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?

[Twatterati]

@Orangejuicemarathoner - totally agree, it's all just crazy!

Re. feeding the cat dog food - my cat often helps himself to the food
in the dog's bowl! He's ok and seems to enjoy it so I think yours will be ok. I'm pretty sure it's fairly similar, just that the cat biscuit-food is in smaller pieces than the dog's.

[mpsw]

But they are not generally trained in moving flammable materials from one place to another, and keeping the different grades of petrol, and diesel, separate

However, that's a key role of the RLC (the largest corps in the Army) and they have the fully qualified and fuel experienced drivers and handlers.

[Nancydrawn]

The biggest shortages I'm seeing here in the States are an absence of Starbucks premade iced coffee and about $.15 more per gallon (so maybe 2-3p a liter) for gas than a couple months ago.

In other words, things are fine.

Of course Covid made this worse. But you don't prepare a country to function only when everything is going well; you prepare it to function when it isn't.

As soon as the news hit about petrol, they should have sent out someone the UK trusts to say everything's fine. (I mean who that is at this point I have no idea.) Or they should have leveled and said, look, things are bottlenecked. They'll be fine, but only if we lay our parts. As such, we're limiting petrol to a maximum of three liters a day for the next two weeks. Don't use it unless you need it. We're counting on you.

Instead they just let chaos ensue, because they think avoidance is an actual strategy.

Oh, and because they pushed for Brexit, which is one of the main reasons this is happening, and they can't admit that.

[Laiste]

Re: cats/dogs
I accidentally fed dogs dry pellets to my two (usually fussy) cats (Orijen high protein - the dog and cat pellets look almost identical) and they ate it up.

The only reason i twigged what had happened is because the next day their poo stank 4 times as bad as usual. And that's saying something!!

As you were ...

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

@Anxietyandwine

Not sure what the army could actually enforce?

I have 13 miles left in my car and school run is an hour round trip. No petrol at all when I tried 5 local garages today and roads just seemed to be chaos.

Can’t comment on food situation as I can’t get to a supermarket!

The army could deliver fuel.

[CraftyGin]

We have six petrol stations in my fairly small town (pop 20k). Judging by the queues on the road, I would say that 3 are open at any one time.

I passed a Texaco tanker today in one of our small roads. If I had been in DH's car, I might have turned round to follow it, but I filled up on Friday (without any drama).

[Goldenbear]

I think if you have no problems you probably don't live in a densely populated area.

[lifeturnsonadime]

We have no shortage of ADR drivers. One of BP's contractors pissed off its drivers and they left but that only caused five stations to close. There is no supply problem, instead we have a demand problem.

This is nothing like toilet rolls. I don't know anyone panic buying fuel. I know plenty of people locally who are concerned that they can't fill up. Are you seriously expecting people to drive around with empty petrol tanks and saying that filling up an empty car is panic buying?

[FlorenceWintle]

Not the government’s fault, it was some nefarious figure at a zoom meeting between the ministry of transport and key industry stakeholders who leaked the fact that the BP guy at said meeting mentioned a few localised delivery problems. It was on ITV news within 24 hours.

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

4 miles is a lot for a 5 year old. Are you at secondary?

yes, secondary

[DdraigGoch]

@HotPenguin

We keep hearing the problem is caused by people buying petrol when they don't need to, but is there anyone who owns a car that DOESNT need petrol? If you have a collection of classic cars then ok, probably don't need to top them all up. But excluding the owners of multiple classic cars, who buys a car that they don't need? Surely the reality is we ALL need our cars, otherwise we wouldn't be shelling out thousands on them, and the number of people who can just forego petrol and wait for things to calm down is very very few?

On another thread, a poster had filled up not only her car and her husband's car, but also the cars belonging to her children who were away at uni. She rightly got her arse handed to her.

Elsewhere the media has been full of idiots with a dozen jerry cans.

[slipperandleggings]

I'm a community Nurse. There's a real concern how we are going to see our patients. We cover a lot of miles and use a lot of fuel

[AudTheDeepMinded]

Where are you OP (not the first time you've been asked). It does seem particularly dire from your account. Relatively normal where I live, some disruption to deliveries but people still able to fuel, and food in no shorter supply than the last few months.

[FriedTomatoe]

I'm just outside London and it's a nightmare. As soon as a petrol station gets fuel there are people on it and queuing for hours. I don't know enough about the army or whether it's a good idea but the government needs to make a plan. We can't just be left to sort it out ourselves because that's Clearly not working.

[JavaQ]

Dogs eat sh*t, so a few cat biscuits will be a gourmet experience for them.
Keep them away from "Dreamies"- you dont want both species getting addicted.

[JustLyra]

The army could deliver fuel.

How many specialist fuel tanker drivers do you think they have?

[maddening]

Where on earth are you? Nothing like that in where we are in Cheshire! We have no issues in the supermarket, there has been some queuing for petrol but that has been in lots of places. But traffic moving fine, the next village did have the pcso directing traffic around the garage to keep the centre of the village clear of traffic.

Crazy the disparity in different areas.

[CraftyGin]

@mpsw

But they are not generally trained in moving flammable materials from one place to another, and keeping the different grades of petrol, and diesel, separate

However, that's a key role of the RLC (the largest corps in the Army) and they have the fully qualified and fuel experienced drivers and handlers.

I was chatting to BIL in the US yesterday and explained our situation.

He said it is exactly the same with truck drivers there - people aging out and younger ones not willing to do the sleeping in the cab stuff.

[Tinkywinkydinkydoo]

The army doesn’t need to deliver fuel because fuel drivers can deliver the fuel, there are no issues with it being delivered theres problems with newspapers scaremongering the crap out of everyone so people have panicked and used up all of the fuel! Deliveries are still going on as normal but there can’t do it quick enough because people have panicked and used it all up!

[SaltySheepdog]

Its desperate that nhs and social care staff get petrol. Important schools have enough staff to look after keyworker children.

[shouldistop]

Where are you?!

It's completely fine here, plenty of fuel and food.

[Orangejuicemarathoner]

@HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend

There’s no fuel shortage and no empty shelves, media needs to stop telling lies.

well, if it wasn't so identifying, I could pop back to our local super market and photograph empty shelves for you.

More than 3/4 of the shelves are empty there

[dementedma]

Where’s the army?
Busy with helping our UK and devolved powers with Covid tests, vaccinations, driving ambulance and oh, defending the country! Some are just back from sorting out the mess in Afghanistan.

The army that has been decimated by Defence cuts year on year and which is technically no longer an Army as the the numbers are too low to meet that criteria?

The soldiers who are routinely slagged off on MN as “hired killers” are now suddenly to save the day. Again?

They are supposed to provide MACA (Military Aid to Civilian Authorities) as a last resort, not every time the politicians fuck up.

And final point, wtf do you think their trucks and vehicles run on????

[VanGoghsDog]

[quote HotPenguin]@VanGoghsDog good point, electric car owners will be laughing - until their energy provider goes bust and they are put on a million times more expensive tariff![/quote]
Haha, if they have any sense they'll also have photo voltaic panels and provide their own electricity.
But generally I expect they are with the big providers.