What Bootstraps?

Outrage is every New Yorkers god-given right. But I was thinking today: how many of those streets would have been cleared earlier if residents with shovels, local snow blower owners and every pickup truck with a plow were able to chip away at the snow levels over the 72-hour period we sat sitting in our houses waiting for someone else to do the hard work. And not to mention the morons who ventured out without a lick of common sense about what they were doing.

And I don't take lightly the deaths the local news have reported as people waited hours for emergency help. (As I'm sure the lawsuits to follow will illustrate.) But I can't help but wonder what more everyone could have done to be better prepared. If you have an elderly parent with breathing problems and you know 24 inches of snow are predicted, aren't there precautions to take? If you're close to your delivery date, maybe a trip to the hospital before the storm starts would be in order? I wonder if they didn't reach out for help due to limited or no insurance. But that's another outrage for another day.

And I'm not saying the city isn't responsible - or that I can imagine the anguished outrage watching someone I love suffer -- and then waiting in vain for help. I'm just saying I wish people would take more responsibility for their decisions - or lack thereof - rather than bitching about the awfulness of government -- and then expecting it to perform at unrealistic levels during an emergency. Staten Island got 30 inches of friggin snow - the city got close to 2 feet. There's no room to move in that city normally - add 22 inches of snow to a 300+ square mile area and what have you got: a shitload of snow.