Water, food, fuel -- how difficult is it to have a cache?

Was the organic cat litter cheaper?

 

That kinda circles back to the original topic again, doesn't it?
I often say that Darwin is messy and slow, but effective.
This is mostly because humans are capable of procreating in their early teens......and sex is pretty fun.
However (comma!) sometimes....Darwin plays catch-up with natural and human caused disasters.

I'm an ardent proposal of both capitalism AND nucular power - but probably not at the same time.

In freekin Japan of all places....somebody thought it would be a good idea to put an obsolete nucular power plant.....in a dense urban AND in a very seismically active area. Oh yeah....and next to the ocean.
Even then, they would have been OK if they would have had a more realistic OSCAR-SIERRA plan and not put their emergency genset outside...
Power Utilities just aren't big enough to play in "the street."
They should be (and mostly ARE) public utilities and they should be fairly and tightly regulated.

This isn't limited to nucular power, and power problems aren't limited to Texasass.
PG&E has killed well over 100 people in recent years and they destroyed a town because they cheaped out on line maintenance. I said "over a hundred people" because when the Paradise fire happened they were LITERALLY still on probation from killing about a dozen people in 2010 from the same thing.
Oh.....and they're decommissioning a nucular power plant....that they were operating.....next to the ocean.

So.....
Even though Darwin is a slow process...DISASTERS are not.
Whether it's earthquakes, fires, flooding, pestilence or civil unrest (i.e. peaceful demonstrations) defication WILL occur, and you don't have to go all crazy prepper to harden yourself against becoming a victim instead of a 'survivor.'

It's not hard.
It's not expensive.

Your call.

 

... with a floodwall height set only as high as the tallest tsunami to hit that beach in just the prior 10 years before construction, from an event 10,000 miles away ...

... so when a similar event hit much closer, so close that earth movement immediately lowered that floodwall a full meter ...

 

I have often wondered what could be done (pie in the sky) to allow the US government to enter the energy market, with the USN doing the generation and fulfillment with gear common to that which they put in the fighting boats.

Steam (or amps) by the hour, coming from the organization with arguably the best safety record of any using nuclear technology. I put it down as one of those ideas that just makes too much sense.

 

I'm pretty sure that shore-based options could be optimized for grid work...and I'm absolutely sure that reactors could be put in sites that are not very interesting politically, geologically, seismically, etc.
The problem with commercial power is the commercial part....and I say this as probably more of a libertarian than 99.99999999999 percent of Prius devotees.....but SOME things NEED to be done by dot.gov, and some things need to be done by dot.mil.......and sometimes it's unwise to 'cross the streams.'
Some of the saddest chapters in the dot.mil world have occurred when people started to confuse them with dot.coms and decisions were made for spendy reasons rather than putting kids in harm's way with the best tools available.
One small example occurred when @bwilson4web 's Marines were issued bolt action rifles and deposited into a jungle fight in the opening days of Whiskey-Whiskey Deuce because: "A PROPER Marksman will not need to waste ammunition with an automatic rifle."
Oops.

However (comma!)
Even if they stay in their lanes, Dot.mil, dot.gov, AND dot.com need to be aggressively monitored and held to standards.
The CHI-COMMMs actually do that fairly well, and folks who embarrass the state can expect swift and VERY aggressive (if not particularly fair) corrective action.
Meanwhile it is VERY possible for a dot.com to kill dozens of people in this nation......more than once...through sheer negligence without one single company ossifer doing a perp walk.
THAT could probably be tweaked a little bit.
The dot.mil world is also badly corroded by capital with numerous examples (F35, DDG1000, LCS, M17/18 etc...etc...etc...) which SHOULD lead to more former flag ranking officers raking sand traps at some club fed, perhaps being assisted by a few Congress Critters.
Finally......for those that think that dot.gov is the shining path forward......there's public education as an example of "Don't let this happen to you!!!"

In Real Estate the golden rule is Location.....Location.....Location.
The part that they DON'T SAY out loud is that it's not always the location of the HOUSE that's important but rather the location of the SCHOOL.
The kids in my life for example haven't missed any days this school year (like....since September!)

OODA.....

OBSERVE
ORIENT
DECIDE
ACT.

That also works well in developing your OSCAR-SIERRA plan as mentioned in #1

 

I tend to think there's got to be a way to make it work. I'm sure the navy wouldn't mind having 'spare' powerplants for some of its nuclear ships, all ready to go, packaged on barges or railcars or something and properly broken-in. They get to train up more engineers and keep more of them current.

The arrangement I'd figured for the overall system was an artificial geyser. That is, a source of steam, owned by the US Government on federal land. Once the flow is stabilized and quantified, sell access leases to energy companies. They do the generation & distribution. Almost like a geothermal station except the steam comes out of your numbered spigot on the manifold instead of an expensive hole in the ground.

 

That will need condensate return lines too, unless it is in a location with a nearly unlimited supply of very clean water.

 

Sorry, just realized I only presented the ultra-brief form of the project plan

 

NYC has centralized stream distribution for bout 100 yrs.
It's makes a lot of sense in specific instances, although much like electricity it loses energy with distance as temp falls

 

Nobody wants loose electricity running around.

I suspect you never want to lose electricity either.

 

Only if .gov critters actually worked for something other than maximizing their personal wealth. .gov is not supposed to be run like a private business but that is currently a better less expensive option than what we currently have.

 

Yep. Home schooling for the win! Preferably with school choice to vote with your tax dollars. Next best are good private schools but they are less affordable.
We successfully home schooled our children through high school and both graduated from college.[

 

Were I the parent of school children TODAY?
I'd sell a kidney to keep them out of the public school system....and I have access to the best school district in my state!

It's a little off the OP, but PART of hardening yourself against fecal matter is early planning.

 

delete

 

I grew in Louisiana, have a lot of family/friends in Texas. We don't prepare for *freezing* weather; we prepare for hurricanes! I never even owned a decent winter coat until I was planning a trip to Toronto in February (and I had a hard time even finding one for sale.)
Having said that, my family owns a gas-powered generator (for the inevitable power outages). You also prepare for hurricanes typically by escaping to safer ground in your car, going to stay with friends or family elsewhere... in this Texas case, the roads became death traps (Southerners should not drive with ice on the road, full stop.)

The difference with your usual hurricane disaster is that it's warm, and you won't die from the heat (usually) if you don't have electricity. Freezing temperatures are deadlier. Yes, people should be prepared. I wouldn't be surprised if a greater proportion of us are prepared in Seattle due to the outdoor culture (I've got freeze dried meals, lamps, shelters, UV filter, iodine tablets, first aid kit, all the backpacking crap). Hell, I could trot down to the Volunteer Park Reservoir and get some water there if I needed to.

While I believe in the Boy Scout motto and personal responsibility, if state and federal governments aren't responsible for maintaining qualified disaster management plans and experts, what the heck am I paying all these taxes for? You can argue that people should keep kits prepared per the Red Cross. But what about hospitals? You know what happened to the hospitals in Texas? Where's the support?
The response to Texas reminds me of Katrina -- a [censored] disgrace that makes this country appear like the third-world nation it is in many aspects.

 

I do not fear driving on snow or ice, but I do fear driving with Southerners on snow or ice.

 

One of the scariest moments in my life, my family was driving to San Antonio (Thanksgiving? Christmas) when a freak ice storm struck I-10. Of course the overpasses became icy death traps. My family slowed down and was crawling along, but we counted eight vehicles spinning out near us as they were driving too damn fast. My wise mother threatened my father into pulling over as soon as we spotted a Holiday Inn. (Other people pulled into the inn with their cars on wreckers.)

I'm trying to become more comfortable with snow and ice so I can enjoy snowshoeing in my area (not that I'm going to drive into crazy conditions, but dealing with a little bit is doable, I think). I've seen enough videos that I think the Prius can be a decent vehicle in the snow with caution.

 

Yes, hurricanes should be higher on their priority list. But it isn't like Texas lacks a history of freezing weather:

The Extreme Temperature Changes of Texas
Few places in the world experience more rapid and extreme temperature changes than Texas.

Texas cold snap was not ‘unprecedented,’ and it was inexcusable to be unprepared

Upon arriving at DFW for a long-ago December job interview, having just witnessed a spin-out barely in front of me in severe conditions on the way to my departure airport (the victim ended up stopped, facing me, in my lane, and nobody got hit despite significant traffic), the first thing I noticed was how an interview host and very many other DFW-area drivers would be in a world of hurt in slippery conditions. Their driving styles made it blatantly obvious.

The preparedness of your Seattle neighbors and facilities is also partly in response to your local and state government outreach efforts. While quite far from ideal or complete -- our handling of the 2001 Nisqually earthquake didn't hold a candle to how the Japanese handled their 2011 quake, and we haven't narrowed the gap enough -- but it is still very active:

Emergency Management - Emergency Management | seattle.gov
https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Emergency/PlansOEM/HazardMitigation/Mitigation%20Plan%20Update%20V.2%20(2).pdf
Prepare yourself - Emergency Management | seattle.gov

https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/health/emergency-preparedness.aspx
https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/emergency-management/preparedness.aspx
https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/emergency-management.aspx

Preparedness | Washington State Military Department, Citizens Serving Citizens with Pride & Tradition
Be Prepared, Be Safe :: Washington State Department of Health
Severe Weather and Natural Disasters :: Washington State Department of Health
Home Emergency Preparedness :: Washington State Department of Health
Emergency Preparedness | WA - DNR

Considering Texas' independent-minded we-an-do-it-alone approach, without wanting outside assistance or government handouts, I thought they'd be better prepared than we are. So the calls for government to pay for winter-hardening of privately owned energy facilities struck me as asking for 'corporate socialism'.

 

Yes, I definitely agree that Texas *should* be prepared for extreme weather. Global climate change will mean more extreme weather events; I recall the Pentagon has assessed it as one of the greatest threats to global and national security. The state government chose to ignore federal regulators' advice (and were apparently allowed to do so since they are mostly a self-contained grid, not interstate grid) and even their own experts' advice to winterize various plants / windmills.

Texan drivers are frankly terrifying. Louisiana drivers are not that aggressive but are rated by the insurance industry as the worst (DUIs, lack of licenses and car insurance).

Yes, there's also the annual "Husky Shake Out" and our various universities involved with quake and volcano research. There's also a general respect for academics (at least in Western WA) that makes public outreach more effective. Ah, the Japanese. I lived in Japan for three years. Frankly, there's no people I'd rather be around than the Japanese in a natural disaster.

Oh, speaking of socialism, Cancun Cruz crossed the border so he and his family could enjoy warm sunny Mexican weather, while noted Democratic Socialist AOC raised over $4 million in relief funds. That rat bastard Cruz voted against Sandy relief funds (which wreaked havoc in NYC)... irony of ironies. We've seen a preview of what the 1% plan in a hellish future; they flee to better climates while the plebes suffer (see the Matt Damon movie "Elysium.")

I just remember when I was younger, I don't ever recall parties duking it out over *relief* funds. If we're not a united states for the absolute worst, maybe we should just split off (Cascadia Now!).

 

Concur....but I'm more interested in MY state.
Texasass is no stranger to hurricanes, flooding, blizards, etc.....so I think that mass media needs to stop using the word 'unprecidented' for a while since they do not seem to understand what it means.

Fact Check: FALSE.
Louisiana drivers are rated by the insurance industry as the worst because most of the people in the insurance industry did not grow up un Louisiana and thus they are bias-free in their assessment. In addition to a state government corrupt enough to make reality TV shows about, Louisiana features drive through daiquiri shops with drinks strong enough to tranq a polar bear....roads that flood enough during a "normal" rain event to incapacitate a car, legal 15-year-old drivers....AND they're "not as aggressive as TX" much the same as a revolver is not 'as dangerous' as a semi-automatic pistol.

Actual Mileage WILL vary!

Yeah....it's the HUMAN caused er....'disasters' that they struggle with.

Ah....politics.

Since this will be my last post in this thread before some pucker-butt has it moved out of the adult section.....

WHY do so many people hate Ted Cruz when they first meet him?
Easy.
Saves time.
AOC has the same rep btw.... only without the "being fairly smart" part....

HOWEVER (comma!)
I cannot vote for or against either one of them, so my givadamn button is pretty much hard-wired to the "don't" position where they are concerned.

I forgot.
The other reason that Louisiana has poor insurance rates is that their education system is.......um.... "struggling" a little bit.
Schools in the deep south (I have learned) usually dump their assistant to the assistant football coaches into their history and social studies departments.
Don't feel bad.
In my beloved home state of Indiana, it's often the assistant to the assistant BASKETBALL coach.

Texasass 'fun' fact:
Yes.
They used to be a 'republic' (so was Hawaii - er....sorta)
No. They have no unique secession rights.

The United States has a little bit of a 'history' with secession, and they've made it a little harder to do.
However (comma!) if you guys get away with it without Canada going all "54-40 or Fight" then DON'T do what Ukraine did.
You will inherit the sub base at Bangor, and if the US isn't smart enough to back-haul all of the UGM-73 missiles you'll be the world's 3rd largest nucular power.
Heck.....with all of the BUFF fields and USAF silos you MIGHT be #2!

Ukraine had nukes before they let the UN talk them into giving them all up, and promising them that they'd be 'taken care of.'

....juuuuuust sayin.