Now that I’m going through the aftermath of yet another tropical storm, I’m thinking a lot about storms today.
People have been flooding into our area from all over because we have two gas stations with gas, and several grocery stores with food. The lines at the gas stations rival those from back in the 1970s when the Energy Crisis happened. You may not remember them, my Hordeling, and I was just a lad at the time myself, but I remember watching all the long lines of cars at the gas stations on the evening news. That’s what our area looked like today. The cars were backed up to the main highway and on to it.
The wife decided she needed a few things from the store while we were picking up her meds from the pharmacy. We went to one of the nearby grocery stores and they had shut their doors. According to the sign on the door their cash registers were not operational. When we passed the grocery store closer to home, the parking lots was packed to the gills. Part of that was the line of cars trying to get to the McDonald’s drive thru lanes. We decided to try a little later in the day wen the crowd might have thinned out.
I did indeed try back later, only to find that they had closed their doors also. They didn’t have any explanation as to why. They definitely had power as the lights were on. I don’t know if they had similar cash register problems as the previous store, or if people had swarmed through and emptied the shelves like a swarm of hungry locusts.
Either way it seems to me that people did not properly prepare for this storm. I did not prepare as well as I would have liked but then I didn’t know about the storm’s approach having been sick for several days before it was making landfall. When I was out getting some basic supplies the guy in line ahead of me was buying a lot of cold and frozen foods. When it was my turn to check out I told the cashier that I hoped the guy had a back up generator because if the power went out he was going to lose all the stuff he just bought. If we have this many people coming in from outer areas the locals are going to be in short supply of needed items. If they’d prepared ahead of time they’d have what they needed at home already.
We were very fortunate that we didn’t have any initial problems with Helene passing through, but I suspect things will be difficult for a while until life can stabilize again. Many people in the area have been affected by flooding and power outages. Relief efforts have been set up at several local churches.
I’ve been through a lot of storms in my life. One of my earliest memories is being in Midland, TX. I was three or four and some kind of storm raged outside. We had a big window in the living room and I remember looking out and not being able to see anything but the storm. I remember it as something like a sandstorm, but I could be wrong. Since then, I’ve been through a lot of hurricanes. I’ve learned that when the weather folks announce one is forming, that is when you start preparing. You make sure you have food, water, gas in the car, medications, flashlights, batteries, pet supplies – you know, whatever you need to keep you alive for two weeks with no power, water, or communications.
The weather just seems to get crazier and more extreme each year. In the last year or two, we’ve had tornadoes in our area of Texas. I’ve lived there since 1977 and I don’t ever remember any tornadoes happening. It’s getting to the point where I’m taking a more serious approach to prepping, a la my brother-from-another-mother, Jeff Brackett (https://www.facebook.com/JLBrackett.author). It’s getting to a point where prepping isn’t being concerned about some apocalyptic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario as just being able to survive things like a hurricane hitting your area.
If you’re in the area affected by Helene, my Hordeling, I hope you’re getting through it and all the problems a hurricane causes. If you aren’t in the affected area, you may want to consider donating to disaster relief efforts. And once you’re done with that, start looking at your own disaster preparedness plans. If you don’t have a plan, make one. Because life is uncertain and you don’t know what it is going to throw at you.
If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum