In The News Today...

Quote: SOOPOO

I was just watching CNN. Interviewing the people affected. EVERY person interviewed was obese! I wonder if it was done on purpose? I can't figure out what motive CNN would have? Here in Buffalo during what we called the "October surprise" in 2006 people were without power for almost a week, some longer. I don't recall the fact that NY and the city of Buffalo is a Democrat state being blamed. I guess in retrospect, they should have? One of the people interviewed said they are 'suffering' with 3 hours of electricity on, then 8 hours off, then the cycle repeats. They just said 500,000 customers are without power. I think that means that 10,000,000 customers are with power? Media exaggeration? Of course!

I was without power for that October surprise. I think my house got down into the 40's. I wore a coat. Wasn't hard to 'survive'. Frankly, if you are dry, I think you should be able to survive for quite a while indoors in cold temperatures.

Would you please stop encouraging people who make natural disasters political?

Quote: AZDuffman

Would you please stop encouraging people who make natural disasters political?

Just imagine if Texas Governor said last year.... I’m hiring my nephew Bo to winterize the power grid at a cost of $billion. It is necessary and will only cost the average consumer $5 a month. Reminds me of when Cuomo was whining about why we didn’t have an extra 40,000 ventilators just sitting around! Hindsight is so easy....

Rick Perry is arguing that Texans need to suffer or the Federal govt will take over the system and make it better
Unbelievable

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/18/rick-perry-texans-endure-blackouts-keep-government-out

Ted’s heading home:

Quote: SOOPOO

I was just watching CNN. Interviewing the people affected. EVERY person interviewed was obese! I wonder if it was done on purpose? I can't figure out what motive CNN would have? Here in Buffalo during what we called the "October surprise" in 2006 people were without power for almost a week, some longer. I don't recall the fact that NY and the city of Buffalo is a Democrat state being blamed. I guess in retrospect, they should have? One of the people interviewed said they are 'suffering' with 3 hours of electricity on, then 8 hours off, then the cycle repeats. They just said 500,000 customers are without power. I think that means that 10,000,000 customers are with power? Media exaggeration? Of course!

I was without power for that October surprise. I think my house got down into the 40's. I wore a coat. Wasn't hard to 'survive'. Frankly, if you are dry, I think you should be able to survive for quite a while indoors in cold temperatures.

500,000 is wrong. 2.8 million households without power this morning. That is an improvement from 3.7 million yesterday. I haven't heard of anyone experiencing several hours on, several hours off. Everyone I know who lost power lost if for a couple of days at least. Here in Austin water is a bigger problem today. As a result of the power failures and water breaks the water system is beginning to fail. Many people lost water yesterday. Everyone who has water has to boil drinking water because of filtering equipment failure. With a gas fireplace and a gas stove, I think I would rather live without power than water.

Recently we were predicted to have a big storm with winds that might cause power issues. We filled some pots with water. Made sure we had plenty of candles matches and flashlights. We have enough peanut butter crackers cereal to last a few days easily without even thinking about real hunger. I’m just stunned that people just do not prepare for such emergencies. I’ll bet AZ could live many months if sealed in his house.

Quote: SOOPOO

Recently we were predicted to have a big storm with winds that might cause power issues. We filled some pots with water. Made sure we had plenty of candles matches and flashlights. We have enough peanut butter crackers cereal to last a few days easily without even thinking about real hunger. I’m just stunned that people just do not prepare for such emergencies. I’ll bet AZ could live many months if sealed in his house.

I can do pretty well. And I will never get why so many people are so ill prepped. Well, I kind of get it as I used to be far less of a prepper. But remember in 2008 people in NJ dumpster diving after 3 days??

This one caught my eye, since I used to be in hotels:

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/investigations/defenders/texans-complain-of-possible-price-gouging-at-hotels-amid-winter-storm/269-499d81ce-cd91-4fd4-8d60-7fc3a623926b

Relevant quote:

Quote:

“Please note that high prices alone do not mean that price gouging has taken place, as businesses are generally allowed to determine the price for their products. However, if a disaster has been declared by the Governor of Texas and businesses raise the price of their products to exorbitant or excessive rates to take advantage of the disaster declaration, then it is quite likely that price gouging is taking place, and a complaint should be filed with our office concerning the incident.”

Okay, so the question is really what might constitute, "Exorbitant or excessive." I think that's really tough to say because, right or wrong, prices are simply going to go up when you have millions of people who might be looking for perhaps tens of thousands of available guest rooms.

Obviously, such a massive power outage is an extremely rare situation, which is something that we never had to deal with during the time I worked at either of the two hotels that I used to. I'm not sure that we ever had any power outage that would have sold us out within minutes, or anything. The only time a power outage might have resulted in such a thing, we were already nearly sold out anyway (so our rates were already about as high as we ever went) and people refused to pay them and accused us of price gouging...even though the rates (at that particular time) hadn't been changed in weeks.

What do you guys think, "The right thing," is to do in this situation? Should the hotels just keep their, "Normal rates," as if nothing in the world was happening, should they be allowed to charge whatever they want?

I can say that our rates were often ridiculous for what you were getting; I'm not even going to pretend otherwise, but it was a simple function of supply and demand. We spent the better part of three years at 80%+ occupancy, often completely sold out, except on Sundays. I'd have liked to have seen more investment in improving the public areas of the property (such as the pool), or having a continental breakfast that didn't completely suck, but I didn't own the property---I managed it---so that wasn't really my call. The rooms themselves, in my opinion, were basically fine at the time. The rooms themselves were certainly better than others I've seen at other properties flying the same flag (franchise).

Anyway, how different does the fact that it's a natural disaster make the concept of supply and demand? We charged rates that the property itself almost certainly did not justify, but that was as a function of supply and demand. We charged in accordance with trying to maximize room revenues.

That's not to say we never, "Did the right thing," as long as we had rooms just sitting there anyway. If a family was traveling about and had their car break down with very little cash, we'd give them a room for next to nothing. On a few occasions, a couple would need separated (at home) because both were drunk and getting into it, so the cops would call and ask if we could hook the guy up with a ridiculously low rate---and we'd do it, if we had plenty of availability anyway and the guy promised not to tell anyone how little he paid.

I know that I'd be faking some rooms as Out-of-Order or temporarily check them in as, "Comped," to someone who doesn't exist to kill my online inventory. No question about that. Reservations are going to be phone-call or walk-in only, cannot be cancelled and I'm sure as hell not having anyone stay on points or paying 20% of the rate to a third-party booking company.

Those things aside, I think I'd just leave the rates where they would normally be. I'd probably just take the unexpected sellout and be happy with that.

Poor ted. Didn’t get the upgrade.

Quote: AZDuffman

I can do pretty well. And I will never get why so many people are so ill prepped. Well, I kind of get it as I used to be far less of a prepper. But remember in 2008 people in NJ dumpster diving after 3 days??

When I was a little kid in the PNW, we grew up building forts and camping in them, doing a mini survival type playing. Later I moved onto a mini-ranch with animals and so forth then on to Alaska. I've always thought of power outages as an inconvenience, especially seeing as repairing them is what I did for a living, but not a reason I would have to alter my way of living.

Power outages on the road system in AK. don't happen every month, but they are totally uncommon. When the power went out for 8 days about a dozen years ago, I couldn't believe that people living in Alaska "the last frontier" didn't have an alternate means to heat their homes, at least a room or more, certainly enough to keep their pipes from freezing? But, nope, downtown Soldotna, dozens and dozens of homes lost their pipes when their homes went below 20 degrees inside.

What is the Eskimo saying, "there isn't a word for cold in their language, but there are 8 words for 'unprepared'. : )