The images and stories coming out of Houston, TX in the wake of Hurricane Beryl are positively heartbreaking! The only good news is that more people have not died this week than the seven or more unfortunate souls who have so far, and the event is not nearly over yet. It seems like in and around the modern city of Houston with all of its services and stunning skyline, people are either freezing in winter or simmering in the summer heat. Why can’t Texas deal effectively with their power problems? True, any hurricane, even a mere Category One storm like Beryl, can wreck harvoc on any city. Texas, however, seems particularly prone to infrastructure power problems for reasons I won’t go into here. At least half a million people, and perhaps twice that as of today, are still without electricity, running water, or working toilets (for almost a week.) Earlier in the week, lines for gasoline (petrol) were many blocks long and for all I know, there may be no gas left or available with which to “get out of Dodge.” Plus, public transportation is down. The food in the refrigerators and freezers of residents is long since spoiled, and the grocery stores are no better off. For those residents lucky enough to find a bag of groceries to purchase or a case of bottled water, try climbing four floors of steps in ninety-degree heat to get to your apartment because the elevators aren’t working.
THE MISERY INDEX
I subscribe to an electrical generator discussion board (i.e., an online forum where people discuss different types of generators that provide emergency power for residential properties), and I’ve been reading some of the pleas for help coming from Harris County, almost hourly at times. One mother is desperately trying to provide air conditioning, or even fans (anything) for her three-year-old boy and six-week-old baby. She says it is 102 degrees in her home. Other families are wondering how far they have to drive to find some portable generator for sale that is capable of at least running a single air conditioning unit that fits in a window, plus maybe their house lights as well. People are really desperate, frustrated, and overheated down there, both figuatively and literally.
Investments like a generator must be planned and installed well before a disaster, else you’re just another casualty of nature. More than a few people need power and not for creature comforts. Vulnerable folks have lung disorders that require mechanical aids to breathing. These respiratory devices require electricity to run, else the patient is in grave danger. One sports stadium in Houston that does have power has been converted as a facility to house 250 hospital patients who have been discharged from area hospitals, but who cannot survive in the heat, or perhaps in some cases their homes have been destroyed. Moving these patients to the stadium frees up hospital beds for incoming patients.
HURRICANE KATRINA
I remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I was teaching at a college in Texas. I saw on the news how people were sitting on the roofs of their houses to escape the rising flood waters for the better part of a week, waiting for “government” to rescue them. When Hugo hit the Gulf, some people refused to leave the city before the storm, saying they were not going to let “government” frighten them and tell them what to do. But when their homes collapsed from the wind and storm surge at 1:30 in the morning, the first thing they did was dial 911 (where 911 services were still functioning) to demand that government risk the lives of government employees to save them from almost certain death.
The cleanup for Galveston and/or Harris counties from Hugo required seventy bulldozers. Unfortunately, there was not a convenient parking lot just up the road with seventy brand new Caterpillar D-10’s ready to go. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needed to get bulldozers from all over the state, and possibly other states as well. Had FEMA found a bulldozer in Oklahoma City that they could contract for, it couldn’t just be driven down the highway towards Houston at fifteen MPH or whatever the top speed of a bulldozer is. FEMA needed seventy flatbed trailers as well to move them to Galveston or Houston, and who knew where the trailers were, or how many more days it would take for the trailers to get to the bulldozers and the bulldozers to arrive to the coast? I used to work logistics in the Air Force, and I have a fair idea of the capabilities of the military (including the Guard and Reserves) in instances when the system is stressed. You can’t land planes full of bottled water and blankets if there are no functioning airports, or fuel to service the planes once they land. Before that, you need “boots on the ground” to access and prioritize the needs of the communities. This all takes time.
So, when I heard of the people sitting on their roofs for the better part of a week in New Orleans with their grandparents, children and pets, I wondered why they didn’t do something to help themselves? Why didn’t they tear a door off the hinges of their home and pole or paddle themselves out of there to the next county or at least to higher ground? Why didn’t they work with the people around them who were likewise stranded on the roofs of their homes to plan some sort of collective action. Do something?!
I spoke to my Dean afterwards about offering some sort of survival course at my college where we could cover everything from basic survival skills to CPR. But unfortunately there wasn’t such a course list in the Texas Academic Course Guide Manual (ACGM.). So we could not offer it as a for-credit course.
WHAT IS PREPPING?
I’m not a survivalist. I’m a cheeseburger sort of guy. I don’t have an appetite for snakes, snails or bugs. My idea of Nirvana is not the wilds of Idaho or Montana. I don’t collect guns or blow things up. Our basement is not stocked with freeze-dried foods or MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat.) And I don’t belong to any fringe groups. Hopefully my late mother is proud of her boy, nonetheless.
A prepper, on the other hand is someone who takes reasonable, responsible steps to protect their family to deal at least with a short-term emergency. Typically, that means at three days of supplies absent any help from government or business and industry such as the American Red Cross. Would three days be enough? Probably not. But then, would three weeks or three months of supplies be enough in every case? Possibly not. But three days gets you through the initial shock of whatever the event is while you generate options. So, it’s better than nothing at all.
Without realizing it, Deena and I drifted in the direction of prepping late this winter when we lost power for three days. It’s no fun waking up in the morning to find that it’s forty-three degrees Fahrenheit (six degrees Centigrade) in the house. So, we invested a considerable sum on a 20kw whole-house generator. It runs on natural gas, but some generators run on propane or petrol, sometimes both. A person can buy a very small portable generator that can provide limited electricity to one room, or one larger model weighing almost half a ton that can power a 4,000 square foot house, including pool, hot tub and other accessories. Our own generator should keep us from being inconvenienced by a power outage lasting from a few hours to one of a few weeks in duration. It is large enough that we can share a circuit to help one of our neighbors in distress if things were bad. And, our children and grandchildren would have a refuge as well. But even a thousand-dollar investment can make a difference, though not everyone, again, can afford a generator, and I don’t know what you could do living in an apartment building or a condo even if you could. Deena and I are both in the age cohort where we can not adjust or rebound from extreme heat or cold very easily, so we saw the generator as a prudent investment which also appreciates the resale value of our home.
OTHER STEPS ONE CAN TAKE
I have been slowly working on what is known as a “bug-out bag.” Mine is a Rush 100 military style backpack from 511. Military style backpacks have more pockets and Molle webbing that the sort of everyday backpacks students carry their books in. Because of my medical background, I stuffed it with things I may never use like burn dressings, hemostats, kerlix, shock blankets, betadine swabs and so on. Eventually, I may add a disposable suture set or at least steri-strips, glucose gel and a FreeStyle monitor, plus a blood pressure cuff, stethoscope and some other odds and ends I may never use. But probably we may. At least we’ll have things like masks and gloves on hand when local stocks in the stores run out.
Mostly preppers focus on cell phone chargers, flashlights, spare batteries, small radios, whistles, an extra key FOB for their vehicle, can openers, utility tools and knives, a compass, list of medications they are on, phone numbers of family members and so on.
We are also putting together “go bags” for unexpected hospital stays. I’ve had two unexpected overnight visits in the past two years and Deena will have her second overnight visit in a few weeks. Here, we focus on tooth paste, tooth brush and hair brush, change of clothes and, of course, cell phone chargers. We have two Mophie batteries that each provide three rapid phone charges each. These work fairly well.
Prepping for me keeps me from feeling helpless. I can do something. I can gather together at least some things that may be important, scarce or otherwise unavailable in the event of an emergency. When a snowstorm is forecast or some other weather event threatens, we fill both of our cars with gas well in advance of the storms arrival. And we have a general plan of who might stay with us and where we might go instead.
It’s not unusual to prepare for the worst. That’s what homeowner’s insurance is for. That’s why schools have fire drills. That’s why people along the ocean board up their windows when a hurricane approaches. That’s why we purchase smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms for our homes.
THE NEAR AND DISTANT FUTURE
Our nations infrastructure has been compared to AP courses conducted and tested by the ETS at Princeton. The knowledge surveyed is ten miles wide, but only a quarter of an inch deep. So it is with our power grids, our water departments, hospitals and emergency services, air traffic control system and so on. Our adversaries in Russia and elsewhere routinely attack us with ransomware or some other harmful program. And they are often successful. Deena and I also expect some chaos and direct action after this Novembers elections. There are already specific promises and threats of violence already coming from certain quarters.
In terms of weather, we’ve had several tornado watches this season, though fortunately actual tornados are relatively rare in New York State. We’ve also had thunderstorms, though none with the sheer furiosity of similar storms in Texas and Oklahoma (we both lived in Texas and experienced them first hand.) Fortunately, we do not live in a flood zone, and we do not take chances driving out and about when the conditions are bad.
THE ROLE OF PREPPING IN RELIGION
We actually find guidance and encouragement to prepare in the Bible. Nehemiah was an Old Testament prophet. His country was under attack from an enemy as intent on destroying the Jews as Hamas is today. The prophet relates (4:9) that on the eve of a potential attack, “. . . we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.” In other words, he and his companions asked God to keep them safe from the enemy threatening them. But then, they also took prudent steps, themselves, to secure their safety. God provides for us, but He expects us to work to support ourselves. He heals, but there is also the agency of modern medicine with all the discoveries that God inspires directly or indirectly. He clothes us, but clothing doesn’t grow on trees. Deena and I trust that God will keep us safe from any future disaster, but preparing for the worst does not indicate a lack of faith as far as we are concerned. So, like Nehemiah, we pray for deliverance, while we prep for the storms. You should, too, to the extent that you reasonably can.