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IT’S TOO LATE FOR FLORENCE, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS ANOTHER HURRICANE (OR OTHER DISASTER) IN THE FUTURE: Canned water, 50-year shelf life. We store some in a shed, where it’ll be there even if the house gets knocked down.
HOW WAFFLE HOUSE’S HURRICANE RESPONSE TEAM PREPARES FOR DISASTER.
Hurricane preparation for many can be a scramble, but for Waffle House, it’s a game of chess with military-style strategy and execution. Before a storm hits, and even before hurricane season, the company makes storm checklists for each location, meets with local authorities, and educates new employees, though many have been through 15 hurricanes. . . .
A Waffle House jump team consists of a small team of restaurant operators from outside the hurricane zone. These employees swoop in at the first possible moment after a storm to restore service and get things open. Typically after a storm, demand for food is high and functioning restaurants are in low supply, and things get extremely busy. . . .
One of the reasons why these jump teams are the key to the chain’s success is because employees may not be able to work if they’re dealing with their own hurricane damage.
“It does help to bring operators from outside so it relieves [local employees] so they can focus on family,,” said Warner. “They don’t have to worry about their restaurant at the same time.”
During Hurricane Katrina, Warner said Waffle House worked beyond its restaurants to provide temporary lodging for its workers, putting tarps on employees’ roofs and shipping in hard-to-find essentials like diapers and formula.
Very cool.
ACCORDING TO THE RED CROSS THE LOUISIANA FLOODS ARE AMERICA’S WORST NATURAL DISASTER SINCE HURRICANE SANDY: Louisiana is Hurricane Katrina territory. Why isn’t CNN’s Anderson Cooper down there lashing out at Bush for insensitivity?…Wait…I mean, lashing out at Obama for vacationing…never mind…
DISASTER PREP: The Lesson of Hurricane Sandy: Pay Now, Not Later.
WHAT WITH HURRICANE SANDY, ETC., several readers have asked for links to my disaster preparedness posts. Okay. Here’s a post on low-budget disaster preparation. Here’s one on bug-out bags. Also, stuff to keep in your car or SUV. Also, recommended preparedness books.
And, by the way, I just got the latest Consumer Reports and they really like the Generac GP5500 generator, which they say “performed almost as well as the top-rated portable generator for hundreds less.” But read the reviews on Amazon before you buy.
UPDATE: Reader Charles Cheek writes:
Bought one last year after losing about $500 worth of food due to a storm and the resulting power outage. Bought it online at www.generatorsonline.com for $200 less than what Home Depot was advertising at the time. Delivery was free, and the truck driver put it right where I wanted it. I had to install the wheels and put the oil (which was supplied) in it. It cranked over on the second crank and has served us incredibly well through several storms and outages since, the latest just last week ( 6 days with Hurricane Sandy), usually starting on the first crank, always by the second. It is powerful enough to provide my whole house with power. I haven’t yet installed a transfer switch, although I am considering it. It runs 14 hours on 5 gallons of gas (or less), is relatively quiet, and maintenance is easy. I highly recommend the Generac GP5500.
Not bad.
THREE STUPID RESPONSES TO HURRICANE SANDY — and Every Other Disaster You Can Think Of, from Nick Gillespie of Reason.com.
YOUR FEDERAL DISASTER-RELIEF DOLLARS AT WORK: Hundreds of NY National Guardsmen Miss Hurricane for Mock Disaster Relief — Until Story Hits The News.
But remember, Romney is the idiot, because he wants to move more disaster-response responsibility to the states. . . .
And I don’t think it makes things better that they changed their plans once the story got out.
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: Hurricane Irene: Some Lessons Learned.
HURRICANE KATRINA: It wasn’t a disaster, it was health care reform! “New research published in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons offers important insights into the long-term impact of a major disaster on routine surgical services in a hospital. In the study, researchers at Ochsner Health System, New Orleans, LA, showed that although Hurricane Katrina resulted in a significant loss of surgical staff and an increase in the number of uninsured patients undergoing operations, greater cost efficiencies were achieved.”
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS UPDATE: I mentioned this earlier, but with hurricane season underway people always start thinking about disaster preparedness again — even when they live out of hurricane zones. Anyway, the Popular Mechanics guide to disaster preparedness is now online for your perusal.
Meanwhile, you can find some previous InstaPundit posts on the topic here, here, here, here, and here. And here’s a column I wrote on the subject last year. And a huge disaster preparedness list. And here’s a guide to emergency preparedness from Consumer Reports.
Also, here’s an item from Wired on the topic. One piece of advice: People tend to focus on buying stuff, stockpiling food, etc. That’s good — you won’t be able to run down to Wal-Mart when you really need emergency supplies — but you should also focus on having a plan, and acquiring some skills, for when things go wrong. A full pantry and some radios and flashlights (and guns, and cash, and bottled water) is very important, but it’s what we lawyers call a necessary but not sufficient element of disaster planning. More on that here.
UPDATE: A lot of the stuff on the big list above is out of stock. Try this hurricane preparedness list or this emergency survival kit gear list. Plus, some basic disaster survival items. And Col. Douglas Mortimer emails that no home should be without one of these. Well, duh.
BRENDAN LOY LOOKS AT hurricane disaster scenarios that make Katrina look mild.
He’s right to warn of these. On the other hand, as I’ve noted before, the media’s tendency to hype every hurricane mercilessly means that warnings about really dangerous ones are more likely to be ignored. I think that was one reason why Katrina warnings got less attention than they deserved.
UPDATE: On further reflection, I want to quote this bit from Brendan’s post: “He is mystified by a study that found 60 percent of people in hurricane-prone U.S. coastal areas have no hurricane plan — which to disaster managers means up to a week’s worth of food and water squirreled away, a kit with flashlights and other gear, and an established evacuation route to higher ground.”
People, I don’t care where you live, you should have a week’s food and water, some other disaster supplies, and a plan for where to go if you have to leave your home. More on that here.
We’ve heard it over and over again: Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, and not just a tragic case of government bungling, but a searing indictment of American racism and social injustice.
Apparently, this conventional wisdom is completely wrong.
Read the whole thing.
MARK TAPSCOTT: “Hurricane Katrina was America’s worst natural disaster, and it may also generate the biggest federal boondoggle ever — unless President Bush moves now to apply the FOIA to every tax dollar spent rebuilding.”
Transparency is key.
HURRICANES, AND OTHER DISASTERS — over at GlennReynolds.com.
MERYL YOURISH GIVES A LOUSY GRADE to disaster recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Isabel.
“IS IT TIME TO CHANGE OUR HURRICANE RATING SYTEMS?”: I thought we’d already switched over from a “wind speed” system to a “damage inflicted to GOP politician” system. Under the latter system, Katrina was a super hurricane, Maria was a really big hurricane, and Ian was a dud.
AND THEY ARE SURPRISED? Turns out the state of Connecticut used disaster relief funds following Hurricane Sandy to pay for repairs and rebuilding of dozens of $1 million+ homes, according to Politico.
HOW IT STARTED: Watch: Biden drops F-bomb while touring Hurricane Ian devastation in Florida.
President Joe Biden dropped an F-bomb in a hot mic moment during a visit to hurricane-ravaged Florida on Wednesday.
The candid moment came as Biden exchanged words with Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy, who had just thanked the president for coming to the state.
The two men were shaking hands, and Biden began to say something that was not quite clear in the audio. Several Twitter sleuths suggested he said, “No one f***s with a Biden,” although the last word in particular was muffled.
How it’s going: Inside the White House’s failed effort to dissuade OPEC from cutting oil production to avoid a ‘total disaster.’
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The MSM Guidebook on How to Figure Out the Blame for Various Types of Disasters.
3 Political Scandals of the Past 12 Years in the USA, and How the MSM Managed to Find the Culprits
1) WHO IS GUILTY?! In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2006, rescue efforts were bungled in Louisiana’s largest city. Who should be blamed for the scandal?
Should it be the mayor of New Orleans?
Well, ain’t Ray Nagin a Democrat? So: scratch that.
Should it be the governor of the Pelican State?
Well, ain’t Kathleen Blanco a Democrat? So: scratch that.
Should it be the president of the United States?
Hold on: who’s in the White House? Ain’t it a hombre by the name of George W Bush? And ain’t he a Republican?! Yup, it certainly appears so. Well (Snaps fingers) there you go! Nailed it!
Read the whole thing, which is “unexpectedly” adjacent to:
MEDIA COVERAGE OF HURRICANE IAN: They are unsure of the problem, just that Ron DeSantis is to blame. “There is little surprise there would be hurricane response second-guessing in the aftermath of Ian since last week we saw the first-guessing when the press wanted to blame Governor Ron DeSantis for hurricane failures – before the storm even arrived. And the blame has arrived in full force. It is noteworthy that when a Republican is in the White House, the president is responsible for any failings in natural disaster response. When it is a Democratic president, we are learning that all criticism falls on a GOP governor…even when it is unclear what to blame him about. One local political outlet pretends that DeSantis was inactive ahead of the storm, something his communications team was quick to unravel.”
Plus: “DeSantis makes the clear point that the majority of the networks had staged in Tampa because they were assured that it would become ground zero. This was based on the projections of the federal agencies, which the governor was following. But now, he is to be blamed for not predicting the very late easterly turn of the storm that even the hurricane experts at the National Weather Service had not indicated could happen.”
HURRICANE HORROR:
That overturned Vitamin C Orange 1970 Plymouth Superbird, though!
Of course, the winged warriors from Mopar are such collectors items these days, with average prices at auction pushing a quarter mill, that as long as the VIN plate survives, it’s gonna get rebuilt. Kinda like WWII warbirds that way.
EDIT: Oh lordy it gets worse if you zoom out. At least the much rarer ’69 Charger Daytona stayed on its wheels, although Daytona rear windows don’t grow on trees.
Devastating destruction.