I was watching CNN and it showed people waiting in line for hours at Home Depot for plywood. What happens to all the plywood after the fact? Does it get thrown away and people wait until the next warning to buy more? Are all these folks new in town and never had to board up for winds before? It just puzzles me that all these folks wait until the last minute to buy plywood and do not have it on hand from the last warning.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 15, 1999

Answers

Very humid in the South....plywood warps...hard to nail up when it is shaped like the letter 'C'. Gotta get new stuff every time...

-- hazy (hazy010100@msn.com), September 15, 1999.

I have thought the same. I guess they just dump it, very wasteful and I think a little stupid.

-- ET (bneville@zebra.net), September 15, 1999.

Paint it a few coats of glossy, store it inside, back of closet. Use screws. Cut to fit windows. Label each piece. Only do the work once. Keep on hand. Hurricanes happen.

-- h (h@h.h), September 15, 1999.

What in the hell does old plywood have to do with y2k????

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), September 15, 1999.

(Carol- sorry, off topic, but I was wondering about the little one?)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), September 15, 1999.

I live in the South, and yes it is very humid. We have a stack of pylwood behind our garage that has been there for over a year. No warping yet. My DH sprayed each piece with water seal, took about a min. for each piece.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 15, 1999.

Beats me! But with all of the people moving in and out of this state (FL) it does not surprise me at all. LOTS of newbies. Also the warp- age factor if it is not stored properly. Unk stores his the right way, flat and dry.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), September 15, 1999.

The child is safe! I thank God everyday for that, but the nightmare is not over. Thank you for caring.

Old plywood may not be related to y2k, I just had a question about it and I knew I would get some reasonable answers and some flames.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 15, 1999.

'h' Just what effect do you think , even, 50 mile an hour winds and flying metal and 6 to 8 hours of rain will do to your "just paint it with glossy" plywood.....do you think there "may" be a little damage?

-- hazy (hazy010100@msn.com), September 15, 1999.

yes but most of the time there's near-misses
still have to put it up, never know if the h will hit

-- h (h@h.h), September 15, 1999.

You're getting a fine example of media "spin"....the TV crews round up everyone in Home Depot and give them a piece of plywood. It's similar to a recent post here where a S.C. local saw the news crew move ALL of the bottled water off the shelves to add "drama" to the approaching hurricane. Notice the "clip" of the pier being torn away by the thrashing waves......looks dramatic, so they use it OVER and OVER again.......arrrghhh....I think i'm nauseous.

Keepon

-- Keepon (vacillating@hourly.edu), September 15, 1999.

The plywood thing bothers me too (trees lost, lines at stores, not having on hand, etc.) - there's this simple invention called: WINDOW SHUTTERS! You put them up once and used them when needed!

-- dw (y2k@outhere.com), September 16, 1999.

dw -- Shutters, yeah that's the ticket. Most shutters I've ever seen, except on real old houses are non-functional decorative items only. Functional shutters? What a novel idea! :-)

Y2K prelude -- day before yesterday there were radio reports of fights over plywood.

-- A (A@AisA.com), September 16, 1999.

Several times during the past few days I've seen shots of folks with aluminum or steel planks about two feet wide they were inserting into already in place brackets above and below the windows.They were sort of corrugated and interlocked I think. That was cool.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), September 16, 1999.

I'll venture another possibility: If there is real storm damage in the neighborhood, after the storm the people with usable plywood probably sell it to their neighbors who are having a hard time finding enough materials to rebuild.

If there is a great deal of damage, the lumber market will be way behind in deliveries for several months. And we will feel those effects across the entire country.

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), September 16, 1999.

David - there are dozens of example in common in today's efforts against Floyd and this efforts to minimize y2k's disruptions: the exact opposite attitude of the media, the lack of preparations until too late by "most" customers, the inability of stores to rapidly supply plywood, water, or generators - though all are normally available, the dictitorial (we know better) attitude of the government officials, the overwhelmly lack of preparations by most people near the coast, the people's attitudes in the stores, etc.

This is a preview of the final 4 days after Christmas - except there is no place to evacuate to......

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 16, 1999.

gene

Amazingly enough the supply of plywood will effect Canada to. It is not unusual for the price to double and supply shorten after the Hurricane season and I am in BC Canada where we make the stuff.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), September 16, 1999.

One of my secretaries just moved to the Midwest from Ft. Lauderdale Florida about six months ago, and when I asked her the same question, she said they did re-use the plywood, but also that new construction required shutters on all windows now. She didn't mention anything about plywood warping, but thought in some instances it may have been destroyed by the winds/rain etc in Andrew.

-- Beached Whale (beached_whale@hotmail.com), September 17, 1999.