Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

Post by paganel » Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 4:55 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #15

kwhitefoot wrote: post #7

The real story here seems to me to be not that people burned their clothes to stay warm but that people in a place with fragile connections to the outside world had so little in the way of supplies to weather a relatively short period without food deliveries. I'm not blaming them, I assume that many of the affected people don't have the resources to keep a buffer stock.

From the article, the community has stockpiled resources, but their plows and skidsteers are all out of commission. They literally cannot get to the firewood, and every time they clear some snow out more blows in. Some people have been completely isolated in their homes for 8 days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a supply that'll last longer than that, except for some hardcore preppers.

Post by bombcar » Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #126

nottorp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the winter in that area normally ? Because i've lived my first ~16 years of life in a home heated with firewood (and coal but it's irellevant now) and by the end of september all the fuel needed for 3 months of winter was neatly piled up within easy reach of the house. All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and maybe a wheelbarrow. Why would you need something motorized to get to your firewood? Doe…

This comment is peak HN contrarianism. “How come they didn’t prepare better for a brutal winter” Is the new “Dropbox will never work”

Post by PenguinCoder » Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

Avicebron wrote: post #100

starkd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old newspaper used to work well for kindling. But fewer people get their newspapers delivered in print. Used paper grocery bags could work.

Also proper organization of the wood, I have a wood stove (had one growing up as well) and learning how to build a little pyramid or log cabin like structure around something flammable helps a lot to circulate air allowing the fire to spread to larger pieces of wood. EDIT: old newspaper is good, I often use "junk mail" as long as it doesn't contain any plastic, where I am stores will still send out some paper flyers.

Post by bombcar » Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #141

zdragnar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, the community has stockpiled resources, but their plows and skidsteers are all out of commission. They literally cannot get to the firewood, and every time they clear some snow out more blows in. Some people have been completely isolated in their homes for 8 days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a supply that'll last longer than that, except for some hardcore preppers.

Serious question, why aren't the firewood stockpiles in very close proximity to the houses themselves? That's what we do in these parts of the world where I live (Eastern Europe), where even the apartment blocks that still rely on firewood store it very close to the buildings themselves, in walking distance (as can be seen via this GStreetView link [1]) [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@46.5413445,22.4545999,3a,49y,10…

Post by katbyte » Mon, Dec 26, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #60

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, why aren't these people self sufficient after we took away all their means of self sufficiency? It's a real big mystery isn't it.

>Yes, why aren't these people self sufficient after we took away all their means of self sufficiency? This sounds very much like "racism of low expectations". "These people" are just as self-sufficient as any other group of modern people of similar socioeconomic background. It's been 100+ years since they were mistreated in any serious fashion. I come from eastern Europe and 150 years ago most of my ancestors were se…