General Chat

Here in WA (also the NT) we are being hit by food shortages and empty supermarket shelves.

Nothing to do with panic buying or Covid affected transport drivers, but wit a one in a two hundred rain event in South Australia which has destroyed many hundreds of kilometres of the single rail link from the Eastern States to WA

https://tinyurl.com/ms8uav73

Back to 'rationing' :-D

I don't know your age Allan but we are in our 60s and can cope with rationing and shortages. :-)

I'm seventy-three, ZZzzz, seventy-four next month.

We can also cope with rationing and shortages, but many in the 'younger' groups have an expectation that they can have what they want, when they want it:-D

It would be interesting to find out how the younger ones do cope, if they do.

Oh, how I sympathise with you, Allan.

A once in I don't know how many hundred of years washed out rail lines and roads in British Columbia last November. One particular storm that lasted for over a day did the major damage, but we then had several more days of rain.

Our landscape is different from yours in that it is mainly mountainous, and there is no way to go round a washed out bridge on either rail line or roads.

Vancouver and the Lower Mainland were cut off from the rest of the Province and Canada for weeks, with smaller truck loads have to make hundreds of miles of detours to bring in smaller amounts of goods.

The last road closed was finally opened with temporary repairs, Bailey bridges and all, in the last week of January.

Now, the government has to find billions of dollars to do proper repairs and upgrading for future climatic changes.

Unfortunately our major area for poultry, dairy, beef cattle and pigs, plus crops and hay was also inundated at the same time because it is in what was a drained lake bottom, and that was inundated when a river across in the US flooded during the same time and the overflow was originally naturally into what had been that lake. So we also lost the local source for meat, eggs and veggies, etc. As one example, over 90,000 chickens (at least) were drowned.

Like you, we are old enough to know how to cope with rationing and shortages, though I have to say that dairy and non-dairy items were becoming problematic! We do always have a stock of some things in a store cupboard, such as toilet paper, tinned soup or salmon, cereal etc, and meat in the freezer but it is the fresh food that becomes difficult

Petrol was also a problem for some time as the gas is shipped to refineries on the coast from inland or from the US , and that affected supplies. For about a month we had petrol rationing, no more than $50 refills for private vehicles.

Good luck, my friend.

I guess those Maxi-Cube artics will be kept busy (if roads are OK, of course). As a last resort plane and ocean deliveries, both of which will likely increase the price of goods, as you know, Allan, and a longer wait for sea cargo.

Still not as bad as deliveries dropped by net from the sky from planes to the starving masses though.

A lesson for youngsters, do you think? Perhaps not, unless they can’t get the latest gadgets?