Preparedness rocks!

The other day, I gently teased Lillian about being "paranoid".  She has made sure that all of us have knives, that the house is ready for disasters, that we have back-up plans.  It pleases me no end, and I love it, and her.

Of course the fact that I love sharp pointy things doesn't make our knife collection get any smaller.  I carry one with me all the time, a total of three if I have both purse and backpack, another right by my half of the love seat, and others scattered around the house.  And those are just mine.  I can't even begin to imagine how many we have altogether here.

But that's not where I was headed with this.

There are times when I notice patterns in things.  Not always, and probably never when it really matters, but once in a while I see patterns in events.

One of the patterns I've noticed here in the Pacific Northwest is that after we have serious, drenching rain, we have wind.  Not each and every time.  Mother Nature's never that predictable, but I suspect that if a study was done, it would show that after serious rain -- either torrential downpour or days of soaking rain -- there's a wind storm. 

And then?  Trees come down and power goes out.  That's without fail, if the first two conditions are met.  Drenching, soaking rain followed by windstorm equals trees down and power outages. 

Which makes sense.  Trees up here don't have deep taproots; they don't need them.  The soil is fertile, the climate is moderate, and trees don't have to dig in. Trees grow quickly and tall, hence the logging industry.  It's part of the amazing beauty of the Pacific Northwest, where we still have ancient rain forests.

But when you add in housing and roads and a Starbucks on every corner, the infrastructure there weakends, and after a storm, the dirt becomes liquidy and bam!  Tree down, power out.  Not to mention damage to houses and cars, sometimes even fatalities. 

We had a storm today.  Incredible pelting rain soaked the area, and wind has come howling through.  I'm watching the news and the lead story was power out and damage done.  Predictable.  Like clockwork.

So I teased Lillian, but I did it with love (as she knows), and with a fair amount of pride because we're in fairly good shape.  If/when the power goes out here, we've made some plans.  We had the two trees from the front yard removed, and that pine tree could very well have come down, ideally toward the street but more tragically possibly on the car, the house, or a neighbor.  We're incredibly glad it's gone.

We have food in the pantry.  We may not always like it after a while, but it's sustenance.  We have water frozen in the bottom of the chest freezer, which serves two purposes: keep the food frozen, and water should we need it.

Generally gas still flows even when the electricity quits, which means we're okay for hot water and we can use the burners on the stove.  But we also have a wood-burning stove and wood.  And after our time in the SCA, cooking on the woodstove isn't an impossibility, more of a nuisance.

We're hounded in the media to prepare -- Three Days, Three Ways -- but the last time there was a huge storm that knocked out power for days, people were threatening violence over gas for their cars so they could find an open Starbucks.  Have I mentioned that people up here seriously love their coffee?

So the wind is growling through the sky, and it's driving the rain up against the sides of the house, but I'm not worried.  If the power goes out?  I'll oversleep.  But we'll be fine. 

Would you be?

(What, you were expecting a mushy Valentine's Day post?  LOL!)

Comments

[Eunice]

We are prepared here, but when the power does go out here, it is never more than an hour. We are on the same grid as the Capital and the Governor, so it gets taken care of PRONTO! =)

[Lil]

Actually, Tess and I are prepared, a couple of weeks ago, we got an awful cold front, and basically our town shut down,at home we were okay, we had lots of blankets, plenty of drinking/cooking water, plenty of food, and both fireplaces going full blast, candles to read by, I was actually impressed and it was really cozy, which is always a plus!