and people would be worried about generators is Y2K is a computer problem.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), December 28, 1999.