It's all manual valves. They don't care what year it is. It doesn't hurt to save water, unless you do it the wrong way. Food safety experts shudder to think of people rinsing out jugs that formerly held other liquids, such as milk. Stockpiling is an even bigger risk when it comes to fuels, such as gasoline.
Fire departments worry that they'll have to run to garage fires fed by improperly stored gas.
But if we received any information that somebody was stockpiling fuel, then we would go out and inspect that and investigate that. There aren't that many garages to worry about on Fraase's block. As she meets her neighbors to talk about community preparedness, she gets the impression that most of them won't prepare. Perhaps, even on the eve of the year 2000, it's a little superstition. It's as if we think that we're going to bring it on somehow, and that has nothing to do with it.