BS: can you face a natural disaster?

Subject: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 23 - 06:41 PM

It is said an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so here are some simple things to do;
Have water ahead of time, emergency grab bag of helpful items etc.
what are the factors to consider

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 23 - 07:40 PM

Access denied, old chap. And, quite frankly, I'd far rather have the excitement of living a normal life rather than hoarding bottles of water and tins of baked beans....

Subject: RE: BS: turn your back on a natural disaster?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 23 - 08:07 PM

Going without preparedness is indeed the cheapest way to go.
https://www.ready.gov/

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 06:00 AM

Maybe I'm biased. We live near the coast but 120 feet above sea level, so no tsunami threat. Our house is raised above the surrounding farmland and there's no nearby water course, so no flood threat. In 35 years the temperature has never fallen below -8°C, 18°F, and that's very rare, so we won't freeze to death, and in all that time we've had snow deep enough to trap us in just once, for 48 hours only. We had what for us was a terrific heatwave last summer which broke all records but which Texans would laugh at. We don't live anywhere near a plate boundary or a volcano. We can get severe gales but every one of our roof slates is fixed on with a stainless steel pin. I've caught just two rats in 35 years and they're the only ones I've ever seen (cats help). Call me Mr Complacent, but the only stuff I ever hoard is stuff that's on special offer. I've just said all that and could go out to Morrisons later and get run over by a bus. Live in the moment. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 09:51 AM

Don...you & I live in one of the calmest weather areas on the East coast. We get an occasional unpleasant event, but it seems that a large % of serious rain and snow..etc, ends up going north of south of us.
   Years ago, we had that earthquake that shook the Washington Monument, but it happened way to the south.

If global catastrophes happen, all bets are off. Until then, I think I'll not bother with stockpiling stuff that won't help much anyway...

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 10:12 AM

I'm not a member of the tinned-food-and-ammunition brigade either. That said, Herself did institute a "Brexit stash" well before the lorries started queueing at Dover, and it's been subject to stock rotation ever since, but has never been completely emptied: a present help in times of fluctuating supply. In my old trade, we used to call that "buffering", something the followers of Just In Time Manufacturing are rediscovering the hard way.

Meanwhile, back at the subject, humanity doesn't now have time to do anything else but panic about climate change; but for us as individuals, going looking for personal trouble merely invites it. Keeping a gun in the house "just in case" tends to increase the chances of accidents.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 10:14 AM

What use is a gun in a natural disaster?

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 11:15 AM

> What use is a gun in a natural disaster?

"Looters," say the preppers: tinned food to feed your loved ones, and ammunition to defend the tinned food against everybody else.

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

    -- Albert Einstein

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 11:39 AM

I'll just set my cat on 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 12:28 PM

Remember Y2K? I do. There are people out there who have only just finished the stockpiles of sardines, toilet paper and bottled water they laid in for that non-event.

A very common element of natural disasters is destruction of the built environment. If your town is flooded, or burnt, or shaken to bits by a major earthquake, your stockpiles of sardines, toilet paper and bottled water will be under water, reduced to ashes, or buried in the rubble along with everything else. And if you have to flee, the difficulty of your journey increases geometrically with the amount of stuff you insist on taking with you.

Snowstorms, however large, don’t normally count as natural disasters because their effects ain’t nohow permanent. Life is unpleasant for days, or as long as a month, but then there’s a thaw, and eventually spring comes. Loss of electrical power due to damage to the distribution system is — by disaster standards — soon rectified, and people who have enough electricity to become dependent on it also have back-up resources to fill the gap. People (like me) who lived through the 1998 ice storm talk about heroic hydro crews and soldiers bringing generators to bush farms — that’s back-up resources.

The best way to prepare for disaster is to accept that most stuff is nice to have but, when push comes to shove, not critically important. When wildfire threatens or flood waters rise, grab the kids and the cat and leg it for safety. Figure out the rest later.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 01:30 PM

Storms are Australia’s most costly natural disasters, so why are we so unprepared for them?

Australia has had an extremely long run in recent years of a series of natural disasters. Years of severe drought, bushfires, floods, and of course COVID in the last couple of years as well.

As the above article states, a lot of people are unprepared for disasters, and the article states that storms are the most unpredictable, however, there are still people trying to get their lives back to normal after bushfires and floods from years ago. Having your home and contents destroyed or severely damaged isn't fixed in a matter of days, or even weeks, or even sometimes years. Putting your head in the sand is a recipe for personal disaster, and having a smug attitude because you don't think you are in the line of fire, literally - or of flood or drought or storms - is not helpful.

Quotes from the article

"Winds in excess of 100kph damaged trees, homes and critical infrastructure, cutting power to more than 300,000 homes and businesses, some of which remained without electricity for weeks."

..........

"Kalorama Country Fire Authority (CFA) captain Bill Robinson, who has lived locally for nearly 40 years, said he had never experienced anything like the storm that struck on the evening of June 9 last year and raged all night.

"We really weren't prepared for it," he said.

"'I know the SES [State Emergency Service] says that you should be prepared for storms, you should put things away and make sure things are tied down … but we were really totally unprepared for the whole thing.'

"'The CFA wasn't prepared, Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) weren't prepared for it.'"

........

"Community surveys after the disaster found 60 per cent of residents did not think they were at risk and only 13 per cent had an emergency plan for a storm event."

East coast flooding saw majority of Australians covered by
natural disaster declaration in 2022

"Federal Treasury noted that most of the costs came from lost activity in mining, agriculture, retail and construction, but also that the floods had also worsened inflation by forcing up the price of fruit and vegetables.

"'Even though we are rightly focused on the human cost of these disasters, which are becoming more and more frequent, there is a cost to the economy as well and a cost to the budget,' Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

"'When it comes to things like the price of fruit and veggies in our supermarkets, when you consider a lot of our logistics chains are broken but these natural disasters, our prime agricultural land and some of our mining areas [are] as well.'

Every natural disaster which Australia has endured over the last few years has had a significant impact, not only on the people directly affected by the disaster, but also on the wider community and the economy.

When the area where my now-deceased father was living was under direct threat of severe flooding, my father told me he was not evacuating despite the direction to do so from the SES because he had lived through a major flood disaster and his house had been relatively safe, although flood waters did enter the house and the clean up was long and difficult. I suggested that he should evacuate because it would be an extra stress on emergency crews if they had to come and rescue him. His house was unaffected in that flood event, so he was right, but I was happy that he did move out temporarily until the emergency was over.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 01:33 PM

Well summarised, Charmion --- life is precious, and the rest is a bonus when it's there, but a drag to drag around. We've only been in this house since 2007, and there's stuff that's been in the garage here ever since that simply couldn't be thrown away when we moved (and much that did get thrown away then in my absence which annoyed me at the time, which may or may not be a different rant). It's a lifetime's Round Tuit collection, which our children will doubtless inherit as-is, along with a hardcopy library which is giving spacetime a serious problem.

In the last analysis, as Herself's late mother used to say: There's no pockets in shrouds. I'd like to think she'd have continued: Escaping with your life is better than the alternative.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 02:08 PM

Apologies, Helen .... didn't mean to sound flippant, but our postings crossed. I was replying to Charmion, but somehow omitted that I do remember Y2K, which I noted elsewhere was the Panic Which Worked: no planes actually fell out of the sky at Rollover Time, though there were multiple microdisasters over an extended period*. In that particular case, Management were scared into several tens of billions of dollars' remediation work; but because no planes actually fell, they feel they can now say "Why did we spend all that money?", and "What disaster?" about climate change .... right up until the weather extremities in question rub their noses in the problem at the eleventh hour. It's the Next Year's Budget Displacement Effect, the time-related version of Somebody Else's Problem.

* The one from 1998 about corned beef is instructive.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 02:29 PM

Thanks MaJoC, I realised you were responding to Charmion.

And you beat me to it on the SEP line - a favourite expression of my Hubby (retired IT).

On the subject of the long aftermath of disastrous events, for some years after the 1989 earthquake in Newcastle NSW many aspects of life were still being repaired, not just the buildings and infrastructure, but also normal human life, and repairing the emotional scars as well. And we had to deal with the response of government which was not always ideal.

The earthquake was over in a matter of minutes, but we were still dealing with the aftermath for years afterwards. Whenever I look at the row of newer buildings in a suburban street full of cafés which was particularly hard-hit by the earthquake I hark back in my mind to that event and think of the time it took to rebuild our society, not just the buildings and infrastructure.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 06:08 PM

No matter how prepared you are, the Grim Reaper is going to get you in the end.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 06:58 PM

In the Great Storm of October 1987 we lost a few slates from what was then our rather rickety roof (we'd only been in this house for a few months). Better even than that, we had a large elm tree felled across our farm lane, so, poor me, I had to take a day off work until the farmer got to work with his chainsaw. In the Burns Day storm of January 1990 we had a bit more roof damage, and, as I drove from Holsworthy to Bude to rescue my two children from their damaged school ten miles down the road, a huge gust of wind (which had reached a steady speed of 55mph, Beaufort force 11) ripped my car bonnet asunder (bloody rusty old Toyota...). Mind you, I couldn't even set off on that journey until I'd removed half the music room roof from on top of my car. Happy days!

Since then we've had a complete new roof and it would would take a biblical hurricane to shift even a single slate. There's always that risk of gale damage, but little else could affect us bar a meteorite hit. No smugness this end. That roof cost us ten grand and we made sure that it was stormproof. No issues now for fifteen years!

And all because I can't stand the thought of living on tinned baked beans for months on end. I have nowhere near enough ventilation...

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: pattyClink
Date: 14 Jan 23 - 09:36 PM

Of course it's prudent to have a bit of a stash of vital stuff on hand. Stock up on water and beverages, you easily rotate through them, but clean drinking water can be hard to find for several days after a hurricane or other major problem. Have some cupboard staples to get through a few days.   Have a way to recharge the cell phone. Don't let the car slip below half a tank. Don't let the insulin run out just as the hurricane is strengthening over water.

Otherwise, you wind up part of the problem, lemmings out in gas and food lines when the last thing anybody needs is you out roaming around.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 02:09 AM

I don't think I could face a national crumpet shortage.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 05:32 AM

* Cupboard staples: check.
* Mobile phone charge: if Anything Big hits, it'll take out the phone tower as well.
** Wireless: we've enough batteries to last a month or more.
* Car tank: Herself always ensures we've enough for a midnight mercy dash to either of the offspring without refuelling.
* Medicines: double check (our prev pharmacist was intermittent).
* Fluids: we've enough alcohol stashed that I doubt we'll be caring much about the disaster in question .... unless of course Herself gets wound up about what she's hearing on the wireless.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 06:28 AM

I'm a bit like that too (especially the last bit). We do have a couple of those small Duracell power banks (same colour as the batteries) that we always keep fully charged. They do my phone, iPad (at a pinch), headphones and little bluetooth speakers.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 07:48 AM

What MaJoC describes is what I would call household prudence, enough to get you through a emergency that isolates you at home, such as a major power failure or a stretch of foul weather that closes the roads. That’s a good start on disaster preparedness, but not sufficient for a crisis that engulfs your entire region and displaces entire communities.

My Dad (war veteran) had what he called his “go bag” — a small case in which he kept his passport, a copy of his will, Mum’s address book, and a stash of cash. “When the balloon goes up,” he said, he would put some clean socks and underpants in the go bag and beat feet. Not a bad example to follow.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 01:53 PM

images

I saw a news article yesterday on TV for the 20 year anniversary of the Canberra Bushfire 2003

"On 18 January 2003, a combination of extreme weather conditions (high temperatures of above 37 ºC, low humidity, lightning strikes and strong gusty winds) caused multiple bushfires to break out in the Kosciuszko and Namadgi National parks surrounding Canberra.

"On 18 January, two fire fronts combined to create a 25 km fire front and wind gusts of up to 65 km per hour propelled the fire towards Canberra. The Chief Minister declared a state of emergency at 2.45 pm and the firestorm hit the outer streets of Duffy at approximately 3 pm, and soon reached the suburbs of Rivett, Chapman, Kambah, Higgins, Hawker and Cook.

"Four people were killed by the fires, more than 435 people were injured and there were 5000 evacuations. Approximately 160,000 hectares were burnt which equated to almost 70 per cent of the ACT's pasture, forests and nature parks including Namadgi National Park, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and all government pine forest west of the Murrumbidgee River Stromlo pine plantation. There were approximately 488 houses destroyed and many more were damaged.

"The Chief Minister and Cabinet Inquiry into the Operational Response to the January 2003 bushfires made 61 recommendations.

"The Insurance Council of Australia estimated the 2003 damage at $350 million, with the 2011 estimated normalised cost of $660 million."

There is a link on the bottom of that page to a report: Recovering from the 2003 Canberra Bushfire: A work in progress. Just reading the contents of the report gives an idea of the extent of damage to the bushland and environment, people, homes, infrastructure, and also an idea of the long time and extensive resources needed to recover from the fires.

Every disaster which hits us provides a basis for another disaster to take hold. The prolonged years of severe drought in Australia provided dry fuel in the bush and suburban areas for fires to be more disastrous when they occurred. The vegetation becomes less robust, the soil is more easily displaced when the floods hit. The farmers struggle with each disaster but still manage to put food on our table, and then the major mouse plague hit, and then COVID, which also had an effect on the transportation of food and other products. Food prices are currently high in Australia because the agriculture sector has been repeatedly hit by one natural disaster after another. A lot of farmers are leaving the industry because it has all become too much for them.

One of the scenes in the TV article showed a firefighter who was out trying to save other people and their homes while his own home burned. Another incident I recall is three U.S. pilots who came over here in 2020 to help in another bushfire disaster and who died in a plane crash during the process of water bombing the fires from the air.

Having an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude to disasters is not helpful, and neither is assuming that anything which hits you will be short and of little consequence.

I used to live in a weatherboard (i.e. timber) house and one of my neighbours told me about someone in our suburb who went out to the shops and came back to find their house burned to the ground, in that short time. It can happen without warning. Being prepared is important, and having compassion, care and concern for others is very important.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 01:57 PM

Correction: the firefighter's house was totally destroyed, burned to the ground, everything lost, but his family survived. How heroic is that to be saving other people and their houses, while losing his own house and worrying about the safety of his own family.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 02:25 PM

I'm not entirely sure that mouse plagues/rabbit plagues/prickly pear plagues come under the heading "natural disasters." Bad farming practices such as planting maize on sloping fields and bad forestry practices such as deforesting steep valley sides (as happened to Florence in the 1960s), similar.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 02:46 PM

We are in unnatural disasters right now. Steve can go to Guinard Island for safety since it has been declared safe now.
I'm not a prepper but even an upstairs bathtub full of water is wise.
Its knowing the little things that could mean survival, like a large parking lot being a wildfire shelter.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 02:56 PM

It's Gruinard.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 03:29 PM

As I said previously, "Every disaster which hits us provides a basis for another disaster to take hold".

June 21, 2021

"Australia’s southern and eastern agricultural regions are deep in the thick of a
months-long plague of mice that has destroyed crops and overwhelmed farmers. The infestation comes after years of drought, devastating wildfires and a period of heavy rain that boosted plant growth, creating ideal conditions for the hungry rodents to reproduce exponentially. Now farms and fields are overrun with swarms of mice that have taken up residence in the walls of barns and homes."

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 05:21 PM

Look into it deeper and you'll find that the periodic mouse plagues are the result of farming practices. Over thirty years ago I showed my pupils a video which showed various boom-and-bust plagues around the world, and Aussie mouse plagues were among them. There's nothing natural about that particular disaster.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 05:41 PM

Don't bother reading what I wrote.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 05:45 PM

Don't be so rude. I've read it. Why don't you read the thread title instead of thinking up your next insult? Natural disaster, right?

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 06:04 PM

I am saying that one disaster after another after another with little break in time - regardless of whether it is a natural disaster or of other origin - creates greater negative outcomes. The negative outcomes of one disaster can create negative situations which can influence the level of the next disaster.

A severe mouse plague for farmers after prolonged years of severe drought and floods and bushfires was probably the last straw for a lot of farmers who had survived years of struggle. Have some compassion for the farmers.

But it appears that you're all right, Jack, and that's all that matters - to you.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 06:52 PM

I can have everything except hurricanes and tsunamis. We have packed duplicates of important documents and a few, very portable, heirlooms/keepsakes. We would most likely have to evacuate because of wildfire (a few years back one claimed 64 houses south of town). For other events there’s food on the shelves, in the freezer, and so on — not the prepper stuff, but stuff we usually eat. We have camping gear. We can hold out for a week or more.

Water? We have filters — we live in outdoor country, after all.

The biggest disaster is if Yellowstone* blows its top again. In that case, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. THAT would have worldwide effects.

*two hours north by car.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 07:17 PM

I've got plenty of compassion for farmers, thanks. I live on a farm, the farmers are my friends and I've seen their ups and downs for the last 35 years. Westcountry farmers are not the barley barons that exist up country. They are swept up, like the rest of us, by the tide of capitalism. Unfortunately, it's farming practices that have been detrimental to the environment almost more than anything else. And I find it slightly ironic that an Aussie can accuse me of being "all right Jack" when you live in a country that has been so dreadful, so complacent, when it comes to environmental depredations and even denial of climate change. Still scouring your wilderness in order to sell millions of tons of iron ore to China, are we? It's so easy to ascribe blatantly man-made disasters to nature. And for the second time I'd respectfully direct you to the thread title....

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 08:06 PM

I do follow what goes on at Yellowstone. I think we may be OK for now. A bit closer to (my) home, is Campi Flegrei in the Bay of Naples. It's close to Vesuvius but Vesuvius isn't part of it. It's a huge caldera, now mostly under the sea, that had one of the biggest eruptions ever recorded (the Campanian Ignimbrite) about 39000 years ago. Some would have it that that one helped to wipe out the Neanderthals, but I'm not so sure. The area is seismically active, and in the early 1980s tens of thousands of people were evacuated from the town of Pozzuoli because of uplift of the ground of about two metres. It's fairly quiet there at the moment but there's a huge magma lake that's only a couple of kilometres below ground. It's definitely what you might call a potential supervolcano, a la Yellowstone...

We know the area quite well and we visited the most impressive site in Campi Flegrei, the Solfatara crater, in 2013. It's an area full of rumblings and fumaroles. Unfortunately, the Solfatara has been closed to visitors since 2017 after a terrible accident in which three members of a family were killed when they fell into a mud pool.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 09:15 PM

San Gennaro, patron saint of Naples, was beheaded in the Solfatara crater in the fourth century. You can see his bones sticking out of a big urn in the crypt of the duomo in Naples. Bloody Catholics... There's a very good pizzeria just a hundred yards up the road...

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 23 - 07:57 AM

Yellowstone's eruption is imminent
100,000 years from now.
Not our problem.

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Jan 23 - 05:18 AM

the ASL of Yellowstone caldera is rising. Apparently.

Since COVID I have increased my reserves of non-perishables, and some things that will keep in the fridge. Rotating stocks as the level is kept updated - a trick I remember from my Gran. She kept tins of stuff with dates written on, she told me that during the war you bought when available, and ate oldest first!

It is siege mentality - fer sure. But I doubt my stocks include one or two pretty essential items for a disaster.

Pigeon pie anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: can you face a natural disaster?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jan 23 - 06:09 AM

We are always quite well stocked up with store-cupboard basics, as well as full freezers, not for fear of an impending disaster but because we live in a remote area which can involve long road trips to big towns, all of which are at least an hour away. That plus the fact that I'm a severe special offer tart... :-)