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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.