"Bottom line? HAVE AN 'E' PLAN! It does not matter if you live in Rapid City, South Dakota, or Wilmington, Carolina right now. If you have to leave in a hurry, you need a PLAN! Practice for it, prep for it, and get ready for it."
I said I might have to address this issue again. In the past, I mostly have only addressed prepping from a stable platform - that be our humble abodes. But what about if you need to leave your home in a hurry? To "bug out"? Like from a rapidly moving forest fire? Or a flash flood? Or a Cat 4 Hurricane named Florence which is about to come on shore? And those are just natural disasters.
What about a dirty bomb in your city? An NBC attack? A melt down at a nuke plant close to town? A GRB, not strong enough to be a global killer, but still very destructive? A solar flare? I could go on and on, but there are a thousand or so natural or un-natural things which would cause you to vacate your premises. And now.
Current day. This nice thing about this hurricane, as with most, is they are slow motion disasters. Much different than twisters. The smart folks on the coast, pack up, lock up, board up, and then move on, days before the storm hits. They might need to make a week or so worth of hotel reservations far, far inland. Then they will take most what they can carry for a short term exit. Money, medications, clothes, important papers, and so on. Plan on being out of your home for a few days, maybe a week, maybe longer. Just ask the folks in Houston who went through Hurricane Harvey last year. The week long hiatus tuned into a year or so.
Speaking of Houston, over 40,000 were displaced from the storm. That means their homes were either gone or not fit to return to once the storm was over. It was a huge mess, and Houston was caught unprepared. Yesterday, the Governor of North Carolina held a presser. He said this storm could leave over 100,000 people in both Carolina's displaced. Why? It will be the worst Carolina storm in over 60 years! Think of that as compared to Houston.
What does all this mean? I have said this many times before. Most Americans are nowhere near prepared. Not even close. More importantly, the government can only offer so much help. As with Katrina, if you are forced out of your house with nothing but the shirt on your back, you could be in very bad shape, very soon. In fact, your might die (as so many did in Katrina).
Bottom line? HAVE AN "E" PLAN! It does not matter if you live in Rapid City, South Dakota, or Wilmington, Carolina right now. If you have to leave in a hurry, you need a PLAN! Practice for it, prep for it, and get ready for it.
Every year, when there is a natural disaster, many die for no reason. Why no reason? There was no plan. Even if you have no money, GET OUT of your house which might be flooded due to tidal surge or excessive rainfall. Take what you need to STAY ALIVE for a week or two! Then FEMA should be kicked into gear to handle what needs to be done. This Hurricane Florence could be one for the ages. A disrupting event of historical magnitude.
By this time next week, we will know how prepared we really were for this mega-storm. Hopefully, the tag line will be how much better prepared we were for this storm and the loss of life was negligible or zero. My fear however, is many will show how brave they are by toughing this storm out. And every time there is a major storm, that is how many of the fatalities happen.
Homeland Security has moved so much money from FEMA to ICE to run children's prisons, that FEMA may be cash strapped. FEMA head was quite clear that disaster relief efforts begin locally, then state and finally federal. We'll see how well all E plans work in the coming days. May as well say it, "thoughts and prayers" in advance for the folks on the coast. All Trump states, so assistance should be significant. It won't take months to restore infrastructure. Not like those poor, dark folks in Puerto Rico (Americans also, lest we forget).
ReplyDeleteLooks like prayers are answered as Florence turns into a big rainstorm, something the south deals with regularly.
DeleteNorth Carolina has a long, low-lying coastline and is considered one of the US areas most vulnerable to rising sea levels.
ReplyDeleteIn 2012, the state now in the path of Hurricane Florence reacted to a prediction by its Coastal Resources Commission that sea levels could rise by 39in over the next century by passing a law that banned policies based on such forecasts.
The legislation drew ridicule, including a mocking segment by comedian Stephen Colbert, who said: “If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.”