Yes! The mayor of the countyr's largest city exercising leadership in action!
Only 25% of New York City's gas stations are open. In the meantime, public transit is struggling to regain its footing after Hurricane Sandy, with flooding and electrical outages. Commuters have been hard hit with commutes turning into 4 plus hour affairs.
Across the state, the gas availability has decreased- where previously 38% of stations were open, now only 34 are. Mayor Bloomberg was asked why it has taken two weeks post Hurricane Sandy to institute a gas rationing system in New York City.
Bloomberg responded:
The theory was that there would be a lot of gas coming in and there is a lot of gas coming in but it has not gotten a lot of gas stations to open and there's some issues with small distributing points where the trucks fill up you want to see whether the pipeline opens and the refinery opens there's no reason to worry about odd even if theres' no gas coming in. Once the supply is restored you want to see the behavior pattern. Odd even won't make more gas. In NJ theres' some evidence the lines were shorter.
Why are only 25% of the city's gas stations open?
Well originaly it was they didn't have electricity that problem has been solved, then the theory was there was no gas thoughg you'd think they would have gas underground tanks. Hess owns their own stations and they've been open. The other companies they don't own their stations they're independently owned and some of these people just had other things to do. WHO KNOWS.
We've put a police officer at every gas station to make sure people don't push in line.
The answer is just with time.
So this is Mayor Bloomberg's help to the crippled citizens of New York - sit back and wait while somebody finally figures it out. Put your lives on hold, don't go to work, because he has no idea what the problem is and apparently there is absolutely no urgency to solve this problem or the lack of power in the Rockaways which are served by LIPA (the Long Island Power Authoritiy). But not to worry, precious police resources will be diverted to the gas stations to ensure that you are not trying to get gas when you are not entilted to.
Surprise, surprise. We live on an island. There's going to be flooding! You can say we should have anticipated this, well what can you do?
Yes, no one could have foreseen!
Podcastto Hizzoner's comforting leadership this morning.
NEW YORK, Nov 9 (Reuters) - New York City began rationing gasoline on Friday for the first time since the energy shortages of the 1970s, seeking to ease a fuel crisis in the U.S. Northeast brought on by devastating Superstorm Sandy.
It also disrupted the fuel supply chain, creating hours-long waits for gasoline that led officials first in New Jersey and now New York City and Long Island to impose rationing that allows only cars with odd- or even-numbered license plates to buy gas on any single day.
"This is worse than the oil crises of the 1970s," said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops. "Back then there was just a perceived shortage of supply in New York, when there was plenty gasoline around. Now we're having real distribution problems."
The long lines at the pump have added to the frustration of commuters, who must choose between driving and enduring seemingly interminable waits for buses and trains with parts of the transportation network still damaged.
In addition, some 696,000 homes and businesses in the Northeast lacked power as of Thursday night, creating more misery for the thousands forced to flee their storm-damaged homes or for those who have hunkered down in the dark with freezing overnight temperatures.
Protesters took to the streets in the Long Island town of Oceanside on Friday, chanting, "Where is LIPA? Where is LIPA?" referring to the Long Island Power Authority, a state-owned utility.
After Wednesday's snowstorm blasted the area with fierce winds that knocked out even more power, warmer and sunny weather was forecast for the weekend, providing some relief to disaster victims.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at first resisted gas rationing, saying fuel supplies should return to normal once New York Harbor reopened after the storm and tankers started sailing again.
But many gasoline terminals - which transfer fuel from tankers at sea to trucks on land - sustained damage from the storm that created a record surge of seawater and flooded low-lying areas.
Yes, who could have
foreseen that LIPA was still operating in the 20th century?
The Long Island Power Authority’s agonizingly slow response to Sandy came after warnings as far back as 2006 that the utility was unprepared to handle a major storm, failed to upgrade antiquated technology, neglected vital maintenance and regularly underbudgeted for storm response.
A state report and a review of records show that the regional utility lagged behind industry standards by not using smartphones and digital tablets — and at times even printers or fax machines — in favor of pen-and-paper memos and dial-up Internet access.
The utility’s critically important power outage management system, which helps direct the recovery response, operates on a 25-year-old mainframe computer that was cited as one of the biggest shortcomings in the utility’s response to Tropical Storm Irene in August of last year.
Customers of LIPA pay the highest utility rates in the country.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg flashed his managerial incompetence during the Christmas blizzard that crippled the city while his street was spotlessly free of snow. This new disaster puts it into full relief, starting with his disastrous decision to proceed with the NYC Marathon until the sponsors backed out, and becoming painfully obvious int that there is no emergency or disaster planning at work in his administration. Bloomberg is a useless, overrated CEO. His townhouse on East 77th street is fine and he has light and heat, while making a big show of being driven in his motorcade to the subway to take it part of the way downtown to City Hall.
Trillions of dollars have been squandered on a manufactured 'war on terra', while true threats to the national security - our power grid and fuel supply - have been ignored. It is painfully obvious how easy it would be for a terrorist to cripple the nation if one weather event has done so to the nation's largest city. (Though the stock exchange was mysterioulsy up and running two days after the storm, even though the rest of the lower half of Manhattan remained in the dark and cold. The priorities are there).