To the extent that you can prepare for difficult times, you should. Afterall, some preparations are better than no preparations. My family lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida. They’ve yet to receive a direct hit from a hurricane, however, the area was without power for four days once Hurricane Helene made landfall. As Helene continued eastward overland, a friend in suburban Atlanta noted flooding in her area. Her brother, who lives in Augusta, Ga, 219 miles from where Helene made landfall, was without power for three weeks.
Being well beyond the periphery of significant events is not a guarantee of safety. Mountain communities such as Asheville, North Carolina, are nearly 500 miles from the area of landfall and experienced flooding no one had ever seen or even imagined. At the time of this writing, nearly twenty wildfires are ravaging communities in the nation’s most fire-ready city, in the most populous county in the most populous state.
Concurrently, a major winter storm is burying Southern states not known for or equipped to handle freezing temperatures, snow and ice, under freezing temperatures, snow and ice. Clearly, this is the new normal. Similar catastrophic events are playing out all around the world.
The Axial Seamount, an undersea volcano 300 miles off the Oregon Coast is showing signs of activity. At a mile down, an eruption won’t likely wreak havoc on the coastline of the Pacific Northwest. Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan in place, especially if you live in a low-lying coastal area. Tsunamis create a level of destruction that must be seen to be believed. Tsunami are in the category of events that you want to run away from as fast as you can.
As always, I encourage you to look at what is happening around you and form your opinions accordingly. If you’ve not been directly impacted by extreme weather, count yourself as fortunate, for now. If you’re recovering from an extreme weather event, take stock of what worked and what didn’t work. Did the solar generator meet all your power-based needs? Do you need a second solar generator? After dark and during periods of overcast skies, how did you manage? How did your gas generator perform? Should you consider a dual-fuel generator? Did you have enough fuel. Did you have enough cash on hand? Did you have enough toilet paper? Psychologically, how did everyone hold up? I think- hope- you see the pattern here.
With each disaster or near miss, you should critically assess your situation and enhance your preps for next time. After every hurricane, I have an after-action review of sorts with my family. The discussion focuses on what worked and what didn’t, specifically, the generators. Solar generators aren’t effective at night or during overcast days, so we identified that they needed a fuel-based generator. We talked about food and cooking, hygiene and using the bathroom in a house with no running water. We also talked about security. The takeaway here is to get moving in the direction of being prepared.
The planet is angry and while we’d be wise to be frightened, a better use of our time and mental energy is to critically examine what’s happening around us and make effective plans. We can and should learn from the near misses as well as the direct hits. Some people say that we’re living in the End Times, and they see parallels between current events and what’s written in the book of Revelation. I’ve not given this any thought. Either way, careful decision-making and well-crafted plans and follow-through would be advisable. The planet isn’t likely to become less angry any time soon.
It strikes me that the issues we're grappling with aren't new nor are they unique to us as Americans. The challenges created by these issues aren’t insurmountable. We absolutely have the resources and intelligence to overcome them. We simply lack the will and motivation to do so.
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