General, Preparing for the worst

What’s the worst that can happen? Fire?

There’s fire and ice, to start with:

Wildfire destroys house and belongings. Almost happened a few years ago, The Hayman fire got within 10 miles of our house, with nothing between the house and the fire but tinder. Fortunately, the winds shifted and the fire stopped its advance. Our planning for that was to be on a cruise ship in the Caribbean listening to CNN newscasts about a fire in the Denver suburbs. Not the most effective plan, but we didn’t worry about it since Denver is 70 miles away.

Our house sits on a non-treed patch of ground. The nearest real trees are hundreds of yards away. We have a lot of shrub oak in the horse fields but not anywhere close to the house. And the horses do their best to keep the grass non-existent in their fields. Our biggest concern would have to be the grass right around the house. We don’t keep it cut because it isn’t very thick. (We have no real topsoil.) It is deep, though. I don’t know if it would sustain enough fire to warm up our oil-soaked wood siding to the burning point, but, Elaine did cut the grass back this year. It will probably need cutting in another three years.

But, if embers did fly and our house were to burn; we would gather our precious papers, put the horses and animals in the trailer and take off down the road, ready to rebuild once the fire passed.

Most wildfires will give you some warning that they are coming. You can prepare and collect the essentials.

I did think about setting up sprinklers on the roof and wetting things down, but we are on well water and probably don’t have enough water pressure to make a difference. After 10-20 minutes the pressure would come down to a dribble. Better to fill up what tubs and vats we can and get out of the valley.

I did create a “go-bag” that carries a few items that would be nice to have and that might not get collected in an escape. Mine is not an urban bag. Then there is the sillier ‘go bag’. I know Making Light brings up the preparedness issue pretty regularly. My problem is to remember to replenish the perishables in the bag.

I also have a 5-gallon cooler of water sitting in the garage. I need to replenish that as well. If we need to evacuate from our home, I expect it will be by car (or truck with horse trailer attached). So we can carry some heavier items, like water.

My biggest concern about fire is getting cut off from the utility grid. Even if my house survives, the telephone and electric poles may not and we could be without power for a while. More on that in another post. And the Ice.

General, Preparing for the worst

Planning for the worst

What is the worst that can happen, and how do you plan for it? Personally, I think having a fatal accident and not dying is about the worst that can happen. Because, if you don’t die, you probably won’t want to be living. The Band Played Waltzing Matilda reminds me of that thought. I do have the Living Will testament to avoid heroic resuscitation procedures.

But for property, and the aftermath of a natural disaster such as Katrina, how do you plan for the worst? And Rita showed that all your planning may not be worth a hill of beans if several million others are caught in the same boat.

I have created a new category to collect some thoughts on the subject.

General, Politics, Preparing for the worst

Rebuilding N’awlins

What a waste. Spend your $10 billion now or your $200 billion later. We can’t tell you how much later, maybe next week, maybe next year, maybe next decade, but it will be spent, in your lifetime.

I think they ought fill in the below sea-level part of the city with the rubble of the world trade center and any other rubbish that can be gathered and bring the entire city up to sea level, at least. Then cover the rubble with a layer of good silt and, voila, instant city. I don’t know how long you have to wait for everything to settle to provide a stable foundation. I think a decade or two should suffice. Basically, if you owned the land at the bottom of the rubble, you would own what is directly above it.

I heard someone suggest that the New New Orleans should build houses on stilts, like the beach front houses. Then you don’t have to fill anything in. Of course, the house would be a bit more expensive.

I would also suggest that every house be built with a trap door in the roof to provide easy egress from the attic.

I imagine that if all the houses were built on stilts, that the builders wouldn’t make sure the stilts were properly anchored and that all the houses would fall down after the ground got soaked by a heavy rain. I wonder if that counts as flood damage?

I also heard that some states are planning to go to court against the insurance companies, saying that the companies need to pay for damaged houses even if the damage was all flood and the homeowners didn’t have flood insurance. What a crock. If you want ensure that all your citizens have flood insurance then mandate it. Make it part of the property tax.

Don’t go crying that you didn’t think you needed flood insurance but now your house is gone and you want another one, but you aren’t willing to put up any money to buy the insurance. That’s what insurance is all about, everyone pays to cover against the possibility that a natural disaster will happen to some of them. It’s like a collective helping individual members. It’s socialism.

Personally, I wouldn’t let people build within a 100 year flood plain without their paying a hefty amount of insurance, annually. But it is up to them. IF they build, or buy, where history says floods will come, and they don’t want to contribute to a disaster contingency fund, then they can live with the results.

I remember when we bought a place in Texas, our lot had a creek at one end and the part of the property bordering the creek was in the 100-year flood plain, (it’s marked on the plat). Our mortgage company wanted us to get flood insurance before they would give us the mortgage. We were able to convince them that the actual structure, (house), was 100 yards from the flood plain marking and on a slight rise so we were 2-3 feet higher. (Plano Texas is very, very flat) We looked over the situation and decided not to go for the insurance. We took a chance. I don’t think that house will be flooded until the 1,000 year flood comes along, and that will wipe out most of Dallas-Fort Worth and our house would be the least of our worries.

I also don’t think anyone should be allowed to build within a mile of sea level. (Horizontally, on the map, not vertically. It would get too crowded in Colorado.) Although I realize that that isn’t too realistic. Fisherman, and others who live off the sea, will want to be nearby. But that’s it. No ocean-front beach houses for people working inland. No sea-breeze tourist traps. Let them walk a mile to the beach.

General, travel

Late Breaking News

I have more pictures of Scotland! I developed the roll that was in my camera and found some more pictures of the Pollok Gardens and Park. So, I added them to the gallery with the other pictures. I thought I had more shots of the Gardens than originally published.

And the rest of the roll was pictures of my niece’s birthday party at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum. I created a new gallery for her called “Santa Faye” (her name is Faye).

General

An interesting sight

As I left home this morning, I saw a gray blanket of clouds stretching north and south and as far east as I could see. To the west they extended to within a few hundred yards of the mountains. Based on what I could see of the mountains, I guess the clouds were at 8000 feet. And the sun was shining brightly above the clouds so the upper parts ofthe mountains were in bright sunshine. As I drove down the Front Range, I kept seeing the bright rim of light between the clouds and their shadow on the mountains.

Pity I didn’t have my camera handy to snap pictures out the car window while driving at 75 MPH. I should have called Elaine and told her to check it out.

When I got down into the Springs, the cloud cover was breaking up and the crepuscular rays were shining through.

Not quite like the other day where the clouds were laying at 7000 feet and I left in the bright sunlight and drove down into the cloud cover.

fandom, General, golf, travel

Updated Scottish Trip

I have set up the Photo Galleries to segment the trip into different galleries per sector rather than trying to cram them all into one gallery. So, I have the: St Andrews-Touristy stuff, St Andrews- golf, London, Glasgow, Worldcon, and Scotland.

Next I will put all the links into an html page and link to it on the side bar. As I go through the different galleries, I see that I may want to distribute the pictures better so I don’t have 70 pictures in one section and only one section in the gallery.

The Thoughts and Luminations of Jack Heneghan