Chicago - A city of total apathy?

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A Y2K expo is being held at the Rosement Convention Center near Chicago this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. A quote from one of the vendors was "Chicago is the most apathetic city we've seen concerning preparadness. More media people are here than visitors." Curious, I stopped today to check things out. The guy wasn't lying. Approximately 30-40 vendors were there with everything to Berkey water filters to barrels to generators. My guess is no more than 500 people visited the entire day. I heard only 150 showed up friday. One of the show sponsors said if this is anything more than the BITR/3 day scenario, Chicago will come unglued. If this is indicative of the general population preparadness percentage, it will be an interesting fall here in the windy city.

-- trafficjam (judgementday@ahead.soon), September 11, 1999

Answers

Maybe the title "Mistake By The Lake" was accidentally applied to a certain Ohio city and Chi-town wants to demonstrate a rightful claim to it. A location prone to some of the worst winter weather in the lower 48 and they aren't thinking of being prepared. The city is going to come to a halt for the least occurence of problems.

The scary part is the role of transport hub which Chicago serves and how other parts of the nation could come to a halt, regardless of local conditions, due to Chicago coming unglued. It's the rail traffic through the Chicago terminal area that can bring the nation to its knees. Chicago is the funnel for the largest majority of all grain shipments from the Upper Midwest to the Northeast.

Have problems in Chicago which stops the railroads and there are no possible bypass routes to handle the volume of traffic. If all roads lead to Rome, all US railroads lead to Chicago. And in Y2K that can lead to national disaster, if not all-out national catastrophy.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), September 12, 1999.


trafficjam is right, it was dead. I was there today. People here do not prepare at all for snowstorms. Oh sorry, when the snow starts falling they go to the store, buy shovels, and drag out old chairs to save their parking spots after they clear them. Yawn. 20 below zero, prepare? What for? Preps are not a way of life here. People don't even buy boots until the first snow of the year. However I'm not really convinced that Chicago will 'come unglued' it would really have to be severe for that to happen. Chicagoans are not quick to panic, and are known to pull together in crisis. When things get bad neighbors band together. Granted if conditions are bad enough, long enough that could deteriorate.

And connecting Randy Weaver to the Expo (in the media), could have had somthing to do with lack of attendence. Chicago is a very Liberal town. They have the most strict gun laws in the country. Associating this event with these types of groups was a poor selling point.

If you prepare for y2k in any way, you are a 'fanatic'.

Wildweasel is correct as well. My husband works in the transportation industry here. But I won't think about that now, I'll think about that tomorrow. LOL



-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), September 12, 1999.


i got news for you kiddies. spent a little time in the windy city recently. a beautiful city with lots to do but there is a problem. chicago has been experiencing a number of very troubling power outages of late. seems as if commonwealth edison hasn't been keeping their infrastructure up to snuff. just read some of the chicago tribunes articles at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-12 864,00.html.

now tell me if you lived in chi-town whether you would believe comeds claim that they are ready for y2k? me thinks me needs a cocktail. me thinks me stay away from chicago for a little wh

-- corrine l (corrine@iwaynet.net), September 12, 1999.


Relaxed and easy going, "not quick to panic"? The residents of the West and South sides of Chicago with no heat, no water, no food. Frozen pipes in high rise buildings. The looting this time will make the Bulls first Championship look like a tea party. Too bad you can't buy handguns, they will have theirs. Mayor Ritchie in front of the Picasso shouting "Please folks lets just relax, the power will be back on in a few days".

Good luck!

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), September 12, 1999.


Chicago is a very Liberal town. They have the most strict gun laws in the country. Associating this event with these types of groups was a poor selling point.

Deborah is right Chicago is a liberal town. Y2K is still seen in terms of Right Wing, Christian, NRA, Republican, Libertarian, Survivalist, perhaps even a touch of White Supremacist politics. Unfortunately people can't seem to do enough independent thinking to view an issue apart from the politics of the moment.

My personal politics are very liberal and I can tell you my liberal friends DWGI, simply because they don't want to be identified with left wing politics. These are very intelligent college educated people, but unfortunately the herd instinct seems to run strong in all of us.

Geeze, I guess the Right Wing, Christian, NRA, Republican, Libertarian, Survivalist, White Supremacists will inherit the earth....the thought of that scares me. I'm running out today and buying more beans to give to my liberal friends!

-- Mabel Dodge (cynical@me.net), September 12, 1999.



WW,

It's not the mainline trackage, that's the problem. There are plenty of lines available to route trains around Chicago. The problem is the sorting yards. Trains that carry goods from one side of the continent to the other, get sorted according to their destination, in Chicago. For example, trains carrying bulk wheat go from Kansas to Chicago, and then the cars are sorted according to whether they go to Bangor or Cincinnati or Nashville, etc.

If Chicago collapses, it won't stop shipments, but it will slow them wayyyyyyy down, since sorting would then have to be done in smaller yards less equipped to handle them.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), September 12, 1999.


corrine,

re: Com Ed. Yup, it's frightening. I read in the Daily Herald a week or two ago that local generator sales doubled in respose to the most recent power outages. Me thinks people do not really trust our local power gods. However, I don't think the connection has been made to y2k.

Bill, LOL What South Side? Oh yah, I think they might have another baseball team there....the Sox? Maybe they're a minor league team or somthing. I don't know. Don't worry about the Nort' Siders, we have the Cubbies, we have learned that anything that can go wrong will. We have trained our entire lives to deal with death, curses, calamaties, failures, infrastrucre problems, lack of leadership, inept management, and loss after loss after loss. We definately can understand delayed gratification. (and oh the horror, no parking)

The west side, I'm pretty sure King Daley will have the Boys in Blue erect a giant fence and make sure no one gets out alive. At least that's what R.J.Daley Sr. would have done. (kidding, okay?) Notice that those riots did not spread to other residential neighborhoods. Chicago also learned a major lesson, after the next five (count 'em FIVE tee hee) Bulls World Cahmpionships there weren't any more riots. If our leaders GI (fingers crossed) they do have experience putting out the sparks of riots before they turn into fires. I'm trying really hard to be polly. Denial, denial....

If Daley speaks publicly in the midst of y2k problems I'm pretty sure his face will be lobster red & veins will be bulging & throbbing & he will be screaming not speaking. He will put on quite a show. But if things are that bad no one will be able to see it anyway so...

Mabel, ROTFL!!! What a riot! That actually frightens me too, we need more balance!

Bokonon, Not to attack in any way, but IMO it will slow things down so much, it will seem like they have stopped.

To All, Thanks for keeping me motivated.

When I went to the expo, and it was practically empty, it was difficult for me. I feel really, really crazy preparing for somthing largely ignored by the millions in my area. It gets to be really surreal.

I don't live in the City anymore. But some of my friends do. I have tried to cover things in my preps that could help them too. (feeling nutzo much of the time) Those of us preparing get laughed at while we try to make sure that they will have water if they need it. I hope the whole time they will never need it, knowing they will laugh at me the rest of my life if they don't. This is one of the wierdest things I have ever experienced. Some days I am totally at peace with this, some days very conflicted. Welcome to the club, I guess.



-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), September 12, 1999.


Deborah,

You are correct. Sorry if that sounded like I was saying it wouldn't be a problem.

As to your response to Mabel, that's why Mabes and I are on this board - to try to give balance. Mabes leans more to the liberal side, on most issues, and I'm more of a moderate, but we hope that in our own small way we are doing our bit to show that bad computer code doesn't give a rat's fat butt what your politics are.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), September 12, 1999.


My sister lives in Chicago with her new DGI husband.

She GIs in a big way, but doesn't know what to do now.

If TSHTF, I hope that it is VERY close to rollover so that they are here where they will be safer than in the windy city.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), September 12, 1999.


As one of the ComEd Neighborhood victims (lost power for 5 days in March) our entire neighborhood all own generators now......... It's something we've all got use to because our neighborhood loses power with every wind storm, rain storm or snow storm in this last year for various amounts of time. ComEd's not even 1999 complaint, NO WAY are they 2000 complaint! We purchased a small farm in Wis. and plan on leaving for the Holidays and not coming back unitl it's a fact that it's gonna be a safe place for my children to come back to. The new wood stove was just delivered this week will be installed up there in the next week or so. The only problem with our plan is a baby that's due on Xmas Day (Don't ask..... LOL oldest is 22 years old). So because of my old age I'm considered High Risk and doc's have a problem with my traveling about, but we're praying for an early delivery. I personally avoided the Expo because of all the controversay and large amounts of media expected, not to mention the high security the towns Mayor requested. I know of only a few preparing, but the water in the stores, canning jars, baby food and a few other items seem to fly off the shelves around here lately. In the last 2 weeks it seems most of the stores I've gone to have had emptier shelves than they use too; especially on the sale items and limited items (glad I'm basically done). So I really think that there are a lot of late bloomers starting to put away some stuff here in the South West Sub's of Chicago. At least that's what I hope it means anyway.

Peaches

-- Peaches (weregonnabe@outof.chgo), September 12, 1999.



Deborah, Da Mayor was able to control crowds after the Bulls 2-5 championships by putting EVERY cop in the city on duty those nights. I was on the Northside for celebration #3 and there was a cop every 10 feet on main roads. Think this will work for crowd control in January with possible blackouts? Add a few good fires to the mix and what you will have is complete chaos. My sister, who thinks y2k is hype, is still going to bail out of her 22nd floor apt on LSD. She has decided to spend the holidays in Michigan at my parents, and she will wait till after the third to return ("just in case").

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), September 13, 1999.

Bill,

I'm glad to hear your sister will be out of the city.

I wish all of my loved ones would do the same.

The risks are high, I really keep hoping it won't be that bad.



-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), September 13, 1999.


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