I blame the media for mob mentality ...

[Nathan Caroland]

Grrr.

That pretty much describes my feelings about what is going on down here in the south right now after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for people that have been affected by the hurricane, but some of the things going on just have me shaking my head.

One of the things that apparently the media has been making a HUGE deal over is gasoline and they have hyped it up so much over the last day and a half that people made a run on the pumps down here and in the space of 16 hours the cost of gas has shot up anywhere from a $1-$3 a GALLON in the Atlanta area. I was paying $2.37 a gallon on Thursday of last week. Today when I came in to work, it was $3.09 and one of the guys just came back from his lunch and said it is up to well over $4 a gallon in many areas now, because everyone is panicing and rushing to fill up their vehicles and any container that they can manage.

I stopped in to get gas today because I needed it, not just to top off the tank. Had a truck pull up beside me and start filling up, and in the back of his pickup he had 30 (I counted) 5 gallon gas cans which he started to fill up as well.

That's just frickin crazy!

One of the workers here has pulled up some pictures of people in Alabama and other places that are filling 1500 gallon containers (don't know where the hell someone would get something like that) on the back of tractor trailers and the lines are well over an hour long wait in some places just to get to the pump.

I'm honestly of the opinion that if people had just gone about their regular buisness that there would have been little trouble or shortage for gas as things are coming back online, shipments are being made, reserves are being opened .. etc. But no - mob mentality has taken ahold and suddenly everyone just HAS to have it.

I weep if there is every a real friggin' emergency such as a war, invasion or something like the collapse of goverment. I foresee deaths and destruction by the thousands as suddenly we all find ourselves in the middle of a Mad Max movie because idiots get it in their minds that something has to be done or they have to get or have this. Kind of like those people that went apeshit over Y2K which turned out to be a big fizzle, yet they spent $100's of thousands on bunkers, food, weapons .. etc.

Honestly - I blame the media, atleast in part, for sensationalizing something that really had no need for it. That's like screaming 'BOMB' in a crowded building and expecting everyone to walk out slowly and calmly. Not going to happen - you're going to have foot prints on your back from the hundred people that you were in the way of.

Your thoughts?