N. Carolina's Y2k lesson? Humanity that exists in all of us

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This was found in the Charlotte Observer (North Carolina):

Supplies put away for Y2K find use... Generators, canned goods bring relief

By DIANE SUCHETKA

You laughed at them when they stocked up for the Y2K disaster. You made fun of their millennium cupboards full of food, ridiculed their gallons of water, howled when they lugged generators home. But guess who's laughing last?

All those families who were ready for the end-of-the-millennium catastrophe that never happened, put their feet up this week when the worst winter storm in years knocked out power and most of us for a loop.

While your car crawled along icy roads to get to the store for bread and milk and you rummaged through kitchen drawers for a flashlight with batteries that worked and cursed the power failure, all those people who prepared for New Year's trouble relaxed and opened up another can of stockpiled soup.

"We could enjoy the whole thing and not worry," said Bonnie Wallace, 33, who lost power for eight hours Sunday.

"We didn't have to worry, `Do we have candles? Do we have batteries? How are we going to cook? How are we going to stay warm?' It was very comforting to know that we had all those things in place," said Wallace who lives in York, S.C., with her husband and four children. "We knew we didn't have to go to a relatives' house, we didn't have to pack the children up, we didn't have to get out on the roads with them."

Instead, she said, they just enjoyed the weather. They cooked hotdogs and hot chocolate on their outdoor grill. They roasted marshmallows over the fireplace. They lobbed snowballs at each other and built snowmen and took long walks together as the feathery flakes drifted down.

"They kind of laughed at us when nothing happened," said Loretta Tuttle, 39, who lives on the southern edge of Mecklenburg County and had prepared for Y2K.

When their electricity went out this week, Tuttle and her husband, Perry, lighted their emergency candles, then dragged out sleeping bags, a camp stove and their new generator. They were ready to keep life going as usual for their five children just as their power returned.

"You're relieved when you're prepared and you're not in a panic state," Loretta Tuttle said.

"Now my first thought is, "Who can I help?'"

"I think that's one of the things the whole Y2K scare brought out - the humanity in all of us."

Re-post from http://www.syzygyjob.com/Boards/y2k/indexmesg/3416.shtml

Thanks to Denise from Illinois

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000


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