I’m taking a Blogging break. Right now I’m thinking of resuming after the US election. Frankly, my preps are going to change depending on the outcome.
If sometime major inspires me before then I might post, but don’t expect anything new for a few weeks.
Be chill everyone.
-Sixbears
Power is still out for many thousands of people in the wake of two hurricanes. People are suffering. It’s my belief that surviving without electricity is harder in the south that here up north. Fresh food goes bad rapidly in the heat. Fortunately there are many foods that can be stored long term without refrigeration.
The lack of air conditioning can be more of a hazard to life. Staying the shade and drinking lots of water helps. If you are young and healthy surviving without AC, while uncomfortable, is generally doable. The very young, the sick, and the elderly may need AC to survive.
For that you need electricity, and not just a few watts either. You aren’t going to get by with a couple of solar panels and a solar generator. A gas, propane, or diesel generator will do the job -until the fuel runs out. For a lot of people in the affected areas getting more fuel is a real issue. Storing fuel in large volumes requires serious safety precautions.
There are ways to make your fuel go longer. For example rather than trying to cool the whole house limit AC use to one room. Running one smallish AC unit will provide a safe place for the vulnerable. It might be crowded and lack privacy but your fuel supply will last longer.
Where I live in New Hampshire AC is not an issue. My house doesn’t even have AC. A few fans suffice. Losing power is a winter issue. On the plus side, refrigeration is easy. All of outdoors is a freezer. Staying warm is the real problem.
Fortunately a woodstove doesn’t consume any electricity. Fire is primitive, one of first technologies, but it still does the job. In my case, living in the woods is a bonus. Firewood actually does grow on trees.
-Sixbears
It’s hunting season and I’ve been enjoying some bird hunting. However, I’m pretty much staying out of the woods on the weekends. The exception to that is the woods right behind my house as few people hunt there. That’s mostly due to people like me who don’t allow people to cross their land. Once past the small private land holdings there’s a good section of land open to the public -if they can get access.
There’s an old saying that it’s bad form to shoot the dog. Every now and then some over zealous hunter will get excited and pepper his own dog with shot. That’s bad. What’s worse is when someone shoots their hunting partner. A guy was telling me how a relative of his shot his nephew. That was awful but the injuries were not life threatening. What was really scary is that the shot just barely went over the head of the guy’s grandson.
Be safe out there.
-Sixbears
A friend of mine asked me to check out some land he’s interested in. It has a decent gravel driveway and a cleared level area where a trailer is currently parked. My friend does not want the trailer so that would be the first thing to go.
His real estate guy told him it would cost a minimum of $20,000 to connect to the grid. I’m assuming that the electric company doesn’t want new rural customers. Either that or they think that people are stuck and will pay whatever they ask.
For $20,000 my friend could install a pretty decent off-grid electrical system. The site gets good sun and has excellent wind potential. Actually, he could probably get up and running for a lot less than that.
Since it would be all new construction minimizing electrical usage could be built in. For example it could be heated using methods that don’t consume electricity. He’s thinking of putting in a woodstove anyway. There are propane heaters that don’t use electricity and could provide decent backup power.
Oh yeah, the property comes with a pretty decent shooting range so that’s a plus.
-Sixbears
My lovely wife and I sailed most of Florida’s Gulf Coast. We used to know that region well. Seeing it on the news these days is disturbing. My nautical charts are probably grossly inaccurate right now. Nothing like a couple of hurricanes to mess up a coast line.
We sailed past Siesta Key numerous times over the years and it’s the very place where Hurricane Milton came ashore. Directly south of Siesta Key the damage is probably worse but I haven’t seen much footage out of there yet.
There used to be a sizable community of hobo sailors anchored at Bradenton Beach. I can’t help but wonder what happened to those people. Many of those boats weren’t in great shape and probably couldn’t get out of harm’s way in time. Hopefully the people evacuated.
The last time I sailed in Florida was in early 2020. We all know what happened that year. I cut our travels short. We we were in the Clearwater area when the disease news got disturbing. Rather than sail down the coast we loaded up the Oday 19 on the trailer and headed north. We haven’t been to Florida since.
We certainly aren’t going down there this coming winter. Our favorite places are currently ruined. It’s heartbreaking. Our friends in the Venice area evacuated and I’m glad they did. Right now I’m waiting to hear about the people we know across the state where it was still a Cat 1. Are you doing okay Spud? Some of our friends live a couple hundred feet from the coast at about a 3 foot elevation. We haven’t heard from them either.
So while we aren’t going back this winter I must admit to wanting to sail Florida waters again. However, I’d do it in a tough boat with a lift keel that can handle shallow water.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that it could be just as bad next year. We live in interesting times.
-Sixbears
My lovely wife was working on her computer a couple days ago. She told me she was on the phone with tech support. Okay, stuff happens. Her computer was bricked with an ominous flashing warning on the screen.
I guess tech support sounded legit -in the beginning anyway. Then it sounded more and more sketchy. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that she is in the habit of refusing to give out financial info out over the phone. She hung up with them and we called our Internet provider. They were able to check that our address and system were perfectly fine. The “tech support” had said otherwise. Turns out that tech support number was bogus. I know, big surprise.
In the mean time we had a useless computer and my lovely wife had stuff to do. We hopped in the car and went computer shopping. That turned into a 100+ mile trip. Such is life when you live in the middle of nowhere. We picked up a new a new laptop.
While setting that up I went ahead and tried to fix my wife’s old computer. After some computer magic, maybe involving burning sage and a goat sacrifice, I got it running again. Then, since it was all set up the way my lovely wife wanted it, she wanted to stick with her old computer.
That was fine as the new one went to me. I’ve been getting by with a cheap Chromebook. It was okay but pretty small and underpowered. Then there’s the fact I’m not a big fan of the Chrome operating system.
Turns out I’m also not a big fan of Windows 11. Is it my imagination or has Microsoft gotten more and more intrusive with each version of Windows? I do not like it. It was used just long enough to download the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu has made steady upgrades over the years and the newest version is good. Open source is the way to go. Windows made me feel like I was renting my computer. Linux gives me a lot more control and I feel like I own the computer.
Currently it’s about 98% set up the way I want. All’s well that ends well, I guess.
-Sixbears
Looks like another hurricane is headed for the west coast of Florida. It’s enough to make one set down their beer and take notice.
FEMA is already running out of money. No problem though. Florida doesn’t need Socialism from the Federal government.
But seriously money is not the issue. In an election year especially it’s just a matter of turning up the printing presses. There will be some sort of funding coming from somewhere. Perhaps the bigger question will be resources. Do they have the people and resources to respond effectively? We shall see.
This next hurricane looks to be heading right to the Tampa area -give or take a storm wobble here or there. The path of this storm, right now, appears to be right across the state and into the Atlantic. It’s still a few days out so we really don’t know the exact strength or path.
That’s a part of Florida I know very well having spent many months in that area. My folks retired north of Tampa and I spent a lot of time visiting them. It’s also where I did a lot of sailing. I bet that after the next storm my charts will be way out of date. Storms remake the Gulf Coast of Florida all the time. Islands appear and disappear. Channels move or are filled in completely. New channels form. Never mind all the debris in the water.
There are knock on effects from these storms that affect the country far from impact areas. One small example: my Internet issues with Spectrum. After the storm their customer service lines were overwhelmed. It took two days to get a human on the phone. It probably didn’t help that their customer service is based in North Carolina. Once I did get through they sent a service man the next day, so that worked out.
So keep an eye on the weather and check your preps. If you are in the predicted impact area bugging out might be the smart option. Everyone’s situation is different but it’s likely survivors will be on their own for a long time.
Be well everyone.
-Sixbears
For a lot of people who’ve suffered the loss of their home during storms it’s decision time. Do they rebuild or do they move on? It’s not an easy call.
When you are part of a community it is difficult to leave all that behind. You have things that hold you in place: family, friends, jobs, or even a simple love for the area. The first reaction may be: we will rebuild. Is is the smartest decision?
Maybe not. There are places that keep getting hit with the same disasters over and over again. It’s hard to credit it to being a “once in a lifetime event” when it happens twice or three times in the same year. Florida is the poster child for this, but it’s far from the only problem area. Just ask the folks in Vermont who keep getting flooded out.
If you decided to move to a safer area it’s better to be one of the first to leave. Ideally you’d move before the disaster. That’s when the property values are highest and there are many potential buyers.
For those who get a decent insurance payout, moving out is worth considering. As the insurance industry suffers more and more losses the payouts won’t be nearly as good. You just might want to keep that in mind. There are already plenty of people who can no longer carry insurance at all. Prices have gotten too high.
As disaster pile up some people won’t be able to move. The ones who remain will be the old and the poor. They will lack the resources to start over. If they are able to sell it will be for pennies on the dollar. If they owe money on their property it’s even worse. Abandoning their property will ruin their credit making it that much hard to start in a new location.
Hard choices are best made early.
-Sixbears
East coast dock workers are on strike. How bad will supply disruptions get? It all depends on how long the strike lasts. A few weeks won’t be much of a problem. Even a couple of months shouldn’t be too terrible. After that there would definitely be major shortages and price increases.
Major retailers knew this might be coming. Many already have their Christmas stock in place. Most of their money is made during the Christmas season, so they plan ahead. That’s not say there won’t be some unavailable items.
Food will be a different issue. Imported foods may become unavailable especially fresh foods. Bananas in particular will be a problem. Longer shipping times to other ports won’t work. The fruit will turn to mush before it hits the east coast stores. The weird thing is that before the strike our “fresh” veggies were getting worse. Bananas and lettuce have been terrible lately.
I guess I’ll be eating a lot of local fruit -which basically means apples. Good thing I like apples.
Meat exporters will lose foreign markets. Eventually, if this goes on long enough, they’ll have to reduce flock and herd size. Prices will drop for a short while when that’s going on. It would be a good time to top off your freezer.
For most people the port shutdown will be an annoyance but not an end of civilization sort of thing.
In unrelated news Spectrum sent their repair guy over. He changed out a couple of sketchy cables, cleaned some contacts, and we are back in business. Nice to have full use of the Internet again.
-Sixbears
My local Internet provider was bought out by Spectrum. There's a downside to being with a big company. Apparently there's something wrong with my hardware. It took two days to get in touch with customer service. Well, two days to get a human.
My guess is that the company is currently overwhelmed with hurricane damage. That's probably why it was so hard to get help.
The service guy is supposed to get here between 3 and 4 p. m. today.
-Sixbears
