Example of how fast things can break down

[kev]

Yesterday around noon a thunderstorm moved through the area. During which, a bolt of lightening hit a power transformer at the local super wal-mart.

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v...yID=18335&on=1

A Jasper Newton Electric Crew worked overnight to repair the lightning damage and restore power to the store. However, store officials say there is no frozen or refrigerated food available in the store.

WalMart employees were working by flashlight on Tuesday evening, throwing away frozen and refrigerated food, while WalMart trucks were parked on the parking lot, unable to unload their cargo.

There are only 2 grocery stores here in town, wal-mart and a brookshire brothers. The next grocery store is a 20 - 30 minute drive.

Within hours of the power going out, the store employees were throwing away meat and other products that can spoil. What gets me, why did the store throw the meat away? Why not give it to the community? I guess if they throw it away, its counted as a lose and insurance will cover it.

The store was closed and locked down. So 1/2 of the food in this town was cut off. Just one lightening strike did all of this.

This is a good example. When there is a disaster, companies will be looking at how to protect their profits, not how people can work together.

[riverrat]

I'm surprised that they don't have a generator to run the freezers. Quite a few bussinesses in my area have generators, and there are huge generators throughout my town possisioned in various areas. I have not yet inquired as to what they are are hooked into.

[Guerrilla]

I have a few friends who claim to be freegan, they try to live entirely off of society's discards. They would have hit those dumpsters and had their own freezer full of meat.

The reason why they threw out the frozen food isn't insurance, it's law and liability. If they discount it or give it away and somebody gets sick, and they get sued, they would lose.

[Cat Naps]

Our local Wal-Mart did not have generators until the ice storm last year closed down the entire town for almost a week. It took them 3 days to get back up and running with generators. The only local pharmacy that even tried to open took a day to get a generator in place and opened back up.

[Josiah922]

Dependence on the mighty Walmart.

My local Walmart on the rich side of town closed down from about 10AM to 1 PM one day for "repairs/upgrades". Come to find out there was some kind of power thing that had to be replaced and they had to shut power off to the whole building. Anyways I pulled into the parking lot and there were a steady line of cars coming into the parking lot reading the posted signs saying they were closed and then leaving. A few people stopped and was yelling at the people through the door trying to get them to let them in. They had two people at each door telling people that they were closed and to come back later.

It is weird how people can no longer survive on their own for 3 hours without one stupid Walmart. Weird.

[Dwind]

When I worked grocery there, we all got a laugh out of the "Refer Trucks" (pronounced REEFER) that would need to be sent out in event of an outage. Every employee would make a mad scramble to throw shrink wrap over the exposed coolers and coolers to keep in the cold.

They NEVER give away food considered spoiled due to the department of health and for litigatory purposes. ENOUGH people have reason to sue Wallyworld without them screwing up even more.

It appears the right thing in survival is the WRONG thing with regard to public health laws in a sue-happy culture.

[HKTracer]

Originally Posted by kev

Yesterday around noon a thunderstorm moved through the area. During which, a bolt of lightening hit a power transformer at the local super wal-mart.

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v...yID=18335&on=1



There are only 2 grocery stores here in town, wal-mart and a brookshire brothers. The next grocery store is a 20 - 30 minute drive.

Within hours of the power going out, the store employees were throwing away meat and other products that can spoil. What gets me, why did the store throw the meat away? Why not give it to the community? I guess if they throw it away, its counted as a lose and insurance will cover it.

The store was closed and locked down. So 1/2 of the food in this town was cut off. Just one lightening strike did all of this.

This is a good example. When there is a disaster, companies will be looking at how to protect their profits, not how people can work together.

And don't most Wallyworlds sell ICE?? Thats all they needed to save at least SOME of the food. As for the rest, aren't most of their delivery trucks refrigerated? More could have been saved that way.

But you are right Kev, it's PROFIT before PEOPLE. The least they could have done was maybe try and sell it at a discounted price before it all spoiled. But I guess saving a few bucks and cutting your losses is better to some people then wasted food...

But at least I know such a situation didn't affect the survivalist in you Kev, but for the rest of the people in town, Im sure there were allot of complaints about this??

[Cat Naps]

Last year during the ice storm, with so many people going to emergency shelters, I was pleased the school system donated their perishable food to the shelters - it was a real win-win situation!

[The_Question]

Originally Posted by Guerrilla

The reason why they threw out the frozen food isn't insurance, it's law and liability. If they discount it or give it away and somebody gets sick, and they get sued, they would lose.

thats one part, I work at costco and we throw away things that are perfectly fine sometimes. i've thrown away grills worth a thousand dollars, nothing wrong with them, and we have to completely destroy them in order to get credit back from it, i've thrown out completely good beds, food, books, you name it. I've asked why not donate it but if we did we wouldn't get credit for it, blame the companies basically, cheap bastards, another reason is the company wont pay the shipping costs to bring the product back.

p.s. breaks my heart to sledgehammer a 54 inch HD TV then throw it down the garbage chute.

[Micah525]

Excellent point of how we as a society have put all our eggs in just a couple baskets. I'm part of the problem as I love the lower prices on so many things, but it is a problem... because the CEO's are not known for their compassion - it's all about the almighty dollar.

Just imagine the EMP blast scenario though - some areas would instantly erupt in violence. And the vast majority would be out of food in a couple weeks. So quick it makes me sick.

[Dwind]

1 basket...heres a thought:
I watch a S-TON of discovery channel, History channel and all that. Whenever they have a program on big earthquakes, pole shifts, asteroid strikes, super outbreaks, tsunamis, mega land slides, supervolcanos, ect they ALWAYS say we are overdue for our next event.

My thought is what if just by mathmatical weirdness, EVERYTHING happened in one afternoon?

[The_Question]

hope you're flexible enough to kiss your own ass goodbye.

[kev]

I was able to get into walmart and take some pictures. This is the meat, egg and milk sections. Just one lightening strike did this. One walmart employee told me they threw away 2 large open top dumpsters full of food. Management was able to get a freezer truck in and save some of the larger pieces of meat such as briskets, steaks and pork chops.

This is where the milk used to be.


The box on the floor is where the eggs used to be.


New items ready to be stocked. These shelves were full of meat just 2 days ago.


One lightening strike wipes out almost 1/2 the meat supply in this town. The only other place to buy meat is 2 butcher shops and a brookshire brothers.

[shawn]

Please Wallyworld fill up my new deep freeze I'm getting this weekend...

[The_Question]

within hours? Christ they're retarded, when the power went out at my costco we lined the freezer glass doors with cardboard(not many people know cardboard is a great insulator, keep that in mind urban survivalists!) and plastic wrapped the ENTIRE cooler, we didn't throw out a single thing and we went the whole day without power, hell even the ice cream was still frozen, those idiots need to learn about Insulation.

[123]

Costco doesn't just higher anybody off the old block like Wal-mart.

[the hog]

Thats just nuts. A deep freeze should be able to keep things frozen for a couple of days so long as minimal door opening is adhered to. Surely this type of store will have freezer storage at the back of the shop. Sure there might be a bit of a problem with the regulations regarding yoghurt, milk etc for the health and saftey guys but obviously common sense does not prevail within the management levels.
I can only join the line behind you guys with my box and ask them to fill it with perfectly good produce now going to waste.
.

[The_Question]

Originally Posted by the hog

Thats just nuts. A deep freeze should be able to keep things frozen for a couple of days so long as minimal door opening is adhered to. Surely this type of store will have freezer storage at the back of the shop. Sure there might be a bit of a problem with the regulations regarding yoghurt, milk etc for the health and saftey guys but obviously common sense does not prevail within the management levels.
I can only join the line behind you guys with my box and ask them to fill it with perfectly good produce now going to waste.
.

thats the thing, milk alone (not insulated, just left out of the cooler), at normal room temperature, can be out for an hour to two hours and be perfectly fine, most are kept at a temperature between 20-30 degrees, and when on a milk crate, they stay together, making it harder for it to warm up, all they'd have to do is simply put cardboard around the open freezer area's and plastic wrap it, it could easily last until the power was back on.

[jimmyisready]

See even god hates Walmart, and knows that our GDP will never trun around if we continue to shop at sell out Walmart. Did you folks know Hillary Clinton served on the Board of Directors for Walmart for six years!

[the hog]

Originally Posted by jimmyisready

See even god hates Walmart, and knows that our GDP will never trun around if we continue to shop at sell out Walmart. Did you folks know Hillary Clinton served on the Board of Directors for Walmart for six years!

I take it that this was not a good thing and probably wont be a good thing if she becomes the "Boss". What does this woman mean to defenders of the gun laws?