I find myself of two minds about most of these disaster. Most of the weather disasters did come with some warning time. Of course mama nature can and will be unpredictable so I have empathy when mama nature screws up a person's plan with little or no warning. Hurricanes and tornados are just going to be destructive and all you can do is keep people safe as possible and have the tools to rebuild as you can't mitigate all the wind/water damage. I don't live in Hurricane or tornado country, so while a lot of our preps are the same the scale of the disaster is not.
I suppose what got me thinking is the massive snow fall that is hitting the west and in particular the Coastal areas of WA,OR and CA along with the huge snowfalls in the mountains that seems to have blindsided people though high snowfalls used to be the norm before the drought of the last few years. I think that there is a complacency/normalcy bias the most people build up every year that next year will be just like last year. But every year is different and we all have seen a lot of stuff the last 3 years that was unthinkable back in 2015. The snow has been great for the west for mitigating the drought. The West is a place of feast or famine when it comes to rain. Most of the west is desert. That is why so many dams were built is to hold all that snow melt for hydro power and irrigation. Our population has increased but now we are tearing down dams in the west for fish and other idiotic environmental BS rather than building new dams for clean energy, food production and water to drink. Sorry Rant over!
I'm reading a lot of stories out of Cali that people have been out of contact/shopping for 10 days. That is a bit of time but the Sierras usually get 10 + feet of snow in an average snow year. Okay maybe not in a week or to or in late FEB./March but those mountains get a lot of snow and I would think a person should be prepped for some thing that "could" happen in a normal snow year and not think drought will always be the norm because Al Gore said so!
I live through the Snowpoclypse 2017 in SW Idaho and it was an outlier snow amount of 18 + inches on the ground for months and then the melt was fast and not fun to deal with either. I was not prepped for that amount of snow but I was prepped for the normal amount of snow for this area. (SW Idaho tends to be very cold but dry in the winter.) In a way I can see how a person could get blindsided by the weather. I did okay in 2017 but I never thought about the snow affecting trash pick up not happening for a month. I can literally walk to the grocery stores a mile a way at most and get groceries if they are open. I already had plenty of food, wood for heat and backup cooking solutions if the power went out. Props to Idaho power, never lost power during the winter of 2017. Digging out trails in the snow so the doggos could go outside to play/go potty and other minor stuff I did not think about as the snow got deeper and deeper.
What I did after the Snowpocolypse.
- I bought an electric snow blower and a 100 foot, 10 gauge extension cord to clear heavy snow around the house. A gas snow blower would be better if you use it often and maintain it.
- Buy at least 100 pounds of Ice melt and 200 pounds of sand for traction and keeping sidewalk clear of ice.
- Buy a roof rake to clear snow and other stuff off roofs and awnings/patio covers. During the Snowpocolypse many awnings, patio covers and carports collapsed under the heavy snow load. This year I used the roof rake to clean leaf debris off my patio awning to reduce the weight load if we had big snow year.
- Back up heating and water source. I use firewood so I'm not dependent on the grid for winter heat but I use an electric stove for cooking. I have a good outdoor set of propane grill, burners and Charcoal BBQ that is usable but for indoors I have a butane burner for boiling water and cooking like on a stove top. Butane is safe to use indoors and does not need to vent like propane camp stoves.
- The snow was so deep in my alley way I could not get my Mini van out to go shopping. My Mom had a Ford SUV with higher ground clearance and she could get out but the roads were still iffy. We mostly lived on what we had stored for about the month the snow was really bad.
- I bought a propane weed burner torch for melting ice. We were literally using heavy metal bars used for fence post holes to break the ice apart around vehicles park along the street. My neighbor had on vehicle covered in so much snow you could not tell there was a car parked there, just a hump of snow.
- Don't assume because you can get to your local grocery store that deliveries can get to your local stores if the weather is bad locally or even hundred miles away via freeway or rail line shut downs. I think covid showed how badly the transportation system. Just in time delivery system can fail locally in a global economy.
It boggles my mind how many people want to believe/trust the government and not take responsibility for themselves and their health and safety. You can call me all the names in your progressive hand book but I am warm this winter. I don't fear the USA stagflation/ recession because I have been expecting it for years. I'm amazed the PTBs have manage to juggle the balls this long.
The economic system in the west is so Fubar with debt and thinking the stock market is real it boggles the mind. Buy the things now that you will need in the future that has no counter party risk. You buy seeds. plant them in a garden and do your best and hope mama nature will be nice. But no bankster will conficate your garden so far...
I'm terrified of central bank digital currency. I'm sure I'll be declared of wrong think and I have paid off all my credit cards and don't want to take on any debt. I'm not looking forward to being unbanked for Wrong think and I think that is coming. All those sci-fi books I read of corporations buying up government debt is starting to look like a thing.
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