Worst thing about the storm is it didn’t flood Wall Street.
The cyclones reach further north in the Atlantic because of the warmth of the Gulf Stream. They are powered by the release of the latent heat of evaporation when the vapours condense as rain. The gulf steam gives cyclones the vapours.
I was away from my computer all day and just now realized how relieved I am to see so many people on this thread commenting that the storm has passed them by without too much damage. Fingers crossed for DIAP and anyone else dealing with flooding and major power outtages.Here in Austin, we just faced the hottest day on record – 113 degrees. It was 108 at 6:30, and now at 10:15 is still at about 100. Absolutely unbelievable. A friend of mine the other day said he was just hoping for "average" – average temperature, average rainfall, average hurricane season. I don’t know how much in the way of "average" any of us will see anytime soon (sigh) … but I hope it for us nonetheless.
I really like the idea of sharing lessons learned, both in extreme drought and hurricane. Down here, I would have to say I’m thinking hard about insulating my house more carefully, storing a LOT more water, and planting more fruit or nut-bearing shade trees. Which would need carefully planned rain gardens to support them in drought. Canning and rainwater storage (perhaps underground storage to help stave off evaporation) – drought-hardy food crops like purslane and lambs quarters, okra and crowder peas – anything to get us through the summer heat – seem like increasingly good ideas.
Best of luck to all on the east coast…
spinone,
25 DVDs will go out today via USPS media mail, to the address you provided in your PM. Thanks for helping spread the word!!!
Erik
Here in Westport, CT. 60% (including our house) is still without power. A lot of trees fallen on power lines. As of last friday night before the storm, all the local grocery store shelves where out of essentials like bottled water, bread, ice, milk, batteries, flashlights etc. Our main street, Post Rd, is still mostly without power, leaving most local businesses closed. The retaurants and shops with food are packed, but quickly running out of items on the menus. People are mostly calm so far, but it could still be days before power is fully restored. It will be interesting to see if people keep their cool the longer the power stays out. I also heard the Connecticut Power & Light is refusing to pay overtime, which will slow the process down even more.
We are holding up well with plenty of water, food and back up solar power to keep our freezer and fridge humming along.
Thank you for your generous support of CM.com, and the mission. I look to you as an example.Sincerely,
Rector
I was chopping up some tree limbs today, fortunately our only consequence of Irene, when I realized that it was unlikely for me to even know how to chop wood. I’m probably the only city kid who learned how to do it at 8 y.o. I grew up in the city for the beginning of my life;no one went to camp and the Scouts didn’t get out of town to do this stuff. I was watching an immigrant neighbor chop wood one day in his tiny back lot and he invited me over. He was a self reliant guy from the old country. He showed me how to chop wood and how to shoot a bow, skills I might never have learned and have retained to this day, almost 60 years later. It made me think that, while you’re dealing with disaster and doing something self-reliant, if you see a neighborhood kid looking on, offer to teach him/her. They’ll remember you for the rest of their life.Thanks, Mr. Golub, wherever you are.
And good luck to those on this thread. I saw VA Beach got 20 inches. Hope you’re ok, DIAP and Cat.
CS
just a few thoughts from Westchester Co NY:
We got lucky, flooding and many without power but little wind. How sad for the people in Catskills, Jersey, VA, NC, Vermont, and all others facing catastrophic losses. These storms are so unpredictable.
A colleague on the upper West Side of NYC noticed he was unable to get any emergency supplies after looking 20 blocks from his home, unable to get batteries etc…on Saturday. Here in Westchester I could not get additional emergency lamps at the local sporting goods store and was happy to have my stash of smaller lights which I fortunately did not need since the electricity stayed on. People in my local grocery store were clearly panicked on Saturday and that was a bit scary.
My most important preps lesson was that you can never have too much clean water in storage. Our water is suspect during floods and already since Saturday I have gone through 25 liters (however many gallons that is), just for cooking, washing food, making coffee, sharing some with a neighbor and giving water to the cat. I have decided I can never have too much clean water on hand. A gallon a day is not enough IMHO.
In my short life, this storm IS unusual for the area. And flooding is historic north of us, beyond anything preceding it. Very bad.
I hope all are well
Apparently a dam broke or was opened up in Jamaica, VT, which sent a surge that caused a brook to jump its banks claim a large portion of downtown Brattleboro. I understand that 260+ roads were out, including roads and bridges out in every single town in the state, and some portions of major state roads are closed indefinitely.
The good news - and bad news - is that this is a hilly town. Those up high had little to no damage, maybe a damp basement, maybe a power outage, that’s it. Many down low had a house full of water and now have a house full of damage and future cleanup.
The nuclear power plant in Vernon was not compromised as far as I know.
One thing I learned in this storm is that when you have this kind of flooding (raging brooks, etc), you should never drive through what looks like a large, shallow puddle on the road. When culverts are insufficient, nature silently carves her own culverts under the road, and that puddle may extend six feet down. This is true on dirt roads but can also be true on paved roads, where a crust of road might remain while the earth beneath it has been washed out. Scary stuff. This is how you get cars buried several feet deep in mud. The water level meets the road level and hides the absence of road.
I guess something I’d add to the preparedness list is a thoughtful plan for what to do for transportation if your road is busted at both ends, as was (and still is) the case for thousands of people in VT right now.
Thanks for sharing your experience with Irene. I’m hearing similar stories in the Hudson River valley from the Catskills up to the Adirondacs. Many years ago I lived in Schoharie Co., southwest of Albany. I saw a photo yesterday that showed a portion of the Schoharie Cr. valley, a wide agricultural area, flooded from hillside to hillside. Every road in the county was apparently closed yesterday.
I think it is an important subject for those of us who live in the northeast where we typically live among large hills and small mountains. Flashfloods have become more numerous, as documented by Bill McKibben in his wonderful book eaarth. We tend to live in small fairly steep watersheds that can flood disastrously with large amounts of concentrated rain.
I’m particularly sensitive to this subject because a couple years ago we had an episode of 7" of rain in 1.5 hours. We live on top of the watershed so we only had about a foot of water in the basement. The flood essentially started in my backyard where a small intermittent stream begins. Our immediate neighbors had more serious flooding and the village four miles down the hill was a disaster area. A couple people died, many homes were destroyed and many more damaged. Several streets had to be completely rebuilt. Bridges were destroyed by debris and large trees that were floated down what normally is a small 4-5 ft wide stream. Some roads weren’t repaired for several months after the flood. In fact, one private bridge was finally replaced last week.
Although Irene was a pretty abnormal event for the northeast, I think it is important to take note of the increasing frequency of abnormal events. Irene was huge in terms of breadth, but smaller weather events that are just as devastating locally are happening more often, but are not much mentioned outside of the local areas. I hope that someone chronicles the number of these small disasters that Irene created, but are not mentioned in the mass media that lost interest once NYC largely escaped damage.
Doug
Our power is still out but after doing some driving around Ulster County yesterday I know how lucky we were. Looks like the fiercest win and rain were about 8-10 miles west of us. The swath of unbelievable destruction wends from Kerhonkson/Accord through Hurley, Shokan, Boiceville and on up from there. We have a number of downed trees and power lines on our street but when I drove up to Hurley yesterday to help my buddy D pump 6’ of water out of a basement I had to take a 10-mile backroad detour to travel the 2 or so miles from Kingston to Hurley. Roads full of downed trees and power lines, but also washed out with gullies 20’ wide and 10’ deep. When I bought gas with the corporate card yesterday, they actually ran it on one of those old back-n-forth mechanical imprinters with the carbon paper. Hadn’t seen one of those in 15 years… The hardest-hit areas will be weeks recovering if not longer. We may have power by end of week, although Central Hudson won’t even give us a guesstimate yet. Wife and I are doing pretty well. Biggest issue is keeping the food iced, and in another day or two, the need to do laundry. You can bet we will not face another major outage without a generator. I’ve saved my pennies and will buy one as soon as possible. Having a wireless 3G (as opposed to WiFi) device (iPad) has been a godsend in terms of keeping in touch, although the cell net has been spottier and slower than normal. Our neighbors across the street had to fly to Ireland for the death of a family member. We’re watching their house and keeping their generator going for them (sump pump and chest freezer…and showers for us). So far most folks just seem to be keeping on keeping on. If the outage goes longer than a few more days, it’ll be interesting to see how people deal, emotionally. DIAP bruddah, give us a shout! All the best, gang, and Viva! – Sager
I lost power on Sunday and am still out, but my workplace has power so I came in Tuesday.I tried to post from my Android phone but the tiny keypad drove me crazy so I gave up.
Here is my after action report (actually in process).
I filled up 25 gallons of drinking water before the storm hit in these nice blue 5 gallon containers I got from Emergency Essentials. They are working great and so far I have used up about 8 gallons.
It quickly became apparent how much waste material you produce. I have some paper plates, but a lot of the food I was using up from my refigerator was Indian style curry chickpeas or some runny saute of vegetables from my garden. These needed to go into bowls and I did not have paper bowls. This led to the need to do dishes.
I found that you need a system for washing dishes. I improvised with some 8 quart kettles. I heated up the washing water on the propane burner and then set up two rinsing containers. It seems that if you have a first one to remove most of the suds and a second one to finish off you can use less water. I figured it best to use drinking water for dish washing.
When the storm hit I was sending emails and did not fill up enough Home Depot buckets with non-drinking water. I found this mainly useful for washing and sponge bathing. I think it might be good to have the bucket lids to limit escaping moisture.
My sump hole in the cellar needs to be bailed every 8 hours and produces over 6 gallons of water. Although I probably could filter this or go to the pond for some to filter I am using this only for flushing the toilet.
I have seen these hand pumps that go into your existing well tube. I will probably get one and will post a separate thread asking if anyone has bought these. It seems that you need an extensive amount of water and being able to pump from your normal well is really convenient.
I quickly discovered what a pain it is to hold the flashlight while you are doing something (like bailing the sump). Good thing I recently bought a head mounted flashlight. I will definitely get a couple more high end ones for next time.
I was pleasantly surprised that I had nothing much to rush out to get before the storm hit.
For a laugh I went with one of my co-workers on his panic quest for four D-batteries for his flashlight. Of course they were all sold out. After he gave up looking he went to get a sandwich while I went to get some money out of the bank. I managed to talk the branch manager into giving me four batteries for the friend. When I came out I told him that I reluctantly took four batteries out of my safe deposit box for him 
At the grocery while everyone was loading up carts, I hit the checkout with two heads of garlic (planning to harvest basil and make pesto before storm destroyed plants).
I have to admit, however, like Chris, that on the way home Saturday night I talked the girl who was just leaving the grocery store into opening back up for a minute so I could buy a pint of ice cream.
All in all we did not get hit too badly and it was a good opportunity to check out some equipment in nice warm weather without having to practice suturing and first aid on a lot of people at the same time.
Getting all my stuff in the garage forced me to clean it and now that the refridgerator is hot it will force me to give it a much needed cleaning.
I hope that fellow forum members in northern New England were not hit too bad by all that flooding and can stay safe.
Bye for now - Joe
Please be careful ! In about three days people will run out of food, water , patience . and ethics .
FM
FM, we’ll get to see exactly how that plays out. There are areas near us that are cut off from everything and will be indefinitely. It will be an interesting test case, and hopefully just sufficient to give more people a wake-up call toward their own preparedness. Hopefully not worse than that. We’ll see.Sadly, some people just don’t think about the impact of their actions, and it can affect many. One local locked-in town had road crews working all day and night to get a single main road back into use so that people could travel in and out of town. It’s a long, dirt road. A very large truck carrying groceries for the town’s college decided to try the road despite advice to the contrary. The truck got stuck, and now the road is impassable again indefinitely. Needless wasted time, resources, and frustration. There is no way to protect oneself from those who are not making good choices, unfortunately.
I am grateful that even more people were not affected. The flooding could have been worse (a decision had to be made about whether or not to release an upstate dam, which would have caused a far higher flood crest in our area, but ultimately they were able to keep it shut.)
Thankfully, I’m pretty sheltered from the effects that some people are feeling. Roads to and from my house are open in both directions, my house is high on a hill, I have power, and I have reasonably sufficient stored preps and plans to keep me going if need be. I’m going to lend a hand with recovery efforts when I can, but otherwise stay the heck out of the way. But I have heard reports and seen footage of empty store shelves, and I talked to a friend who thought he might have to get creative about food pretty soon (having a small amount of food in his fridge, a bag of potatoes, and not much else - and unable to get to town.) His road was made passable today, but many other people are still waiting. There are some outreach efforts to find local families to host those displaced by flooding, the Time Trade is working on connecting people for cleanup efforts, and the local grassroots paper is hosting free ads for those offering help and relief. Lots of good grassroots efforts emerging.
Anyway, it’s been interesting, and we’ll see how the next few days play out.
The posts here describing folks’ efforts to secure and preserve potable water are a sobering reminder of the importance of securing dependable access to drinkable water in advance of disaster striking. Congrats to those who had the foresight to prepare ahead of Irene. To those who were unable, our thoughts are with you and we sincerely hope you find a way to obtain safe water (from your neighbors, town, or perhaps fellow CM.com readers).
Chalk it down to karma that our special offer for CM.com readers this month is 10% off the high-quality ceramic water filters offered by St Paul Mercantile. A filter of this kind is exactly the backup solution you want in place for a situation like Irene’s aftermath. As long as you can find water of any quality (definitely not a problem in upstate NY and VT right now), these filters will render it drinkable.
This special offer for CM.com readers expires tomorrow, at month’s end. But whether you take advantage of it or not, Chris and I can’t recommend enough that you take steps to secure a solution like this and/or ensure you have a large quantity of potable water (15+ gallons per person) stored on your property. It’s literally priceless insurance if you ever need it.
Okay, we’re back and were pleasantly underwhelmed. We got just over 15 inches of rain and I read this morning that the peat bog fire in the Great Dismal Swamp is still burning. Most of the area surrounding the neighborhood is cypress swamp, low wetland or farmland and it sucked up just about all the rain with just some minor flooding in a few spots. Lost 2 pieces of shingle - one of which I think came off during the Nor’easter last year and blew out of the gutter. A couple of branches on some maples snapped off, but frankly the yard has looked worse from a debris standpoint after summertime microburst thundersqualls. We lost one tomato plant - the rest of the garden was untouched. Most of the raised beds are on the south side of the house so the house blocked most of the direct wind. My Scorpion tail pepper plants didn’t even drop their blooms.
We were well prepared. We had candles staged in every room we expected to be in, and the rest of the gear staged in a central spot. I ran the generator at loaded for 30 minutes on Friday to burn the carbon out and staged all of our power cords beforehand. We had 4-5 days worth of gas for continuous running and had planned on running the generator for 2 hours and shutting it down for 6 so we could have stretched it out even farther. I had planned on being without power for a week. We filled the empty space in the fridge with water and, umm, rendered hoppy malts. Alas, the Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA was a storm casualty. Seriously, the fridge stayed below 45 degrees for almost 6 hours without power partly because the water and beer helped hold the temps down. I did have to get a little anal retentive nuke and insist people consolidate trips to the fridge for food and drink (admittedly, the biggest offender was me, so I compensated by taking the Sierra Nevadas two at a time).
Cat completely nailed the freezer preps with a stroke of genius (oh how I hope she reads this post). She rearranged everything to create as much empty space as possible on Friday and filled all the space with ziploc baggies full of water. So now we have about 97 balls of ice in the fridge. I’m certain the freezer would have stayed colder longer without power than the fridge. I now drop an ice blob or two into a couple of our potted plants outside each day and let them melt and water the plants. I should be finished watering plants with ice blobs by October 17th.
Food - fast and easy. We were ready to cook on the camp stove and in my Dutch oven, but ended up doing fast and easy. Sandwiches, crackers, veggies and fruit would have gotten boring, but spaghetti, pasta, etc. is easy to boil and throw a jar of our canned tomato sauce and some shredded cheese and at least it will stick to your ribs. I was hoping to show off my Dutch oven prowess with my pineapple upside down cake but didn’t have the chance. Don’t forget the Duth oven thumbrule - each charcoal briquet is good for about 25 degrees, but you have to use them top and bottom. We had staged all of the dry stores out in the open in one spot where we could get to it quickly without having to root around in a pantry in the dark.
joemanc made an excellent observation in an earlier post about practicing moving around in the dark. This is a great suggestion - especially if you have staged material in a spot that was previously empty.
Water - we had the ability to filter all that we needed for drinking if needed and had 14 days worth of fresh water available for 4 people in case the tap water was unusable. The water company never lost power, nor did any of the flooding get back into the system so we were able to use city water. Just to be on the safe side we only used it for washing and used bottled or stored water for drinking. If you conservatively plan on not being able to use your tap water for drinking, then you will likely be set. Having some type of water purification ability is invaluable. A few of the outlying cities in Isle of Wight County put out boiling orders for their tap water within 12 hours - but these cities are in low lying areas along the James River and have a well documented history of their water treatment plants being overcome by flooding and having the water still available at the tap, but unsuited for drinking use unless it was treated. You need to know the peculiarities of your city water system wherever you are. Call your local water utility for area specific info.
One of our cats was really spooked by all the wind noise and rearranged rooms. If you have pets, unless you are a heartless bastard, you need to consider them. Their world routine is turned on its ear so you may have to compensate some. The one cat never left the bedroom and we had to take her food and water and move her litter box. Our other cat was an abandoned stray and is deaf so she had no idea what was going on, nor did she care. She still insisted on going outside to do her business.
Light - in addition to candles and flashlights, hands free camping headlamps are invaluable. I have an Everlite EL8 solar powered headlamp for camping and emergencies that is superb. It won’t last quite 24 hours continuous, but unless you are a spelunker, I don’t think you need a 24 hour solar headlamp. Well worth the $50-60 price tag. Princeton Tec has a great product line of battery powered lamps - set yourself up with rechargeable AAAs and a solar powered recharger and you’re set. Or buy a bunch of AAAs. Or use defense in depth and do all three.
Ventilation - we had a couple of oscillating and box fans set up. It got a little muggy without A/C, but the fans made things relatively comfortable. The upstairs got up to 88 degrees Sunday, it was 82 downstairs, so we stayed downstairs and ran the fans. The bit of evaporative cooling they provided was a great relief. Conversely, if this had been a winter time Nor’easter, heat would have been an issue. I’m less concerned with heat since in Virginia you can always dress to stay warm. That said, I do have a gas powered tent heater. We also have a plan to clear our living room and set up my 4 season expedition tent inside for sleeping. One body will keep the tent just above freezing (op tested on a -12 degree Shenandoah camping trip). We also have enough 0 degree mummy bags for sleeping.
Comms - a portable radio is a must if the power goes out. We have a backpacker radio with AM, FM, SW, Weatherband, Airband and TV tuning set in it. It is battery powered, solar powered and dynamo powered. When our power went out, I turned on the radio and was able to get our local TV broadcast so I could stay current with the storm developments. Test the radio before an emegency so yo are familiar with it. Do not try to operate the radio from the solar cells in the dark. Do not ask me how much time I spent confirming this will not work, nor how I figured it out.
Cell phone use was spotty - I was able to push texts out on occasion, but VOX and data were a no go. That might be an issue with my carrier (Sprint), YMMV.
Plan on the plan changing. The storm track changed at least a dozen times when we had called the ball on implementing our plan. Most of the changes were when the leading edge would hit us - the earliest call was 8 AM Saturday on up to 2 AM Sunday. We started getting the first steady high energy bands around 10 AM and the eye settled in at around 5 PM Saturday. Whatever your plan is, I would suggest building a 24 hour buffer into it. We sat back at 5 PM on Friday and were completely ready.
Neighborhood/Community - I talked to all of the closest neighbors beforehand. Some were staying, others were evacuating. Those that left, dropped of keys in case of an emergency that required getting on to their homes - broken windows, roof damage, etc. Those of us that stayed made sure we all knew that any of our homes were open to anyone who needed it and not to hesitate to knock on the door if something happened. Last year, I provided power to our next door neighbor to keep her fridge going. Sunday morning, we were all outside getting the big branches picked up and stacked. When we finished one yard, we moved on to the next and we were all finished in about three hours.
Local Shelters - figure out where they are and how you are going to get there beforehand. Local emergency management has or should have canned plans for different emergencies and should be putting this info out before the storm gets close. If the power goes out and you don’t know where the shelters are beforehand, it’s pretty hard to figure out where they are. Here in Virginia Beach, most of the local high schools are used for hurricane and Nor’easter shelters. This is a critical piece of foreknowledge IMO. You never know when you might need to utilize a shelter, but you must be ready beforehand.
Pools - one of our neighbors lost her pool because she failed to drain it enough. The rainwater filled up the pool and started leaking between the liner and the ground. As the water eroded the sand the liner pulled free and tore. $$Ouch$$. 12-15 inches of rain was forecast. Draining 3 inches of water out of a pool is not enough.
Take some time to learn about hurricane/tropical storm dynamics. It matters which side of the eye track you are on and the specifics of implementing your plan will vary accordingly. If the eye passes directly over your house, you have to plan for both high wind and significant rainfall. We effectively got both since the eye was south and west at landfall - we were in the northeast quadrant for a few hours - until the storm tracked to the east and we moved into the western semicircle.
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the media hyping this storm. Irene was originally forecast to come ashore a mid Cat 3 and that’s what I planned for. Any higher and we were going to evacuate on Friday morning. The fact that Irene hit an upper level trough with 50 kt wind shear differentials between 850 feet and 5000 feet that helped break up the bands and the eye wall was a blessing, but if this hadn’t happened who knows how much worse it might have been? I think there will be some degree of "Boy who cried wolf" syndrome with the next storm, and that’s just plain stupid. Katrina was forecast to come ashore a Cat 3 and we all know how that turned out.
Evacuation - have a conservative drop dead set of conditions to evacuate. This will have a time and storm condition dynamic to it. Be conservative and if anything back it up to earlier. At noon on Friday there was a 16 mile backup on the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel leaving the southside that took almost 5 hours to move through. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was closed at 11 AM on Saturday. The bridge/tunnels in downtown/midtown Norfolk were also closed early on Saturday. The High Rise Bridge on I64 east out of Chesapeake/Virginia Beach was closed at noon on Saturday because of winds although it was not being enforced. In other words, at around noon on Saturday, even if you wanted to, you couldn’t leave. Hmmm, lots of bridge/tunnel thingies in that equation. Maybe an observation about risk assessment/acceptance about where one decides to live??? You must have a place to go to other than "out" of the area. Irene was wide enough that there were weather affects as far west as Petersburg which is a good hour and 45 minute drive for us. Add 5 hours for traffic snarling and that leaves you stuck on a highway just as the worst part of the storm hits.
Trees - know where they are, how the storm is tracking and which direction the predominate winds are likely to be coming from. An 11 year old boy in Newport News was killed in his bed when a tree just outside his window fell over and crashed through the roof. Horrific and immensely sad. There were interior rooms in the apartment that were not damaged…
Damage control - we have had 12 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood and a dozen 12’ x 12’ blue tarps staged in our garage for 8+ years. I hope we never have to use them. My intended use is damage control. Personally, if I think it’s going to get bad enough to cut plywood to board up windows before a storm, I think it’s probably bad enough that evacuating is a better plan. Like I said, they are there for emergency use - post casualty - when conditions are safe enough to get out and get things stabilize.
You cannot save stupid people from themselves, nor should you try. Against posted warnings, a 20 something tourist went swimming in the ocean and drowned Friday night in a 9 knot rip current 15 feet from shore. Same thing goes for the neighborhood knotheads who think it’s fun to go stomping down the flooded street at the height of the storm. Any one of the maple branches that broke off my trees would have slicked them. 70 knot winds will make a lot of everyday things into a missile hazard. You cannot duck fast enough.
All in all, we came through relatively unscathed and losing power for two days really wasn’t a big deal considering some of the other damage farther north. Knowing we could have been relatively comfortable at home for another week plus, is validation of our prep efforts to date.
Glad to hear the rest of the CM.com community on the East coast fared well.
Tropical Storm Katia…
http://www.stormpulse.com/
Dust off your preps checklist, adjust accordingly based on Irene Lessons Learned and wait and see.
Katia is a hundred miles or so north of where Irene was, and should veer north sooner and farther out to sea, but only time will tell.
Let’s hope Katia isn’t the Graduate exam.
Glad to hear you and C came through just fine. Nice little dress rehearsal, sounds like.
…you were having fun. Like a kid with new toys on Xmas morning. 
Glad to hear you weathered the storm with so little damage.
Doug
I concur… water is the least of our problems right now, we are entering the wet season with two 12,000 gallon tanks full, and another 550 gallon header tank also full. And the garden is nicely soaked, probably won’t need to water again for weeks.
I’m continually surprised at the difference between yoy guys and what we do here in Australia. EVERYBODY living in the country here has large water tanks… we have to on the world’s dryest continent. Not that it’s been dry this year, but we have never run out (unlike some profligate users around us).
I don’t need to say that prioritising one’s water supply (and making sure you are totally self sufficient) should be very very high on anyone’s list…
BTW, I have found that I can buy water filter sets on eBay here in Oz for a fraction of the cost in shops… like less than 25%.
Mike
The same creeping nausea that followed the CNN 'all clear' sign in New Orleans six years ago happened again yesterday. Anderson Cooper seemed a little peeved that the lights didn't go out in Manhattan, but then the remnants of Hurricane Irene stomped up the Hudson Valley and stalled a while and commenced to rip apart the Catskills, the eastern Adirondacks, the Mohawk and upper Hudson valleys, and then almost all of Vermont, not to mention New Hampshire and western Massachusetts, and I can't even tell you much about whatever's going on in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland this morning. Connecticut, Long Island, and Rhode Island are in there somewhere, and surely there's more than a few things out of place in North Carolina.
This is nowhere near Katrina's death toll of over 1800 souls, but the damage to scores of towns, businesses, houses, and basic civic armature is going to be very impressive as the news filters in later this week and the disaster is still very much ongoing Monday, even with the sun shining bright. Towns all over Vermont and New Hampshire are still drowning. The Hudson River is still on the rise. The Mohawk River is at a 500-year flood stage and is about to wipe the old city center of Schenectady, New York, off the map. Bridges, dams, and roads are gone over a region at least as big as the Gulf Coast splatter-trail of Katrina.
That story is still developing. A lot of people will not be able to get around for a long, long time, especially in Vermont and New Hampshire, where the rugged terrain only allows for a few major roads that go anywhere. Even the bridges that were not entirely washed away may have to be inspected before people are allowed to drive over them, and some of these bridges may be structurally shot even if they look superficially okay. There are a lot of them. If you live in a flat state, you may have no idea.
The next story is going to be the realization that there's no money to put it all back together the way it was. The states don't have the money. The federal government is obviously broke, and an awful lot of the individual households and businesses will turn out to not have any insurance coverage for this kind of disaster where it was water, not wind, that destroyed the property. I don't know what the score is insurance-wise along the mid-Atlantic beachfront towns - but remember, insurance companies were among the biggest dupes of the Big Bank mortgage-backed securities racket, and when the new claims are toted up they may find themselves in a bail-out line.
This is a warning to America that the converging catastrophes of climate change, energy scarcities, and failures of capital formation add up to more than the sum of their parts in their power to drive a complex society into a ditch - no matter what a moron like Rick Perry might say. But, of course, political ramifications will follow. There will be a lot of pissed-off people in the Northeast USA. Maybe they'll even start giving the grievance-bloated folk of Dixieland some competition in the politics of the bitter harvest. Oddly, the Siamese twin states of Vermont and New Hampshire are political polar opposites. Vermont, the land of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and other squooshy culture tropes from the attic of Hippiedom, is about as Left-progressive as it gets. New Hampshire's license plate says, "Live Free or Die," and that same draconian mood defines the state's politics: hard Right. It's like a few counties of Georgia shook loose and drifted north somehow. My guess is that the political rage will be about equal on both fronts, as folks are left stranded, or homeless, or without a going business they thought they had only a day or so ago. And my further guess is that their mood will afford some insight into the extreme impotence, incompetence, and mendacity of both major political parties. As I've said before in this space, think of these times as not unlike the convulsive 1850s, preceding the worst crisis of our history.
Apart from the fact that the hurricane season is just gearing up, and that a procession of tropical storm blobs has commenced to pour out of West Africa, there is that other alternate universe of storms, brushfires, and fiascos called the fnancial system, which everybody sort of forgot about over the weekend. Well, it's ba-a-a-ck this morning, too, and the financial weather was deteriorating sharply last time I looked. You can stick a fork in the Euro Zone. Bank of America is panhandling for spare change like a dying wino as it whirls around the drain. Nobody knows what the shadow bets on all this action is, but you can bet on one thing for sure: the counterparties can't pay.
Oh, by the way, anybody remember that we had an earthquake here in the Northeast a few days before Irene rumbled in? Probably not, unless part of your building fell off. God's wrath, some might say, as we beat our path to a world made by hand.
Tuesday August 30
God's wrath, all right. Michelle Bachmann said it, wouldn't you know.
Vermont got whacked badly, as did the northern Catskills. Whole towns drowned, localities cut off from the rest of the world by road and bridge washouts. Lots of buildings of all kinds lost. As is the case with these disasters, many people out there now who have lost everything, are poorly insured, and have no idea how they are going to carry on. It will be several more days before the scope or this thing is really comprehended. It lacked a single dramatic focus, the way that the Superdome galvanized the nation's attention after Katrina struck, but I suspect the damage to the region is just as bad.