yIKEs it's Ike!

The remnants of Hurricane IKE have certainly reminded us how fragile our energy infrastructure is and how much we depend upon it.

It is now day three and still over half a million customers are without power. This is the point where food in freezers that were closed the entire time start to thaw. The few hours it takes for a refrigerator to rot passed days ago. People who use electric water heating instead of natural gas were on cold showers after the first day (Don't you wish you has a solar water heater about now). Early on the few restaurants with power had very long lines and waits. Most schools have been closed for two days now (the first day being a weekend).

The gasoline prices seem uniformly set at $4.15. Six of the Eight gasoline stations that I happened by were without power. Gasoline stations with no power cannot pump gas unless they are using a power generator (I've never seen a gasoline station with a generator). A local shell station sold out of it's regular unleaded then reduced it's price of super and premium to $4.15 and then ran out everything by the afternoon. Even with people running generators, in general there is still gasoline available.

As the power start to come on things are getting back to normal. Hopefully people will not forget the experience.

While the damage where the true hurricane hit is more severe and deserves more attention this small challenge shows what a hours of simple stiff winds can do the things you depend on.