Some not-so-warm-and-fuzzy storm thoughts By Bruce Eaton Throughout the October Surprise, we were constantly reminded in the media to look at the bright side of the storm. Among the special things we were supposed to be learning were the value of family time, how wonderful our neighbors really are once we actually meet them, and that trees are people too (or something like that). But I have always made lots of time for family without being forced into endless games of Racko by candlelight, I already know my neighbors quite well, and even though I lost quite a bit of mature vegetation, I’ll gladly accept the loss of tree limbs over my own. As disasters go, this one was more of a big annoyance. But that’s not to say I didn’t learn a few things during the storm. Amongst the crackling branches, the endless hum of generators (run a bunch of those things down in Gitmo for a few days and the detainees would give up everything they know), and countless grilled cheese sandwiches, I had these revelations: Bureaucrats are trained to suck every possible dollar out your pocket even when your personal safety is on the line. My wife was flying into Buffalo as the storm hit on Thursday evening. Upon landing, her plane sat on the tarmac for nearly three hours before the passengers could exit. (A power outage had disabled the jetways.) We scrambled to our car, the storm getting worse by the minute. One problem: with only one booth open in the parking ramp for cash-paying customers, the line of cars trying to get out and get home stretched all the way through the ramp as two attendants fumbled to make change in the dark. Would it have been in the interests of public safety to raise the gates, quickly collect tickets, and send travellers on their way to what proved to be an absolutely harrowing drive home? Absolutely. Instead, the NFTA had to make sure they got a few more dollars from us. This is the type of appalling behavior that, unfortunately, we have come to expect from those whose salaries we pay. Cheektowaga is the whiner capitol of Erie County. Glued to WBEN-AM on the transistor radio for days, my family’s unscientific observation was that almost everyone who called in with a petty, whining complaint was from the Cheektowaga-Depew area. While tens of thousands struggled without power, we heard from those who were upset that they hadn’t seen a Time-Warner truck (evidently there are more people than you’d think who prioritize cable over running water) and a woman who wondered if FEMA would reimburse her for the spoiled turkey in her freezer. Between the sense of entitlement fostered by layers of government and the constant harping by injury attorney advertisments that nothing is ever your fault, it’s not surprising that many people believe that life should be risk-free at every possible level. Why they choose to live in Cheektowaga, I haven’t figured out yet. The Boy Scout motto is not some gentle platitude. In case you forgot, it’s “Be prepared.” If you live in a house where a combination of heavy precipitation and no electricity are all the conditions you need for a flooded basement, one might hope that you’d also be aware that those conditions are pretty common here, and actually be prepared in advance rather than, say, be forced to drive to Erie for a generator as the water rises in your basement. And if you need electricity to live—to power a life-support device—then one might hope you’d have a Plan B in the event of a lengthy power outage. Even without those special circumstances, every home needs a disaster kit. I was sure thankful for the two dozen fresh D batteries in mine. Visit www.fema.gov/areyouready and get FEMA assistance before you really need it. It will be a long time before I want to sit by the fireplace or be bathed in candlelight again. By the third night of having no power, I had grown weary of reading magazines by flashlight or trying to convince my son that back in the good ol’ days, a fire was the equivalent of a giant plasma screen television. As for me, I had on five layers of smoky clothing and bark chips in my hair—not particularly festive, let alone romantic. A final thought. I’ve long championed the idea the region’s motto should be “We shovel our driveways, not our living rooms.” Maybe after Arborgeddon it should be: “More government branches than tree branches.” Bruce Eaton is a regular contributor to Buffalo Spree. Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top