by Ron Foster
“You know this agency didn’t even have a summit on an ARkStorm until January 2011, so we got a lot to still work through. Right now we have some roads designated for evacuations based on flood plain maps we are going to use if an ARkStorm does happen, so what exactly is your problem with that?” Bones asked.
“Well first off it’s your evacuation number estimates that suck the most. Your plan model says 1.5 million people are going to evacuate. Who ever came up with that number isn’t even thinking of lessons learned from the past, let alone how many people from areas surrounding the direct flooding area who will decide to evacuate on their own or be forced to for a thousand other reasons that might occur that are not included in that low ball estimate you are using.
Hell, just look back at Hurricane Rita and the evacuation of Houston. The emergency evacuation models had predicted 800,000 to 1.2 million people evacuating from the affected areas; instead, approximately 2.5 million chose to flee the largely urban/suburban areas in Southeastern Texas prior to Hurricane Rita. They traveled to the largely rural communities to the north and overwhelmed all resources within 100 miles.” Michael said confidently but wishing he had phrased his logic a bit better and less forcibly.
“See McGuire that’s just what I mean. You know what you are talking about, but you start a conversation about it by pissing everyone off. You can be passionate about something but much more diplomatic about it.” Bones said drumming his fingers on the table.
“Sorry Commander, I thought we were talking openly.” Michael said returning the stare Bones was giving him.
“Look McGuire, I realize that you don’t work for me or even directly associated with anyone else at the moment or I would have you doing wind chill studies on the Tundra in Alaska.
“I don’t want you hanging around this office everyday for the next six weeks, so I am going to let you go do a little field work in the outlying offices. You can go talk to some communities and see what their individual evacuation plans are or you can go hangout at the police station and bug them on how they might plan to handle an ARkStorm. But you are NOT hanging out here, got me?” Bones said obviously glad to be soon rid of a pesky and troublesome intern type.
“I'd rather go to another emergency management agency office if that’s alright by you. I can actually be useful there I think.” Michael said hoping the Commander wasn’t going to assign him to the cop shop out of spite.
“Okay then, this is where you are going to be posted.” Bones said handing Michael a map with a flood plain estimate and the local agency office handling it marked prominently in yellow highlighter. “You will be working under the section chief Mahmoud uh…something or rather that I can’t pronounce. I just call him Mahmoud.” Bones said watching him.
“Is he Iranian? I mean Iranian decent. I think I might know him.” Michael said searching his memory.
“You got a problem with him or Iranians in general?” Commander bones said pointedly.
“No sir, not at all. The only Iranian born Emergency Manager I know went through a bunch of DHS Emergency Management classes with me in Anniston Alabama. His name was Mahmoud and we got along great.” Michael said reassuring his boss.
“Was this him?” Bones said showing a duty station transfer form with Mahmoud's name already typed in.
“Yea that’s him. I can’t pronounce that last name of his either.” Michael said handing back the form.
“Well that’s where you are going to be staying for the next 4 weeks. Now get out of my office and I will see you back here for your last week as a fellow to review your research findings and sign off on your papers. What is that you got in your hand? I know you always bring some sort of research citation or document to our little meetings to support whatever vendetta you have currently gone on.” Bones said reaching for a page of notes Michael had taken and began to read them.
Carpenter et al (2006) points out the large number of residents fleeing from Hurricane Rita overwhelmed the infrastructure of many rural East Texas communities. On September 22, 2005, in one rural county alone, it was estimated that 150,000 vehicles sat bumper-to-bumper on four lanes of a 30-mile stretch of Interstate 45 north of Houston. The congested roadways prevented emergency medical workers from quickly responding to the medical emergencies of evacuees, including dialysis, oxygen, insulin, births, and deaths. Extended evacuation times caused major fuel shortages. Vehicles of every type ran out of gas and became stranded along the evacuation routes, worsening the congestion. A trip that usually takes three and a half hours became a 24-hour drive during the evacuation. When evacuees did reach their rural destinations, their huge demand for goods and services such as food, water, ice, and restroom facilities soon overwhelmed supply.
A Shelter Hub is a pre-identified geographical location enabling state officials along with local partners to rapidly open core shelters, deploy mass care resources, and gather information for critical decision-making. The Hubs include public facilities large enough to serve as shelters and facilities to warehouse supplies and personnel. Evacuation Information Centers are roadside facilities located at highway rest stops that are designed to assist evacuees leaving or returning to a community. They are supposed to provide information to the public and to shelter staff deploying resources to the affected area. These Centers have been planned to provide restroom facilities, immediate emergency assistance, and fuel, but not food and shelter. (Carpenter et al 2006)
Failure of Shelter Hubs and Evacuation Information Centers
Carpenter et al (2006) explains that the Shelter Hub concept was designed to force evacuees at least 150 miles inland from the coastline. During the first few hours of the evacuation from the Houston area, the new Shelter Hubs and Evacuation Information Centers successfully facilitated information flow among state and local officials, response agencies, and the evacuees. However, these hubs quickly became overwhelmed as unexpectedly large numbers of evacuees moved along the designated evacuation routes. Congestion stopped the flow of traffic, rendering them useless. As frustrated evacuees attempted to find alternate routes that circumvented the gridlock, these facilities were bypassed and officials lost the ability to monitor the needs of evacuees, provide fuel and basic necessities, offer timely information to this population, and track shelter availability. The Governor's Task Force on Hurricane Preparedness is currently evaluating the effectiveness of these resources and the possibility of relocating Shelter Hubs at least 400 miles inland.
Carpenter SK, Campbell PH, Quiram BJ, Frances J, Artzberger JJ. Public Health Rep. (1974) 2006; 121(6): 775-779.
“That’s good quantitative data to add to your dissertation. Stick to that sort of thing to make your points in the paper and avoid personal opinions or speculation. Now good-bye and get out of here.” Bones said gruffly and waved Michael off.
“Well that could have been worse. Hot Damn! What a stroke of luck in getting assigned to Mahmoud. That boy might be Muslim, but like many of his brethren once they got out of their home country and into westernized society they sometimes drank beer and liquor and would party hardy just like Michael had been known to do when he got the chance. He and Mahmoud had some good times back when they were going to school together for 9 months.
Mahmoud was a pretty fun character that was always laughing and joking despite his troubled past. He had served in the Iran-Iraq war and had told Michael that he had been forced to lead a group of men carrying sticks to battle because there were not enough guns. He had been issued a pistol to keep them in line, but his soldiers were issued broomsticks and told to scavenge weapons off the dead on the battlefield and continue the fight. He had a pretty bad scar on his face from one of those battles; and when he went to Australia for some plastic surgery medical treatment, he had applied for asylum and once out of the hospital had eventually arrived in America.” Donald related to himself as he got in his government issued vehicle and went home to pack. It was going to be great to see his schoolmate again. Randal remembered when they first met and ho
w he had made Mahmoud bust out laughing in class, when he told one of their more strict professors that as far as he was concerned he considered hurricane preparedness was an oxymoron, because are you ever really prepared?
4
ROCKET STOVE REALITY
Mark had convinced Jack to help him build and try out a small prepper project this weekend. Jack’s house had a fireplace and because it was winter he also had the key element he needed to insulate his stove with. Wood ash is the perfect insulator, because of its light weight and is actually more efficient than sand for the purpose. It was designed to operate on about half as much fuel as traditional open fire and can use smaller diameter wood.
A rocket stove is an efficient cooking stove using small diameter wood fuel which is burned in a simple high-temperature combustion chamber containing an insulated vertical chimney which ensures complete combustion prior to the flames reaching the cooking surface.
There were tons of different plans for making one of these out on the internet, but Mark had opted for the simplest, so that he could experiment. He couldn’t afford one of those beautiful rugged StoveTec stoves like Joyce had, but this was a great couple of bucks alternative. Well, a few bucks just for the sheet metal stove pipe elbow chimney. He couldn’t have made it without the use of Mark’s tin snips. It seemed he was forever borrowing them to make denatured alcohol lamp or stove or something. His non-handyman dad had almost no tools at all around the house; maybe he should give him a pair of tin snips for his upcoming birthday. Ha!
Mark saw Jack puttering around in his garage and grabbed his stove parts and walked on over to his neighbor’s house.
“Jack is this a good time for you to undertake my project or are you busy at the moment?” Mark asked gesturing with the big tin can that was going to become his new rocket stove.
“Now is good; I was just seeing if Mom left the extra water pasteurizer for the StoveTec. Ah good, she did. Come here and check this out. We can use it to tryout your homemade rocket stove.” Mark said moving a cardboard box out to the center of the floor and removing an odd looking kettle.
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“Wow that’s cool looking! How’s does it work?” Mark said studying it.
“Pick it up and see how light it is. It’s real strong though the body is stainless steel. You see that hole that goes down the middle? Well that thing is double walled and built like a cone in the center so you get more heat distribution. Its heats the water from all sides and raises the temperature quickly. You don’t have to boil water to make it drinkable. You can pasteurize it much quicker. Water pasteurization is a heat process used to kill harmful bacteria and make water safe to drink for human consumption. Heating water to 65º C (149º F) will kill all germs, viruses, and parasites. Pasteurization can be accomplished without having to bring the water to a boil. Paired with a StoveTec Rocket Stove, approximately 4 liters of water can be brought up to 65°C (149º F), the temperature required to pasteurize water in mere minutes.
The cap also has a soy based wax indicator. Remove water cap/knob assembly and inspect pasteurization indicator tube to verify the red wax has liquefied and dropped to bottom of pasteurization indicator tube. This indicates water has reached pasteurization temperature and is now safe to drink! Just turn the pasteurization cap assembly upside down on its flat and indicator wax will return to top of tube and solidify for next use. Pretty neat huh?” Jack concluded.
“Yea that’s pretty nifty! I can think of lots of uses for it like having hot water for dishes or a bath, preparing dehydrated meals or making tea.” Mark said impressed with the ingenuity of the application.
This product is designed to maximize surface area and optimize heat transferability via its hollow inverted tube design in combination with the rocket stove. Water is poured into the inverted conical walls of the pasteurizer, brought to temperature, and then allowed to quickly cool when removed from the stove. No other product enables you to make 4 liters of safe water as quickly and inexpensively as this pasteurizer with very little fuel. For 5% off use coupon code Prepper1
“When I was looking for this, I came across my old rocket stove from my Boy Scout preparedness project days. This one I used gravel in as an insulator. It will be fun to compare the one you build with this one I previously made and maybe see which design is more efficient. We can time them by boiling a pot of water.” Jack said watching Mark examine his and give it a little heft for weight.
“I see, you used one #10 can and four small cans from soup, corn, beans, etc. It’s got some heft to it. Looks like your chimney has had some good use too, it appears to be starting to burn out.” Mark said pointing at some obvious distressed areas.
“Yeah it has seen some hot and hard use and is the worse for wear. I wish I could show you that StoveTec in action and then you would really have a challenge.” Jack said as he went to get his tin snips off the tool bench and started helping Mark layout his project.
It wasn’t long before the two were admiring their handiwork and began hunting around in the yard for sticks and twigs to fuel their stoves and start up a competition.
“You know what, Mark? This little project has inspired me to want to do a cookout tonight. We are supposed to be getting drenched with rain later on tonight so we only got a small window of time to organize one. You want to see if your sister would like to come over and join us?” Jack asked hopefully.
Now that Mark’s sister was 18 the three year age difference between them didn’t seem so great and he was starting to view her in a much different light than before she had became of voting age.
“I will ask her. What are we going to cook besides water?” Mark answered, not wanting Jack to forget about the competition they had previously planned.
“We can have our competition before or after we eat. Just remember both stoves need to be fueled up as close to the same as possible. I can cook some pork chops on the gas grill and we can do beans and macaroni and cheese on the rocket stoves or something.” Jack suggested.
“Sounds good to me. I will go ask Nancy and look for some more sticks in our yard to keep these things fired up.” Mark offered.
“It doesn’t take much wood to cook on one of these as you will soon find out. Don’t sweat it if you can’t find any more branches, I think we got more than enough here already.” Jack said while regarding the small pile of broken up sticks and small branch pieces they had collected.
“Ok, I will be back in a few. I will tell her to give you call and tell you if she is coming or not, while I hunt some more wood anyway. You need us to bring anything to your barbecue?” Mark asked.
“No, just bringing your appetites will be fine.” Jack said grinning.
“See you in a few then.” Mark said anxious to fire up his latest creation and not because he was hungry at all.
“Knowing Nancy, if she did come there would be no telling what time they would be able to eat, because she would want to get all dolled up before going to Jack’s house. He remembered when Nancy had herself a schoolgirl crush on Jack many years back and had been hell to live with, because Jack sort of just ignored her. He hoped that phase wasn’t starting again now that Jack was about to become some kind of Rock star; he didn’t need to see his sister going GaGa over him again. Hell, Jack always was in a band of some kind, Mark couldn’t understand how having a record coming out made so much difference.
“Hey Sis, Jack said to ask you if you wanted to come over to his place for a cook out. We are going to try out that rocket stove we made today. What are you doing?” Mark asked seeing every one of the kitchen drawers and some of the cabinets open.
“Making me a 72 hour kit,” she responded while minutely folding down a square of foil.
“I take it you read that email I forwarded you.” Mark said somewhat bewildered by the sudden change of heart in his “Sheeple-like” sister.
“Oh yea, it was quite interesting and like you say, having
a little extra insurance never hurt anyone.” She responded nonchalantly, while tucking the foil into the pocket of an old school book backpack.
“Uh… Yea... Anyway, do you want to go? I told him you would give him a call if you wanted to eat with us.” Mark said still taken aback that he was actually seeing his sister, his biggest non-supporter of his prepping passion engaged in her gathering her own preps.
“Sure I will come. What time?” She said rifling around in a drawer seemingly looking for something in particular.
“He said it’s going to rain cats and dogs in a few hours, so the sooner the better I guess. What do you have in that thing so far?” Mark said unable to resist the temptation of looking to see what her efforts had produced so far and maybe be able to give some advice to his big sister for a change.
“You stay out of that! Its mine! “She shrieked at him and snatched the multicolored book bag away.
“Sorry, I was just curious to see what you had learned and what you had found around here to put in it.” He declared and wondering what the big secret was or what the problem was with him having a look at her bag.
“It is a wonder I can find anything since you have already pretty much picked over everything. You got any duplicates of things you would be willing to share with me?” She asked looking at him the same way she did when they were younger and she would confiscate one of his toys to serve some girlie purpose.
“I might have a thing or two, it would help to know what you got already to begin with and we could...” He said before she cut him off.