Coping: With the “Pop-Up Apocalypse”

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We got one hell of an interesting education on Thursday, although I assure you it was totally by accident.

The day started off with the continuation of torrential rains.  And by the time we passed the 15” of rain mark in 48-hours, the game of bathroom roulette was not exactly (how to say this at breakfast?) coming up winners.  In dice game terms, I guess we were crapping out.

Not that the septic isn’t fine.  It is.

But as one of our readers told us on the comment side Thursday:

“we live near Lindale, TX: just (2 weeks ago) had a new culvert put in over our seasonal creek in the driveway, : 6 loads of crushed rock and many $$ of dirt work…ALL of this is now gone:culvert is downstream in a fallen tree and the rock, dirt , concrete “bridge” fell away into the now roaring creek. WE ARE STRANDED!!! no way out except for a long walk thru the woods to a spot where my neighbor has a wooden footbridge over the creek, and then borrow her car!! Lived here 30 years- these downpours are a new nightmare!! 0ur guest cabin out in the woods on the back 40 is also flooded AGAIN, after a new roof and lots of dirt work(it floods from above AND below the windows) dirt ..starting to become apocalyptic out here in Paradise!”

But there is another side of this, as another reader shared more…

No, it really isn’t. Read Bomar’s Texas Weather.

Having lived in the Republic for a good while now (try 13-years) it occurred to me that I should look it up and Amazon: Texas Weather.

By the way, with warhammer and Warren in research excluded because they are too smart and would know the answer:  We would hand out a golden oak leaf trivia pin (if we had any left) to anyone who remember that the CIM-10 was…which was called the BOMARC and which was part of the IM-99 system…but I digress…Bomarc and bomar just happen to shark this morning’s mental indexing space; for which I apologize.

So back to the Pop-Up Apocalypse point:

About 9:30 AM Thursday, losing at you-know what roulette, I said to my honey (dear, not pot) “You know we should go over to Shreveport because when I talked to the hotels earlier this morning they said they were empty…”

With an official nod of approval and a shake of her mane, the Mrs. went off to pack and I showered and got cleaned up, then went over to my office to make the required reservation.

That was my error.

The first joint we called (I won’t use a name but they have a total rewards program) said oh, so sorry…we are now full.

So then we called over to Jimmy Buffett’s place (Margaritaville) and it was loaded to the gills, too.

As I passed Panama’s abode, he sounded crestfallen when I yelled the trip had been sandbagged.

“What Happened?”

“As soon as the local Sheriffs started rolling out the mandatory evacuations, the casinos all filled up – like instantly according to the front desks.”

Needless to say, Elaine was disappointed, too.

But there is a huge planning lesson for all of us in this.  If you even THINK about getting out of town for a few days, the time to do it is when the thought crosses your mind.  Because it is easier to cancel than to be last guy in to a hotel that is chockablock full.  Which we try never to do.

The good news?  The first night would have been $125 and the second $255…and then there would be two full days of food to pay for, so I figure we can stay home and save a bundle of money.

Disappointed?  Sure.

But the good news is by afternoon Lake George was drying up, leaving Zeus the cat with nothing to flooded mole holes in the front yard to assess, and Ures truly throwing dice on the desk in front of my computer wondering “What are the odds?”

Apparently, 100%.

I flush just thinking about it.

After the bad news, I looked at a couple of options for alternative getaways.

One would be to pop in the plane down to Galveston, but the ocean has been socked in and not looking promising all day.

Going the other direction, we could have run up to Shawnee, Oklahoma and broken bread with the Landry’s out at the Grand Hotel and Casino – which is what Fire Lake is now called.

Which sounded like a great plan until I looked at the update prog chart on the moderate to severe turbulence which was moseying down toward KSNL.  Scratch another plan.

With nothing else to do, I decided to work on my anti-gravity coils again (alignment studies and the wire for the last coils came in late Thursday).

The second takeaway from this morning is when Ma Nature wants to Box You In, there’s not a lot of negotiating power for people when events aren’t running your way.

If we get some good flying weather, we will maybe go up this weekend and take some flood pictures and have them for you Monday…

Speaking of Flying

Great video out on the life and adventures of flying legend R.A. “Bob” Hoover.

Flying the Feathered Edge: The Bob Hoover Project put together by Harrison Ford, who BTW most people don’t know is an accomplished pilot with 2-crashes and 4,600 hours under his belt.  OK, maybe we shouldn’t call them crashes…since Ford is still with us.  If the plane (or helicopter) isn’t reusable, that doesn’t really mean it was a crash.  That’s just a hard landing that happened to be off-airport…. (ahem…)

Surveillance Society & Friday Fun

We have our second Amazon voice controlled thingy coming.  You know we already have been using the first one – our Amazon Echo which we use to listen to all kinds of radio stations during the day.  While not cheap (About $180) is sits in the kitchen and does all kinds of things.  Like…

    • It’s a kitchen timer
    • It’s a radio
    • It’s a music player
    • It can control lights and appliances in the house
    • It takes notes and dictation (really cool for speaking the to-do list)
    • It keeps track of the grocery list
    • It has an alarm function is you want to snooze

    Plus, Amazon has been adding features.

    So all’s well with the Amazon Echo. 

    Here a couple of weeks back, we got notified of the upcoming release of an Amazon-Prime only product called the  Echo Dot.  $90-bucks.

    It’s apparently got most of the same feature set, except the built-in sound is not as loud, rich, or full…but that’s OK because it outputs Bluetooth to you can roll it into Bluetooth receivers around the house, in headphone and all that falderal.

    In the middle of the product line is the forthcoming Amazon Tap which cleans the wallet of $130 dollars.

    The feature set on this one is a little different:  Stereo speakers are built-in and the unit is rechargeable and portable so it will work as far as your router will pick it up.

    Now to the fun part.

    Yes, there is a microphone off button, and the truly paranoid of surveillance will simply hold their discussions about revolution somewhere else, as we have noted previously.

    But in order to not be overly listened to (once learning out voices, where is all that audio from our home going?).

    So…

    Enter a used Sony shortwave radio I picked up on eBay a few years ago.  Not as good technically as our  Tecsun PL-600 AM/FM/LW Shortwave Radio with SSB Reception but absolutely fine for run-of-the-mill shortwave listening.

    Last night, I set the shortwave, tuned to Radio Havana (which when I caught up with ‘em they were doing a feature about some Latina woman in Honduras who was sort of like a Georgette Washington trying to kick the IMF and international banksters out of Honduras…and interesting story…).

    If there is any kind of surveillance going on after that long series of broadcasts (in English and Spanish), they are in for a real treat tonight.  There are more religious broadcasters than anything else, seems like, on the shortwave bands.

    And my point is to keep an eye on Amazon voice-controlled products because they are likely to come down in price over time because after I pipe down 3-days of shortwave religious oration with a heaping side order of hell, fire, and brimstone, they can help but be saved, right?

    Or not.

    Next week, just for fun, I will point the satellite dish at Galaxy 3 and pipe them up a few days of the imam channels (there are dozens).  See if that gets us a visit from anyone…

    Write when you break-even and don’t forget to use that tool at the top of the right column to forward a link to any articles on UrbanSurvival that you think are useful…

    George   george@ure.net

    11 thoughts on “Coping: With the “Pop-Up Apocalypse””

      • The compost toilet has come of age….there are a ton of models on the internet to look at, or make your own….and get free fertilizer.

        Simple and cheapest: A box made of wire, leaves/sawdust, doo doo and an exhaust fan hooked up…

    4. George,
      Our first house was in Ohio in the 80’s in a nice residential area that was pretty flat. But where we lived was just a couple feet lower that the rest of the town though the slope was so gradual as to be unnoticable. During a rain event we came home to find a foot of floodwater/sewage/chemical spill in our home. Be aware that even a foot of water is catastropic to your home and it’s contents. This wasn’t in a flood zone and therefore we did not have flood insurance. Took years to recover. After that I resolved that I will always live on high ground.
      We now live up on a small ridge up from the road and a creek. A few years back we had 20 inches of rain in less than 2 weeks, with 11 inches occuring in 2 days. The crossroads at the corner of our property was under 5 feet of water but we were never cut off as the road slopes up from the crossroads and followed high ground into town. One of the reasons we chose this property was because of these features. Didn’t want to every deal with flooding again.
      If there isn’t any high ground around then we won’t live there as there is not anyplace to go when flooding occurs. And you don’t have to live in a flood zone to get flooded. Learned that lesson the hard way.

      James Johnson, ex-nuke

    6. The climate is simply moving to extremes. Higher highs, lower lows heavier rains, longer drought, while those believers in warming/cooling simply go mad trying to figure it out.

      Quite likely exacerbated by the death of the oceans in the northern hemisphere, and the effect of the Fukushima radiation as it reaches the higher levels of the atmosphere. If you study what some experts say this atmospheric pollution is going to do, I guarantee you that you have never hoped someone was wrong as much as these folks.

      • Ecuador Expat, There is a theory that we contribute to the weather as much as it affects billions of humans. Consider the chaos running wild with terrorism and politics just in the U.S. We may destroy the environment and perhaps the planet is reacting by “readjusting” Consider building nuclear power plants near fault lines by the sea. Our stupidity has no limits! There is much more talk of another World War as Donald Trump has his mullet trimmed up for the swearing in ceremony. God help us.

      • E Ex: Thanks for mentioning that, as TODAY is the 5th anniversary of the Fuku disaster, that is ongoing to this minute.

    7. The soil around here is clay so I have 2 leach fields with a valve to select between them. I switch fields every year to allow it to rest. And the leach fields are half way up the ridge for good drainage. The combination helps insure the septic system keeps working even during flooding events.

      James Johnson – Ex-nuke

    8. I guess the lesson here is that the best laid ‘bug-out’ plans are often thwarted by the very conditions that make you want to bug-out! Terrible flying conditions and washed out roads go hand-in-hand. Have you considered putting an unsinkable lifeboat on your property?

      I had a wild ride on a B717 returning to HNL last night in low clouds (scud running) and extremely gusty crosswinds… twisting pitch & yaw on low altitude final right down to the runway. Pilot made a remarkably good touchdown, though. Kudos to Hawaiian Air.

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