Hurricane season isn’t over

The east coast and Gulf of Mexico have been lucky this hurricane season. At the start of hurricane season it appeared it could be a bad one. So far it hasn’t been. Conditions such as dry Sahara air kept hurricanes from developing. Wind conditions have also kept any developments away from the mainland.

Now we have the storm Fiona which is continues to strengthen. It is expected to reach hurricane strength as it passes close to the southwest coast of Puerto Rico. That’s bad news for Puerto Rico, but it’s projected to swing out to sea before hitting the mainland. 

The slow start to hurricane season could be causing people to relax their awareness. That would be a mistake. Conditions could change and the mainland could still get clobbered this year. The longer we go without a hurricane the less people are prepared. 

So how does this concern someone who lives in the northern mountains? A lot of my friends live in hurricane country. There are also a lot of people who’ve moved from the frozen north to the sunny south. They’ve never experienced a hurricane. Many don’t have a clue what to do. 

A few years back one of my uncles bought a house in Florida. He never got a chance to move into it. A hurricane scrubbed it right off the slab. So what did he do? Yep, he rebuilt right on the same spot -and he almost lost it a second time. A hurricane was projected to directly hit his area but took a sharp turn to the north in the last few hours. He ended up living the rest of his days in that house. Personally, I’d have probably not bought there in the first place and definitely not rebuilt. 

In conclusion, don’t let the slow season cause you to relax your guard. 

-Sixbears

Chance to remake the grid

Elon Musk is like someone ripped right out of a Science Fiction novel. He has his finger in every futuristic pie -everything from electric cars to rocket ships.

Mr. Musk has offered to re-power Puerto Rico using solar panels and his advanced battery technology. He's already used his devices to power some small islands. Elon claims there's no reason his power systems cannot scale up. Already he has employees on the ground, attaching his batteries to existing solar panel infrastructure.

This could be a huge boon for the island. Right now all their energy is generated using expensive fossil fuels. The island's grid was pretty shaky before the storm. It would make little sense to invest a lot of money in a power system that was inadequate to begin with.

Solar makes so much sense for a place like Puerto Rico. I live in cold and cloudy northern New Hampshire. We have one of the worse locations for solar power in the United States. In spite of that, I've used it successfully for over 20 years. Sure, I'm just one nut -an early adopted. Now I'm not alone. There are large arrays of solar panels popping up all over the place. Companies are in competition to install them. Even the cross country ski club's warming hut has enough solar electric to power a heat pump.

If it can work here in the frozen north, it should excel in the sunny Caribbean. It should also excel in sunny Florida, but the power lobby is so strong there that they've put up legal road blocks to solar. Not cool at all.

I really hope that PR makes a deal with Elon Musk. It would be a perfect test bed for large scale use of the technology. The island could then avoid importing expensive and polluting fossil fuels. Another added bonus is that solar is diversified. The whole island would never lose the majority of its power again. Now all you have to do is to take out a few power plants and some high power transmission lines and the island goes dark.

I really hope this works out. First of all, it would be great for those on the island, but would also show the rest of the country that it can work on a large scale.

-Sixbears

Puerto Rico

There's a lot of survivalist fiction that tries to depict what life would be like in a grid down situation. In Puerto Rico, that hypothetical disaster has become reality. The whole island lost power, millions are in the dark, and there's no firm estimate when it will be back.

Puerto Rico is in a strange place politically. It's a US territory. Its citizens are US citizens. However, they don't have the same rights that citizens in a US state would have. That puts the island in a sort of limbo. It's economic problems have been getting worse for many months. The way its government is set up, they have very little power to fix things themselves. For years the mainland has taken advantage of the island's status. Big businesses made a lot of money on the island and gave very little back.

It's history is important, but the main issue is what happens now. We have very spotty information on how bad it really is there. Communications are so bad that the governor himself can't reach most of the island.

What has come out doesn't sound good. Hospitals are shutting down as their generators run out of fuel. Emergency services are overwhelmed. A dusk to dawn curfew is in effect. There are stories of looting and violent crime. Authorities are stretched thin.

The United States, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, will be judged on how it reacts to the crisis. They are US citizens, just as deserving of aid as Texas or Florida. For that matter, don't forget the US Virgin Islands, another US territory in need.

If the emergency response isn't strong enough, Puerto Rico's citizens have only one viable option for a normal life. As US citizens, they are free to come to the mainland. Don't be too surprised of the vast majority of the three million residents leave the island. Get ready to welcome your new neighbors.

It may be days, weeks, or months before the general public has a firm grasp on the situation -if they are still interested. By then the nation will have moved on. We should not forget and help as much as we can.

Now imagine if there was a massive EMP or solar storm that knocked out the power in most of the US. It's a possibility. If we can't restore power to a couple of islands, how well would a nationwide blackout be handled?

-Sixbears

Hurricanes and Sailing

Our friends in St. Thomas just survived another direct hurricane hit. Puerto Rico just lost its complete grid. We'll need some time before we learn how bad things are there.

The hurricane season is barely half over, and it's been a tough one. I follow a lot of sailing blogs and YouTube channels. Some boaters have retreated to the mangroves and their boats survived the storms. Other sailed south to get below the likely path of hurricanes. Many pulled their floating homes out of the water and secured them on land. A number, in spite of their precautions, lost their boats completely.

So, with all the destruction, how do I feel about sailing now? It's been a time for reflection, that's for sure. In the short term, we moved our departure date from the end of November to sometime in January. By then we should have a clearer idea what's going on.

We did not buy a bigger boat this year and I'm happy with that that decision. Next year, if we can swing it financially, we shall upgrade. We might get a bigger trailer sailor so we can get load the boat on a trailer and drive out of harm's way. Another option is to get a bigger boat but keep it out of the hurricane zones.

Originally, we thought we'd like to keep a boat in Florida during the summer. That no longer seems like a great idea. We can either sail up to New England in the spring or keep heading south below the normal hurricane zone.

It might seem crazy to even consider spending half our time on a boat. The thing is, we are water people and have not given up on the life.

-Sixbears

After Greece, what?

Time to put the popcorn on, pull up a chair and watch the fireworks. No I'm not talking about American Independence Day celebrations. On Sunday the Greeks are voting on whether or not to accept European Union's demands for more austerity and other concessions. That's all to keep the rickety house of cards going a bit longer.

I've no idea how this one is going to go down. Greece is technically in default. Will it get a big infusion of loan money? Can it stay in the EU? Will the EU itself survive the challenge?

In the end, while it's all huge entertaining and distracting, it's a sideshow. For the United States Puerto Rico is of more pressing concern. It can't pay its debts either. Wouldn't it be a fine time to just grant them independence? That's just my twisted sense of humor talking. It's not really about governments. It's about banks.

Anyone else notice that other financially troubled EU countries like Spain, Italy and Portugal have totally dropped off the radar? They are pretending to the public that Greece is the only real problem.

Historically, financial crisis time hits in the fall. There are some reasons (theories?) for this, but I'm not going to go there in a short blog post. Let's just say that's the time the astute investors cash in their chips.

How bad is it going to be? Here's where it all gets weird. There's a lot of doom predictions bouncing around the Internet right now. Financial doom is predicted, but so are, earthquakes, solar flares, asteroids, plague -disasters of biblical magnitude. I take some comfort in those dire predictions. They are almost always totally wrong -so wrong as to almost defy random chance of being right.

If they say it's the end of everything, we'll probably muddle through a while longer. That's not to say there won't be negative consequences in the fall. Odds are something bad will happen somewhere. (probably not anything predicted either). After watching the financial and legal gymnastics that took place after the 2008 housing collapse I won't bet against the financial wizards pulling another rabbit out of their hat.

Whatever happens it's sure to be interesting, so stock up on plenty of popcorn.

-Sixbears