Should Asheville declare a state of emergency over gas crunch?

5 Comments

1. 

   bisbob September 24, 2008

   The trickle down effect is going to be a disaster. Shuler has his head up his butt by taking a wait and see approach. He sure won’t get my vote.
   Back in the 70’s we went to the odd/even license plate approach to cut down on at least half the traffic at the gas pumps. It was still a mess, but less than what I have seen around Asheville this week.
   Fortunately, I can walk the one mile to Ingles for my groceries. Makes me wish I had an electric golf cart.

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2. 

   Bryan Freeborn September 24, 2008

   The mayor, council, county commission should have set a rationing schedule late last week to run for at least two weeks. Then promote transit. Where are any of the candidates on this? Our city and county are collapsing and our "leaders" are on vacation.

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3. 

   bcw September 24, 2008

   I live less than a mile from my day gig and have decided to bike to work until this is all over with. I am a working musician as well, however, so it’s essential I drive to rehearsals and/or gigs. Outside of those trips and going to the grocery/drug store, my car stays parked. Heck, I may even just ride the bike for shorter grocery trips as well. I’ll admit that I drove to work in spite of the short distance before the shortage… this had changed me. Some people think this ‘shortage’ isn’t a problem, is insignificant, and they always seem to have some well thought-out explanation for it. Like it or not, this is reality and not just theory, and we have to LEARN from it, even if it gets cleared up and back to ‘normal’ soon. It gives a VERY clear insight into the overall behavior of the community when shortages happen. It’s not pretty, unfortunately. Wait until it happens with food items, water, or other essentials. Things are gonna get ugly if we aren’t prepared. The ‘old model’ doesn’t work anymore… time for new perspectives.

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4. 

   Daisy Roland September 24, 2008

   This is starting to concern me seriously as well. Most of the people I know already had their budgets stretched to the max and were already carpooling, cutting back on food, shopping, etc… With so many people already paycheck to paycheck, one weekend of little or no income will be VERY hard for many service workers to recover from.

   I called our elected officials at the state level today and stressed to them that the economy here is about one day from screeching to a halt. I am a nurse and do partial home care. Most of my non-clinical co-workers have 1-2 days of gas left and several clinicians are at less than 1/2 tank in their work vehicles. My husband has his own HVAC business and has about an 1/8 of a tank, so it’s looking like the job to start Thursday and two smaller ones to be done over the weekend will be put on hold.

   I got in one line tonight and waited about ten minutes with no movement, asked the guy in front of me to keep moving my car up for me, ran up to the station and was informed the hope was dim as far back as I was, about 50 cars.

   This could very easily create a spiral of hours being cut for many people who are already in economic dire straits. The govenors office acted indignant that I would dare to bother them with such a trivial matter. Shockingly, Shuler’s office had a polite, somewhat informative individual that suggested things should be "getting better" next week. We’ll see.

   It would be awfully reassuring if someone would, gee, I don’t know, have a press conferance or something. I am beyond disappointed at the lack of leadership concerning this issue, but not surprised being a big fan of Naomi Klien. I guess it’s just another bullet for the middle class to bite.

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5. 

   Bill September 24, 2008

   you mean the clowns that pass for our county and city government?
   HAHAHAHAHA

   do something?

   not if it might affect their social standing

   Reply