“I’m a member of the Hurree-canes, Alice! How are they gonna know I’m a Hurree-cane?”
As Hurricane Irene bears down and surely threatens to send New Jersey into another time zone, I want to make note of the fact that the world must be coming to an end. I mean, an earthquake and hurricane all in one week? And affecting New Jersey, no less? The Mayans must have been a year and couple months off with their prediction! If the hurricane does the damage that the blowhards and fear mongers are purporting on the news, than perhaps I will be blogging from Oz come Sunday night. Make no mistake, this is going to be a bad one, despite my humor to play off the History Channel-esque Armageddon tactics of the local news outlets. Governor Chris Christie has done an outstanding job of handling the situation—there has been no pussyfooting around. He has said over and over again that if you do not evacuate from mandatory zones, you stay at your own risk. This is a deadly storm, and people can get killed if they ignore the warnings. While I am against that kind of evacuation (I would not leave my home, because I believe the captain should go down with his ship), no one can say they were not warned.
As for the town I live in, so far no evacuation orders, though at one point I read they were contemplating it. Three towns nearby have been issued the mandatory orders, because they are right on the bay. My house, with no traffic, is about 5-10 minutes away from the waters of Union Beach, Keansburg, and Keyport. Having just returned from the store with my survival kit (bread, two cases of water and a quart of milk), I now feel ready to ride out the storm, because obviously, you are going to die without bread and milk. While I remained calm, people scurried around Stop & Shop as if the world was going to end in ten minutes. Earlier in the day, at Costco, people were jumping the workers as they pushed out flats of food and water. I am truly surprised no one was injured or killed in the melee.
What I do not understand, is the people buying frozen and canned foods. If you have no power, your refrigerator will shut down and your frozen items will go bad. Your gas-line will also be ineffective, thus you cannot heat up the hundred cans of soup and stroke-inducing sodium laced vegetables you purchased in between taking downers to quell your panic attack.
We see time and time again that humanity cannot handle a crisis. What if you don’t run to the store to buy milk and bread? Are you going to wither up and die? Is there not enough food in your house to last a couple of days? I have said time and time again, especially during snow storms, that if you do not have enough food in your house to last that long, then you deserve to die. More people will die from panic than an actual disaster itself, and we see that proven every time. Because the news said that our area will have an “overwhelming possibility” of losing power after the storm hits full throttle sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning, I do not know how often I can blog here in the next few days. I can only hope that among what the hurricane will take with it in its swath of destruction, NJ taxes will go with it.
Stay safe,
Greg Caggiano
Caggiano's Corner 
As always entertaining reading…good luck to you and your family..be safe!
You too Vinny! Good luck!