Preparing for Irene

[jackinnj]

In the supermarket yesterday. the only fabricated wheat product left was a package of lady-fingers! All the bread, pasta and crackers were gone! As we are down to the last 4 slices of Pepperidge Farm Cinammon bread, I just baked 3 loaves of regular ol' white-bread (sorry SY).

[Pano]

It's funny. On the East coast when a hurricane is coming people run out and buy milk and bread. In Hawaii, they buy rice and beer!

Just breezy and a little rain here today. Hoping for more rain. We have a 12KW generator that runs of the city gas line, so as long as it's good, so are we.

[Wavebourn]

In Russia seniors who remembered WW-II used to buy salt and matches, flour and pasta. But salt and matches first.

[infinia]

I guess all the "Zippos" we sent during lend-lease didn't manage to reach the masses.

[SY]

"In Russia, salt and matches buy YOU."

[tubelab.com]

The media tries to scare everybody. First it gets people to watch TV. Second it attempts to convince the few idiots that a hurricane IS stronger than you are and can KILL you. Yet there are always people who test Darwin. The guy on the pier is in Boynton Beach Florida about 30 miles north of here. 9 people were injured on that same pier on Thursday when a strong wave slammed them into the railing.

I grabbed the screen shot of the radar from a Miami TV station's weather radar. It was about 4:30 PM on Thursday. Irene was due east of us making a mess out of the Bahamas. The TV stations radar only reaches about 150 to 200 miles out so you only see the western half of the storm. It was a Cat 2 at the time with Cat 3 winds near the eye. Irene had far less rain associated with it than most storms. I was at work Thursday and it was calm and dry enough for us to go out to lunch without getting wet. I watched the radar and planned my outdoor ventures around the clear spots. I left work for the drive home right after grabbing the radar image because we had about 1/2 hour without rain.

Irene has weakened a bunch and become more disorganized so the threat isn't as bad as the media had been forcasting, but the northeast wasn't built the way south Florida is. Local flooding, short periods of high winds are going to happen. Flash flooding is possible.

Remember this:

Most storm related deaths and injuries happen after the storm. Most deaths are due to drowning. If you board up your home have at least two escape paths.

Downed power lines are everywhere after the storm. They can be re-energized at any time without warning. Everything will be wet and a HV power line lying on the ground can kill you from 20 feet away. The ground is not a perfect conductor and there will be a voltage gradient across the earth if a power line is energized. Lots of sparke and fireworks too.

If you use a portable generator for power beware of CO2. Keep the generator outside, but chain it to something big. I used my car. People will steal them in the night.

About 5 years ago out media mis-forcasted hurricane Wilma. It was a "minimal" Cat 1 storm that came from the west. It had been over land for 100 miles before it got here. It trashed south Florida causing the most wide spread damage that I have seen in my 58 years here. This Cat 1 storm had Cat 3 winds near the eye wall that ripped roofs off of houses. I took the 3rd picture from my front porch during Wilma. That is a 4 X 8 foot piece of plywood with the tar paper and shingles still attached. w found it about 500 feet away after the storm.

I knew two people who lost their lives during the aftermath of hurricane Wilma. One fell off his roof, the other had a bicycle accident. She was a very experienced rider and member of a local cycle club,

Your electrical power may be off for a while. Ours was out for 3 weeks after Wilma. When the power is off in a large city like Fort Lauderdale traffic degrades to total anarchy because there are no traffic lights and the biggest truck thinks they have the right of way. Gas stations can't pump gas without power. Food spoils without power. This is true of the stuff your grocery store has too! The distribution center for a major grocery chain was severely damaged and without power. That didn't stop them from delivering food of dubious quality to stores that were also without power. Don't eat the ground beef! Food poisioning sucks.

Even if you bought plenty of food, you will need a way to cook it. My house uses electricity, but the people across the street use gas. We had food they had a means to cook it. Wilma proved that I can live for a week on Gatorade and Chips Ahoy!

It can be very dark during a lonng blackout. There will be people looking to take what you have. Be prepared to defend it!

[Tea-Bag]

Got the generator running this morning after putting too much oil in it.
I was having quite a moment. Bought some extra gas and water.
Lots of trees, as I live in the sticks in Maine. The pitch pines generally fall apart in bad weather.
We should not get it that bad, but the intense rain is never fun.
I live in a watershed area, so the water can swell and flood my basement, so generator is really to help with that if needed.

[Wavebourn]

Originally Posted by SY

"In Russia, salt and matches buy YOU."

Rather, absence of salt and matches meant panic and disaster expectation indicators.

They should sell buckets with packed dry food in Costco. I saw some piles before that quickly disappeared even here in California. Also, REI and other tourist stores sell everything needed to survive when civilization is down.

[jlsem]

Originally Posted by SY

With VFOs?

You're asking about jackinnj's picture and Lukaslouw is talking about the class D amp he wants to use as an UPS.

John

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by jackinnj

In the supermarket yesterday. the only fabricated wheat product left was a package of lady-fingers! All the bread, pasta and crackers were gone! As we are down to the last 4 slices of Pepperidge Farm Cinammon bread, I just baked 3 loaves of regular ol' white-bread (sorry SY).

Supermarkets here are mobbed, but there seems to be plenty of everything to go around - we do have something like 6 supermarkets within a couple of miles of here so I guess the panic is spread out equally amongst all of them. With the very diverse population hurricane food purchases seem equally diverse.

Traffic on roads here was extremely heavy - heavier in fact than typical rush hour..

We're predicted to get 2 - 5" (5 - 12.5cm) of rain and winds not much over 90mph (144kph) - the wind is the bigger concern. The storm surge could be a problem given how close we are to the sea.. The peripheral rain storms are just getting started - this morning was comparatively airless, and the cloud cover like nothing I had seen before in its pervasive but non uniform height and make up..