#16
|
|||
|
|||
On 8/20 my community had nearly 14 inches of rain fall in a few hours and that was only one part of a very wet run of days. The area still has flooding, bridges out, and sections of road not repaired.
Even with my neighborhood having had a road become a waterfall, one pond use the street to empty in the next, and things still flooded I was really glad I didn't fall into the prep mentality some have. Some had their generators flooded. There was an obvious split between most people behaving well and some not. Owning two decent coolers, some camping gear, bicycles and feet did a plenty fine job. For my work where I have to keep all technology running two charged backup batteries for my phone were fine. Most of the charge was used while my daughter was stranded in the flash flooding. Our city and the neighboring city did a superb job. I won't laugh or criticize our expensive fire trucks, rescue boats, and the 6x6 mini ambulance. It was really interesting that a file call came to a reactionary anti-government family around the corner during the flooded darkness. I wonder if they think a little differently when in all that chaos $ millions gear and trained staff they criticize made it through a few feet of water, crated light, and solved the problem. I won't say don't have a generator but our recent experience has me a lot happier about having some basic fitness, camping gear and go anywhere bicycle that can carry a lot. That all worked when some in the neighborhood had their generators and overkill pickup trucks and SUVs flooded. Getting to a grocery store and to work with a bike and waterproof panniers while a lot of my neighborhood was stranded was insightful. The situation also made me think about the obesity and fitness problems so many have. Fit people were clearly at solving their problems when others were not capable of doing that. Just like bad winter storms many in their 4x4s made the worst decisions. One kind of funny photo I have is 3/4 cars trying to get out of the neighborhood that were swamped were all BMWs. The macho pickup truck and BMW owners appeared to stand out as bad decision makers. My neighbor who has a gasoline generator said it was swamped. He ran his sump pump from the power inverter his car has. We had a true "you'd never think it here" disaster. Commonsense, some fitness, basic stuff and behaving as a community were what really made the difference.
__________________
ƃuoɹʍ llɐ ʇno əɯɐɔ ʇɐɥʇ |