Another Idea for what to do about the flooded areas of New Orleans.
A few blogs back I said that the areas of New Orleans that are flooded should not be rebuilt. No-one should be living in such an area.No change to that part, but.....
I had another idea as to what to do with the area.
After they have salvaged everything that is salvageable, and removed the houses building, etc...
Build levies around the areas that didn't flood to give them a bit more protection then....
Let nature take it's course. Let Lake Ponchetrane or the Mississippi fill it in and let fish live there.
There is no reason my tax dollars should be used again to rescue, rebuild, etc... when anyone can clearly see that living there is a bad idea. No matter how high or strong they build the levies there is no guarantee that they won't breach again.
We were lucky this time. The death toll looks to be remarkably small. We may not be so lucky next time.
This is just a third option. I still think a hotel and convention center and recreation area are the best idea.
AND!..
An e-mail accused me of being a heartless bastard for not wanting to allow people to return to their homes.
If I were a heartless bastard I would say "Let them and I don't care if they drown."
That e-mailer's kind of thinking is like allowing a friend to drive drunk.
The name of my blog says it all. Common Sense isn't.
If I were what he accused me of, I wouldn't have contributed the money I did. I wouldn't have contributed three pick-up loads of goods that I had planned to sell at my own garage sale to a community garage sale AND spent two days helping run that garage sale.
It's a sad day when it's more important for people to feel good than for them to stay alive.
Prepare for a disaster.
I've been watching the TV over the last couple of weeks.The disaster in New Orleans is just amazing.
One thing that amazes me the most is the apparent total lack of preparation by many of the victims.
Being prepared for a disaster isn't all that hard. When I was in the USN with two kids and a wife , and almost no money, we managed to keep a few days worth of non-perishable food on hand. We always kept enough empty milk jugs around to fill with water if a hurricane came our way, If the people of New Orleans and Mississippi had done just those things they would have been so much better off.
Of course in an idiot mayor had put some supplies in the Super Dome that might have helped too.
Water is the most urgent need in a disaster. Happily water is the cheapest and easiest thing to prepare. You can keep a few empty gallon milk jugs in a closet and fill them from the tap when a hurricane is headed your way.
Or even better, fill them and put them away in a cool dark place. Empty them once a month and refill with clean tap water. The chlorine in common city water is enough to make the water safe for a month.
Bottled water you buy at the store is safe to drink for about 1 year. If you buy a gallon every payday you will soon have 24 bottles in your closet. At the end of the first year you can throw out the oldest and replace with anew one. Or even better water your house plants with the old one.
You can also store bottles you fill yourself from the tap for long periods of time. To do so first clean the containers with hot soapy water. Rinse well with hot water.
To treat water for storage, use liquid household chlorine bleach that contains 5.25 percent sodium hypochlorite. Nothing fancy about it, it's plain old laundry bleach.
Do not use bleach with scents or soap added, don't use the new "no splash" bleach. Usually the cheapest bleach you can find is what you need, as it is just plain bleach.
Add two drops bleach per quart or liter container of water, for a gallon that would be 8 drops. For larger quantities here's a chart to help
For one gallon use 8 drops or 1/8 teaspoon
For two gallons use 16 drops or 1/4 teaspoon
For four gallons use 32 drops or 1/2 teaspoon
for eight gallons use 64 drops or 1 teaspoon
Larger quantities you do the math.
192 drops = 1 tablespoon
384 drops = 1/8 cup
When using your water that has been stored smell it first. If it smells bad re-treat with bleach. Wait 30 minutes and check for a bleach smell. If you can't smell the bleach retreat and wait another 30 minutes.
Boiling is another good way to treat water for emergency use. Bring the water to rolling boil for 1 minute, let cool, drink.
To make stored water taste better fill a bottle half full and shake. This puts air in the water and it will taste better.
But what about when your stored water is gone or if you had none?
Your water heater has a valve at the bottom, from which you can drain water. This should be drinkable with no treatment for at least a week after the disaster. Before the disaster hits you should turn off the inlet and outlet valves on your water tank, this will insure that the water is there when you need it. While you are there you may want to turn off the gas to it too.
There is a couple of gallons of drinkable water in the tank of your toilet. I said the TANK, not the bowl. I would treat it with bleach though.
Rain water can be caught where it runs off your roof. Water in puddles, lakes, ponds, or rivers can be treated with bleach as noted above, you can boiling it too if you want. If it is muddy let it sit until the sediment settles. A bit of corn starch stirred in will speed the settling.
No water in sight?
Build a still.
With a thin plastic sheet like a dry cleaner bag or a thin drop cloth from the paint supply area of your local discount center you can make a solar still.
Start with a large cardboard box, or something similar. A child's plastic wading pool would be perfect. Place a cup in the center of the bottom of the box. Place moist things around the cup. Now cover the top of the box with the plastic sheet and place a small smooth stone in the center of the plastic sheet, such that the sheet droops in the center and the point of the droop is directly above the cup.
When the sun heats up the inside of the box the moisture in the moist items will evaporate then collect on the inside of the plastic sheet. It will then run down the inside of the sheet and drip in the cup. You now have drinkable water.
You can place such moist items as green leaves, cloth dampened in a questionable water source, or anything wet in the still to get the liquid from it.
This can also be done by digging a hole in the ground and draping plastic over it the same as the box.
http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/dec/stories/water.html
Other ideas.
Some other options are a bit more expensive. You can find portable water filters from camping supply stores. There are some available that are the size of a ball point pen, you drink through it like a straw and it filters out most contaminants.
Or if you are a bit of a handy person you can rig a charcoal filter.
Buy a charcoal filter from your local discount store. Rig on a stand, or attache it to a wall, so it sits upright, use pipe reducers to connect a large piece of PVC pipe, maybe 6 inches around and 5 feet tall, also standing upright. Install a faucet on the outlet of the filter. Pour water treated with bleach into the 6 inch PVC pipe. Gravity will move it through the filter and you catch the water at the faucet. This will remove contaminates bleach or boiling will not and it will make the water taste better. You can get as fancy as you want with this, add more filters or a bigger pipe.
Filtering is a very good idea if you are in the midst of a nuclear catastrophe, whether war, terrorist or meltdown. Water cannot be made radioactive, but it can contain radioactive particles which you don't want to drink.
That's enough for today. If you want more ideas do some searches at your favorite search engine.
Want to get really serious? Go to your local library and look for books on wilderness survival or disaster survival. Or go to your local book store and buy a copy of "Soldier of Fortune" Magazine. There are ads in there for all sorts of survival books.
Next time food.
