STORM WARNING PART II THE NON-PREPPED
The thoughts and prayers of Mama Donna and I go out
to everyone caught up in the tropical storm. Nothing we say here should be taken
as any kind of “blaming the victim”. There are many, many good reasons why
people could not prep in time to face these storm emergencies. We present the
following only in hopes it can help others to be ready.
A storm like this is what we refer to as a “slow
moving train wreck”, that is something you can see coming, as opposed to an
earthquake that comes as “A bolt out of the blue” , or with no warning.
Also this type of event has an area that gets the
direct hit, such as the flooding, and the areas around it that lose various
forms of the grid, which we call the RAGE Relative Area of Grid Effects.
The cynic will tell you that no amount of prepping
could help those whose homes were in the path of the flood. Wrong. Prepping
wouldn’t help the house, but it would give the people in it a plan of where to
go, how to get there, what to have with them and possibly even a way to save
treasured photos, and small items. Besides the “Bug out bags” of food, water
and other needs, they could also have prepared a case or safe box of important
documents. We suggest that people put their last month’s bills in with their
other documents, and rotate it the first of the month. In this way when they
return they will have all of their account numbers of such things as electricity,
cable, bank accounts and so on.
For the people in the RAGE, who could shelter in
place, having the “seven sisters of survival” (water, food, shelter, first aid, alternate
light/power, funds, and security) will get them through the period until the
grid returns. Again, we and other sites try to help people understand how to
have these ready at the lowest cost and effort.
The sharpest example of not being prepared was the
woman who said to the TV reporters that she had no water at all, not to drink
or even flush the toilet. Even if she had done nothing until the last minute,
she could have plugged her bathtub with a piece of round plastic cut from a lid
and sealed in place with candle wax drippings, then filled the tub to have
water to flush with. Then she could have filled every pot, pan, empty cleaned
out milk jug or two liter soda bottle and food storage bag with water for
drinking. NOTE: NEVER use trash bags for
drinking water as they have chemicals harmful to people on them. They are fine
for storing flushing water in especially if they are inside some trash can.
What’s worse in this case is the mayor was reporting
the entire area was without drinking water. I don’t know how many hundreds were
going to have to line up at water trucks, but I do know many wouldn’t have had
to if they so much as spent a couple of dollars on some bottled water months
ago, or even cleaned out some two liter soda bottles and refilled them.
I can excuse people for not knowing how to do some
of the prepping. That’s what we and others on the net are here to do, to share
what we know. I do have problems excusing people after every agency from the
Red Cross on down has told them time and time again what to have on hand for an
emergency especially when they live in a flood, earthquake or tornado prone
area.
As I said in the previous article, when the word
came of the possible effects in our area from the storm, we needed to do very
little as we were prepped. By God’s grace the hurricane may veer off to sea
enough that we will be unaffected.
Ask yourself this question If some kind of storm was
coming and had a good chance of knocking out the power, and other parts of the
grid, would you be ready to “bug out” or “hunker down’? If the answer is NO,
then we highly suggest learning to get ready, and doing so.
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