Hurricane Irene: Making last dash for gruyere, emmenthaler
“The storm approaches. Black clouds race low in the sky in advance of the tropical maelstrom. I’ve stockpiled the cigars, the wine, the imported cheese and lean bacon from a local farm. I have fully powered up my laptop, my cell phone, my BlackBerry, my camera battery, and have cranked the AC to the point that ice is forming on the inside of the windows…”
Change of plans
“It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Plans called for reporting on the dedication of the memorial on the Mall in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. That ceremony is now postponed. That’s because Nature has other plans for the weekend. And Nature must have her way. The way comes in the form of Hurricane Irene, now traveling up the East Coast. If you are not reading this blog by flashlight, consider yourself fortunate.
“It’s been like this all week. On Tuesday, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck without warning, heaving and bucking the eastern United States for as long as it liked. And it left only when it felt like departing…”
Cassi Creek:
Achenbach, King, and Carlson all speak directly to various facets of disaster survival and preparedness.
Preparing for hurricanes is a never-ending task on the Gulf Coast and in the Atlantic states. Hurricane protection, keeping property safe, is expensive, time-consuming, and often painful work. Employers have a nasty habit of expecting employees to take care of the employer’s property before taking care of their own dwelling. One of my previous employers took care of his property by telling another employee to drive him and his wife to the airport, and to then secure the employer’s home and business.
Even more of a problem is the practice of keeping businesses open during hurricanes and expecting employees to show up for business as usual despite storm warnings, evacuation orders, and the necessity of taking care of one’s own family. Health care and public safety jobs are particularly problematic.
Scheduled events such as concerts by people who rarely play near enough to hear, exams for licensure, vacation trips, and those things such as the King monument dedication are often dislocated by disasters of some sort. Trip insurance is becoming almost a necessary part of any planned trip these days. A two-week-long series of thunderstorms and hurricane-driven flooding can lay waste to a carefully planned fishing trip; or it can point out, as if it needed to be pointed out, how marvelous one’s wife and fishing partner is. Sometimes the choice of traveling companion is the best available trip insurance!
Carlson brings up the steadily increasing layers of technology that we find essential for nearly any function these days. I would begin with the laptop computer (our first laptop appeared when we realized that we would need rapid access to our computerized files in the days after a hurricane, but that we could not count on having either electricity to power up and set up a new computer to replace a storm-damaged desk-top; or access to cash to purchase a new replacement. Now they seem necessary. Living on the edge of cell-phone access, we have not succumbed to smart phone web browsing or any other use of those small hand-held, once-phones that the oncoming generations find so important to being instantly in contact with 500 of their most important acquaintances.
So it goes:
Laptop,
External hard drive,
cooling pad,
Charger,
Inverter
Cell phone, charger,
Cell phone booster
Blue tooth headset
Blue tooth charger
Camera(s),
Rechargeable camera battery
Headlamp
AA batteries
AAA batteries
N batteries
2032 batteries,
Kindle,
Kindle charger,
TI calculator,
TI calculator cables,
MP3 player
Charging cable
Headphones,
Ear buds,
Then we grab our “go-box” laden with insurance policies, copies of other necessary documents, medication lists, lock-box key, etc.
Medicine,
Clothing,
Fly rods
Wading vest, waders, wading boots,
Hand gun & ammunition, secured from visual detection
Clothing for a week,
Night-driving glasses,
Sun glasses, polarized, photochromic,’
Sunglasses, polarized,
And of course, Loki, our, dog who would ride in the Pathfinder with me, having a great time watching the disaster crawl by.
“Bear in mind that this is just a perfunctory list, missing many items that would come to mind 30 miles down the evacuation route. It is only my list. Other than the “go-box,” Gloria will have her own.
Looking at the list, the effort involved in gathering it all, packing it, loading it into the car, putting it all away upon returning home, you can begin to see why so many people just take a chance and ride out the storm at home.
Any disaster goes better with good food and beverages. Jarlsberg on Chiabata, spicy tuna rolls, goat gouda, blinis, crème fresh, and caviar, washed down with a great champagne, smoky black tea, or an IPA from a micro-brewery blunts the immediate disaster impact and improves one’s attitude during the post-disaster recovery. I’ve already filled gasoline tanks. I hope I get to the organic super market before they close down for the duration. All disasters go better with luxury.
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