So this was originally reported as happening at a middle school, but it was actually an alternative high school that was formerly a middle school.

Heh, the Megabus leaves from the CATS station, which isn't anywhere near as scary as the Greyhound station. I used to have to get a transfer at the CATS station at night and I'm a younger looking woman, it was terrifying. There was usually a cop stationed there so I'd go sit by their car while I waited for my bus because fewer deranged creeps would bother me.

People think I'm joking when I said I feel safer in Chicago than I do in Baton Rouge.

This city is a seething cesspool of virulent swamp monsters. I feel awful for the kids here, they're a product of their environment.

Most receipts will only say you purchased a ticket since the tickets for Powerball, Mega, Lotto, etc. generally aren't actually scanned but rather just have the dollar amount entered into the register. The receipt won't have the numbers you chose on it . What you really need to do is sign the back of your ticket. That is the only proof you have that it's yours. You could also take a picture of the front and back of the ticket as extra evidence, but mostly just sign it and keep it in a safe place.

Not to mention that even if a business closed or gave employees the choice not to come in without repercussions, those employees lose money either way. That's a missed shift (or multiple) and they're most likely not going to catch a break on their rent, utilities, or other payments because of it.

If a business is open there will likely be someone going there for stupid shit. I've worked at gas stations during winter storms and blizzards and while gas stations can be considered essential, people came in just to buy lottery tickets. No gas, no snacks, no tools. Just lottery tickets.

Not to mention the fact that anyone that closes a business or decides not to go into work because of a storm will be labeled as overdramatic if the storm ends up shifting or not being as extreme as forecasted. Which is another issue - while actual meteorologists might care about the forecast being accurate, news stations want something to sound apocalyptic. It leads to a "boy who cried wolf" situation where everyone in the area knows there's a 90% chance it won't be that bad, and everyone outside the area calls them idiots for not taking it seriously. Of course, if it turns out not to be that serious everyone forgets about it, so it doesn't occur to them that we get warnings like that every time something shows up on the radar.

And then there's the slight chance that something gets worse than originally forecasted. Happens with hurricanes sometimes and the concept of "too late to evacuate" doesn't make sense to someone who hasn't been in that situation before.

Oh, and while I totally agree that the city should've done more about this, keep in mind that once they say that everything needs to shut down the city turns into an absolute shitshow with people realizing that they're not prepared, leading to more clogged streets/stores/what have you. It'd be nice if people could have that all ready at the beginning of the season, but again, preparation is a luxury for people living hand-to-mouth.

Shit, and I damn near forgot to mention that while it is nice for a business to close when a storm like this rolls through, the employees whose shifts were cancelled don't get storm pay. They just don't get paid. Their landlords and utility companies don't care that their shifts got cancelled. Neither do grocery stores.

Thank you. This is something that we see in the south during hurricane season, and yet there's still a question of why someone living hand-to-mouth would ignore an evacuation when a storm is coming. Not that difficult to understand - if they still have a home after the storm passes, they're going to be expected to pay to live there.

Assuming they had gas stoves and water heaters that weren't affected by the storm. RIP to anyone who only have electric appliances.

There are a lot of plans that are great if you have the ability, but even those require the weather to work with you to some degree.

A lot of store/shift managers that make a dollar or two over the employees they supervise are still living paycheck to paycheck. They don't want to be at the store anymore than their employees do but if they had decided to close the store and cancel shifts they would've gotten their asses handed to them if the storm turned out not to be as terrible as it was. That's really what it comes down to, out of touch higher-ups that don't live in the area, or that don't have to leave their houses, thinking that it'll blow over like all the other storms that are forecasted to be catastrophic. You see it with hurricanes all the time which is part of why people don't evacuate.