Repair the nation's power grid now! People are suffering greatly.

[prolesunited]

Southeast Missouri, where my nieces and nephews live with their mom, has been without power for three weeks now. They've been staying with her parents, who thankfully have a wood stove, but I just found out that my 7-year-old niece has just been put in the hospital with pneumonia. Imagine, three weeks without heat or electricity. I'm sure that contributed directly to her illness.

http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=9853887&nav=menu51_2

This isn't the first time or the only time in this country that people have gone without power due to weather conditions in all areas. Who could predict things like ice, snow and wind? :eyes: It's crazy how much we've allowed our infrastructure to decline.

What makes it worse is that her dad, my brother, is hundreds of miles away in the Chicago metro area living with my dad because he couldn't find a decent job down there to support his family, so he works here to provide for them and rarely gets to see his kids growing up, or be with them when they are sick.

It's really sad what we've become as a country.

[alittlelark]

1. KnR Very sad....I hope your niece is OK.

:hug:

[Lars39]

2. That's horrible!

I hope she gets better soon and their power is restored asap. Living on the road like that is so hard on families. At one time or another most of my aunts, uncles and grandfathers lived with my parents to work at the Elgin watch factory in the 50s and 60s because there was no work to be had in rural TN.

[remoulade]

3. If lack of electric power is the deciding factor on human survival

at this point in history, we probably don't deserve it. A hundred years ago virtually nobody had electric gadgets and the human species managed to get through that dark period (how the hell did we survive without anesthetics and leeches even before that??) Talk about pearl clutchers....jeezus...

[TahitiNut]

4. Yeah. They should just order a load of coal and shovel it into the fire grate like we did in the 40s

Then they could turn down the gaslights and climb into bed with a hot brick wrapped in an old towel.

:eyes:

[remoulade]

6. Not responsive to my (possibly abstruse) point:

Some people seem to think electricity is a basic human right (not for tigers or ocelots, though)...and going without it is tantamount to
genocide or torture. I was just pointing out that such claims are bullshit. I know you understand that. :D

[Tsiyu]

8. So now we're supposed to become Third World all the way?

Trying to sell that meme, now? "So what if you have no power. Your ancestors didn't have it so suck it up!" Usually this is uttered by the rich and bloated.

We didn't have antibiotics or decent waste management or surgical knowledge then either. Maybe we should abandon all those luxuries and may the strongest survive!!!!!

Perhaps you'd like to look at infant and child and maternal mortality during those times? Or maybe you don't have a special needs child or disabled parent who must have medical equipment - like a ventilator or heart monitor - to stay alive? Ah, we'll just let them die like in the old days

Yes, America. We used to strive to be a nation where every citizen has a decent standard of living.

Now, we have folks like you trying to rapture us back to the Dark Ages on the Fast Track.

Fucking swell....

[prolesunited]

5. I'll let my niece know you send her your best

[remoulade]

7. I will buy her a generator. That's the best I can do. (I am serious)

let me know where to ship it.

[salguine]

9. We should convert to a system of thousands of small decentralized power grids rather

that huge single ones that sprawl across multiple states. If they were (largely) solar- and wind-powered, they wouldn't even need to be connected to each other at all, and damage-related outages would be limited to quite small areas and could be repaired quickly.

[prolesunited]

10. Thank you for your point

I like your idea better that "we have no right to expect electricity."