When I sat on a planning board, I listened carefully to engineers speak of 20 year, 50 year and 100 year storms, the worst case scenarios that ought to guide our decisions as to the adequacy of sites and structures to accommodate impending disaster. Obviously, 20 year storms happened with greater regularity than 100 year storms, so the demands of a 20 year storm had to be met.
But they say Frankenstorm is a 100 year event, the big one. Sitting in Simple Justice World Headquarters, I'm wondering what I should do about it. There has been nothing on the television news except storm reporting, even though there is no storm here yet to report about. It's been days, pre-empting the existence of any other news. Other than the Giants win over Dallas and reruns of Real Housewives of Somewhere, every station is obsessed with reporters getting their hair blown. The engineers never mentioned the role of the media in 100 year storms, and whether there was anything to be done about it.
For the moment, there is a breeze outside. It's expected to pick up later in the day, eventually reaching minor hurricane proportions, which are more than the mid-Atlantic coast states were designed to withstand. No doubt there will be damage, likely extensive in some areas. They have been warned to evacuate in low-lying areas. Others have been told to prepare.
How to prepare isn't necessarily clear. Remove objects likely to fly away. Have batteries for when the electric is lost, as the power company robo-called the other day to warn they anticipated 7-10 days without power. Stock up on drinking water for when the ground water is contaminated and the pumps that send clean water to homes fail.
Frankly, it all sounds like government should have been prepared and isn't. Every time something worse than a 1 year storm hits, they can't seem to muster whatever it takes to make it through unscathed. Some will say it's because they don't have the money to fix poor infrastructure decisions that were penny-wise and pound-foolish made years ago, and which we still endure.
Others say baloney, we simply piss away infrastructure money on silly toys, gimmicks and social choices. Most people never took econ 101, and aren't familiar with macroeconomics and the allocation of scarce resources. Nobody ever talks about guns and butter anymore.
As for SJ World HQ, I anticipate the imminent loss of electricity. The north shore of Long Island loses power whenever anyone sneezes too hard, so it's pretty much a foregone conclusion. Since New York City is shut down, it's not terribly consequential. We've been here before, and survived. We will again. It's boring and annoying, but that's hardly moves the needle on human suffering.
Until then, the plan of action is to just keep doing what we always do. We're as prepared as we can be, and as unprepared as ever. For now, the only thing we can do is listen to the wind whistle through the trees and await the storm.
I hope everyone remains safe and free of damage. In the meantime, there isn't much else to do but continue wait. So forgive me as I shift back to normal mode and think about things other than Frankenstorm, as it will happen whether I spend the day worrying about it or not.
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Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2012/10/29/quietly-awaiting-frankenstorm.aspx?ref=rss
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