Lessons in the Gas Lines following Super Storm Sandy Part II

Lessons in the Gas Lines 

following Super Storm Sandy

Part II

Also, I listened to the lengthy lament of a wife whose husband called as she waited to scold her for failing to be in line sooner.  Understandably, as the primary provider for their family, the husband’s work schedule prevented him from attending to this critical need for his wife and children.  His impatience and compassionless criticism seemed harsh and inconsiderate as we waited in falling temperatures and rising wind chills. 

Rather surprisingly, I along with countless other parents stood in these long lines; our children were invisible.  On one day, I overheard the phone conversation of a young lady who profanely and profusely complained to a friend.  “My Mom has me standing in this damn gas line when she knows I am allergic to the smell of gasoline.  Besides, I don’t want to do this [expletive!]”  The young lady proceeded for an additional half hour to inundate her friend with every conceivable profane word and thought.  It did not appear she considered how arduous waiting in frigid temperatures amongst feverishly irritated human beings whose latent fears about potentially scarce fuel resources ignited the passions and choices of their lower beings.  Continually I relegate that young lady’s selfishness, insensitivity and indifference to her mother’s needs as regrettably indicative of a generation that lacks capacity to allow the needs of other people to penetrate their consciousness and influence their choices.  Were you to multiply that young lady’s apathy, you begin to appreciate the collective incivility of many people in the gas lines. 

Another gentleman exhorted anyone within ear shot about the failure of the New York City government to establish a pecking order for the gas lines.  Because he lacked fuel to operate his personal generator, he was unable to heat his home.  He did not disclose whether there were any infants, senior citizens or seriously ill members of his household.  Quite possibly, the composition of his family would not have had any bearing upon the situation.  Each person in line could argue an equally logical and personally significant reason for a privileged spot in line.  Nonetheless, several listeners who shared his predicament of living through the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy without electricity agreed with his primary premise; citizens without power deserved some type of preferential consideration. 

Yet another woman in line began to insist that she deserved advancement to the front of the line because of her job.  The verbal barrage of condemnation and criticism she received for stating aloud that her job exceeded the priority and worth of everyone else’s soon quieted her self-importance and grandiosity.   Many other people in line shared her self-centeredness expressions.  I heard recitations about how arduous the gas shortage was on family and especially children.  People articulated anxieties about having enough gas to attend to school drop-off and pick-up in addition to extracurricular activities, routine family chores and personal errands.  Somehow, the emergence of a shortage multiplied the worth of these daily and mundane tasks; fearing their inability to function normally, most people convinced themselves that their “To Do List” greatly exceeded the importance of other people’s usual activities.  Ordinarily, people complain incessantly about marital requests (items on the proverbial “Honey Do List”), parental obligations and familial commitments; they relegate these administrative tasks which are essential to a healthy and functional family as impositions upon private time and finances.

Did any of us standing in line look beyond our niche in the forest and take a panoramic view of the substantial pain and devastating loss many of our fellow citizens suffered because of Super Storm Sandy?  Were we so self-obsessed that we refuse to view the storm and its incalculable damages in a larger societal context?  As we waited for gasoline and periodically asked people to save our places in line so that we could walk into an adjacent convenience store to purchase snacks and beverages, there were families that did not have any food.  The lack of refrigeration and electrical power completely ruined whatever they had.  Trees fell on cars, into houses and other buildings and onto roadways and driveways.  Actually, downed trees littered many neighborhoods requiring many motorists to swerve and avoid potentially live power lines and possible car accidents.  Water damage closed several schools for weeks.  Flood insurance became a non-negotiable component of many homeowners’ policies.  Did anyone in the gas lines pause to consider the destitution and dispossession of their fellow Americans? 

Feelings of frustration rarely yield gratitude.  All of the persons in line, were they to consider the deaths in addition to the wholesale loss of every material possession, would transform complaints into thanksgiving.  Inconvenience for twenty-first Americans, which indefinitely suspend our use of creature comforts and impede our satisfaction of hedonistic impulses, composes a repertoire of self-centered complaints.  The aftermath of Super Storm Sandy and limited ability to pump and sell gas revealed the very best and the absolute worst in people.  An unbridled demand to oblige personal preferences underlay lengthy pontificating about fundamental fairness and equity in distribution of fuel resources.  Attempts to fill illegal gas containers reflected an indifference to the law and any possibility of governmental violations levied against owners of gas stations.  People were insensitive to the definite probability that inspectors and enforcement officers would immediately close any station that created unknowable dangers in cars, on the roads, bridges, and tunnels; and within homes as people reportedly began to stockpile gasoline in their basements.  Closing any station would have compounded everyone’s worsening situation. 

Escalating tensions regarding a person’s place in line resulted in the need for police patrol at myriad gas stations.  In Brooklyn, shootings, stabbings and hospitalization occurred.  There were a few arrests because of serious threats.  Imagine gun violence and shootings adjacent to gas tanks; one misfire and countless persons may have lost their lives!  Devious schemes to purchase a person’s place in line developed as some people were determined to profit personally from the fuel shortage.  I witnessed several men waiting in line to fill large containers.  They then stopped passing cars to sell the gas at rates as high as ten dollars per gallon.  Parenthetically, the Attorney General of New York State deserves acclamation for ensuring that gas stations and other businesses did not engage in price gouging which usually happens after natural disasters.  Gas prices remained at the same pre-Sandy levels.  Nonetheless, the aftermath of that historically unparalleled and monumental storm revealed people’s charitable, compassionate and merciful disposition as well as their vulgar, sadistic and narcissistic dimension.

Incredibly, a certain strand of American jingoism lays latent within the minds and hearts of average citizens regardless of race, creed, color, ethnicity and culture.  Innumerable times, I heard the arrogant and reprehensible statement.  “This is not a Third World country!”  Beyond the blatant economic, geographical and political chauvinism, the comment reflects increasing moral, ethical and humanitarian decline in the American mindset.  Interestingly, some of the persons pronouncing this vitriol did so with the accents and flourish of the countries and cultures that they condemned.  Have Americans become so comfortable and complacent with daily creature comforts that our lack of them for a brief period of time leads us to esteem their worth over the significance of entire nations of people whose hard labor produces the technology, power and electronics we utilize?