OK, this isn't funny any more. Where's the army?

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

One quarter of staff and students late to school this morning, and 10% didn't get there at all. It has been announced that, excepting physical disability, any student within 4 miles or adult within 6 miles will be expected to walk in, but Its expected to be worse tomorrow with a good chance we will be closed by Wednesday.

AA reporting over 100 "incidents" on the road within a 10 mile radius of the school - mostly roads blocked, and mostly by queues outside petrol stations.

I struggled to get home by bike, because of the chaos on the roads - I got off my bike and walked several miles of it.

I called in at a supermarket on the way home. The shelves were more than three quarters empty. No bread or milk. So I'm sitting here drinking black tea planning rice for dinner instead of cheese on toast.

I know its not a catastrophe that I spent an extra hour getting home, and dont have milk in my tea, but what is that saying about the state we are in?

AIBU to say the army should be called in. What have we got an army for? Surely, an organisation of thousands of fit, capable, organised individuals, with vehicles and capacity and skills in logistics is exactly what we need to be utilised in this situation right here right now.

PS, is it ok to feed dog food to cats? does anyone know?

We live in Surrey which is solupposed to be hard hit. Everyone I know who has been in a petrol queue at opening time has got petrol/diesel without much trouble. The early bird and all that.

We’re in Surrey too and all the petrol stations are closed here. But our car is electric so no trouble for us. Surrey is a huge county!

We lost 20,000 drivers due to Brexit. Apparently the Army have about 1,800 qualified HGV drivers. How are they going to help?

I should have qualified with our part of Surrey. Apologies for that but I'm not sure I'd call Surrey huge.

No one had diesel cars in the 70s, just petrol so it would have been easy to prioritise delivery vehicles and buses. I’m not sure when it became the norm to drive diesel cars

@Blossomtoes Of course its not ignorance. Do you see shops running out of food now? They didn't back then either. And yes as someone else said diesel then was used for vans, not cars, so they weren't competing with car drivers.
But the impact was less then for most people. Sure people queued for petrol. But the majority of kids walked to school, so no issue with parents not being able to drive their child to school. And a lot of people could still walk to work.
It was the oil OPEC crisis that affected people far more in the 70s that affected power plants and led to a three day working week.

Do you see shops running out of food now? They didn't back then either

Either you’re too young to remember or your memory’s faulty. There were shortages of all sorts of things and a lot of empty shelves in shops.

No, I don’t see shops running out of food now which is my entire point. Calling this a crisis is complete hyperbole.

The 1970s saw a succession of food crises, sugar in 1973, bread in 1974, salt in 1975, bread again in 1977. Shortages of supply drove up prices, rising prices led to demands for higher wages, which led in turn to strikes. Supermarkets introduced rationing of sugar and bread.

There were masses of empty shelves during the Winter of Discontent (78/79), largely brought on by the lorry driver strike. What a decade!

I'm not walking 6 miles for anyone work can sod off.

@Blossomtoes those specific shortages were not caused by the petrol shortage. That is what we were talking about. Sugar was in short supply in 1973 because the Caribbean sugar plantations started selling sugar usually imported into Britain for higher prices in other countries. It had nothing to do with petrol and everything to do with those sugar plantations being unhappy about the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement which meant the Commonwealth was guaranteed a certain amount of sugar imported at a far cheaper price than other countries paid.
It is one of the things I hate about MN. I come on here to discuss something in good faith i.e. the petrol issue, and others start quoting times there have been shortages as if it is at all relevant to what is happening now. It isn't. The sugar shortage in 1973 had more to do with the lingering impact of colonialism, than fuel or distribution.

[quote julieca]@Blossomtoes those specific shortages were not caused by the petrol shortage. That is what we were talking about. Sugar was in short supply in 1973 because the Caribbean sugar plantations started selling sugar usually imported into Britain for higher prices in other countries. It had nothing to do with petrol and everything to do with those sugar plantations being unhappy about the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement which meant the Commonwealth was guaranteed a certain amount of sugar imported at a far cheaper price than other countries paid.
It is one of the things I hate about MN. I come on here to discuss something in good faith i.e. the petrol issue, and others start quoting times there have been shortages as if it is at all relevant to what is happening now. It isn't. The sugar shortage in 1973 had more to do with the lingering impact of colonialism, than fuel or distribution.[/quote]
Ironically, of course, being in the common market put paid to all that commonwealth trading rubbish.......

And here we are, outside the trading block, with shortages.

Who could have predicted that!?

The petrol station they had on the radio this morning said, even though they had run out, they had always been getting their normal deliveries.
No actual shortage. Just demand had gone up fourfold.
So the only solution is to gave four times as many deliveries to get everything settled?
Crazy in Hampshire. There’s no sign of anything getting better down here.

My part of SE London has reached crisis point, I work near a petrol station that had a delivery this morning. The queue when I left work was close to a mile & a half and there are several broken down/run out of petrol cars. The road is a main road, Police have been there all day & buses have had to be diverted.
I’m guessing lots of these people haven’t panicked, they’ve waited until it all calms down - only it has t calmed down & now they’re all running out of petrol.

those specific shortages were not caused by the petrol shortage

I didn’t say they were. Can’t you see a little wider than a lack of petrol, ffs? The situation we’re in now is being described as a crisis. It’s nothing like a crisis. It’s a temporary shortage of petrol.

Tbf the petrol association person didn’t think crisis either

More a huge increase in demand - 500%

We didn’t really have a shortage of tanker drivers to get it there. It was a snowball situation which is understandable but not due to shortage

Although of course it feels the same if you can’t get any

Just out of interest, I spoke to one of our IT support today, and asked about power cuts. Into double figures this week. Mostly very short, 10 minutes or so each, but causing havoc with online learning.

I don't own a car or drive, but I cant get around because of the massive disruption to the bus service.

Public transport failing

Power cuts, particularly disruptive when we have to teach online

Roads blocked

Abandoned cars

Empty shelves in shops, some products missing for weeks, some missing for days on and off.

Bins have not been regularly emptied for several months. They were in fact emptied today, for the first time in more than 3 weeks, but 3-4 weeks between emptying is now fairly normal, as is not knowing if and when they are coming next.

Recycling? I think the whole premise has been abandoned completely

Gps cant order blood tests any more. Other medicine and medical supplies in short supply.

And no one knows whats coming next

Don't tell me its hyperbole to call this a crisis.

@Orangejuicemarathoner

Just out of interest, I spoke to one of our IT support today, and asked about power cuts. Into double figures this week. Mostly very short, 10 minutes or so each, but causing havoc with online learning.

What's the normal autumn/winter rate?

@Blossomtoes so why bring it up? Having a shortage of sugar because the sugar plantations were selling the sugar to countries that paid more, was hardly a crisis either. And it was very easy to resolve potentially. Pay a fair price.

Whereabouts are you op?

What's the normal autumn/winter rate?

I dont know about you, but I get through most normal autumns and winters without experiencing any

o - and I forgot the whole energy company thing

@MarshaBradyo

Whereabouts are you op?

South London right now

I’m SE London and don’t recognise it!

We did have queues for petrol yes, but PT fine, litter collection fine, no power cuts, food delivery fine, and GP was fine but haven’t tried recently