Living in the Land of Hurricanes

I live in FL and have been through 2 dozen hurricanes. Some have been close calls some direct hits. I live on the Atlantic coast and some have skirted landfall with the eye 30 miles from my doorstep traveling a 3 mph. I have been involved with tornadoes spawned buy wind sheer. I’ve had hundreds of tons of once majestic trees that have left my property in the back of a dump truck. I’ve had infrastructure destruction. I’ve had power outages that lasted 7 weeks in 85 degree FL sun. Ya So???

The rise in virus may have peaked, but the aftermath is FAR from over. I remember in Francis the storm hovered over my house for 24 hours. Having a hurricane overhead does not induce an easy rest. Of course the power was out and I had to keep buttoned up or risk loosing the roof so I sat in the dark alone listening for a freight train indicating a tornado. Emotionally you get the shit walloped out of you.

Then the storm passes and you are left with the aftermath. One storm every 3rd power pole down my street had snapped and twirled the wires around forming wires expected to be separated by 6 feet into a tightly twisted cable. To power that would simply short the system. I think I was out of power 2 weeks on that occasion. Another time they were just about to turn the power back on and my neighbor Paul Bunyon and his trusty chain saw decided to cut down a tree and it tore down the main line that fed about 10 families which of course put us at the bottom of the triage. That one kept me out of power for 42 days. I often would get in the car and head over to my carriers’s cell phone tower and park underneath to make calls. The man with the strongest signal possess the bandwidth and a car parked under the antenna is a pretty good bet to acquire a cell.

What’s the point? The very first thing is to assess the damage. Did the roof blow off, are the windows intact, are power lines down. The next is to access stores, yep plenty of Peanut butter, plenty of water stored in all the bathtubs. When the power is out the pumps don’t run and there is no flushing unless you have a bucket and a source of stored water, like a bath tub. You flush then throw a bucket of water in the toilet tank for next time. You flush about once a day.

Fire up the generator and cool down the refers to try and keep the frozens frozen. You have to switch between the refer and the microwave because you can’t run both and a hot dog tastes damn good. You spend the day timing how and when to refill the genny because there is no gas available. There will be in a week, but right now it’s ration city. You sweat a lot. Next try to get some communication going maybe a TV with local coverage and maybe internet. The genny keeps the phones charged and the modem hot. At night you sleep under an open window and the dew settles on you and makes you clammy so instead of hot and sweaty you’re cold and sweaty

People think this is going to be a V. There is no chance of that. We are not even out of the storm yet. We have not even the first clue of the damage, and the damage is going to be far more extensive than we understand. The peak infection may have been realized but infection will continue and the next phase will be trampling down flare ups. I live in a forest and have been through forest fires also and have experienced flareups. It’s going to be brutal. In a month we passed from a predictable life into a cloud of unknowing. Don’t just presume everything will be OK. If you can’t predict when you will be out of gas, your meat will rot. If you don’t know where to get gas and when it will be there, your meat will rot. If you don’t have water for the toilet… We are entering a survival phase. This virus disaster will follow a disaster based reality not a historically based reality. Things do recover but not quickly and not without hiccups probably multiple months of hiccups.

4 Replies to “Living in the Land of Hurricanes”

  1. I am amazed at the belief that when we turn on the switch for the economy, things will jump right back to normal. I just do not think people are going to behave as they did before for quite a while. Even if they wanted to spend like they did before, they are in a deeper hole than they were when this started, and $1200 is not going to fill that hole. The Nasdaq is only down approx 2% YTD. This is reflecting reality ? I seriously doubt it.

    1. For a whole generation this is the first time they lost their jobs. In 2000 they were 2 and in 2008 they were 10, now they are 22 and unemployed and mom and dad are now retired and just lost 30% of their money. Oil is 20 bux because of no demand. In 2008 it was $150. This is called deflation not recession. The auto industry is toast. I could recite 10 more. Flip on that switch.

  2. I live in Washington state one of the harder hit states and I can tell you people are going about their daily lives and as soon as the green light is given people are going to be out and about. Yes it will be with new rules and regulations and there may be a spike in new cases but there are a lot of new studies coming out that show the virus is more wide spread than we think and the death toll is way lower than they projected. V shape recovery no, but years worth of recovery? No. Look at the protests across the country from people begging to get back to work. The cruise industry is booking at a higher rate for 2021 than for 2020 people are not going to be hiding in their houses.

    1. I guess time will tell. I’ve looked at the so called studies and to me they look like PhD’s trying to make their nut in the fame category. They are typically math models based on scant data similar to the climate change models. Sound and fury signifying nothing. On a cases/million basis the US has done a pretty good job with the shut down in moderating death and morbidity. Singapore was one of the best handled countries as far as quarantine goes. They had extensive experience with SARS in 2003 and knew what to do. Singapore opened up and is now CLOSED again because the viru came back with a vengeance. Wuhan is closed again and they increased their death toll by 50%. There are several provinces in China closed. If you look around you can now start to see stories of people post infection that are dealing with long term disability from their disease. In Hong Kong it is reported 25% of those infected that survived have some disability to severe disability. I’ve seen the CT scans and autopsy slides and this is nothing like the flu in terms of recovery.

      People may want to return to work it does not mean there will be jobs to go back to. It’s estimated 1/3 of the companies will be gone by years end. That means unemployment will remain high for a very long time. If unemployment is high and the economy is scary who is going to be spending money? If I get $1200 it’s going in the mattress, not a new iPhone because I might just need to pay rent or buy some milk or something. No IPhone no Apple profits. No profits stock price plummets, no V shaped recovery. I’ve read estimates 20T of value was destroyed. The FED has pumped 6T. That leaves a 14T deficit and world wide destruction of supply chains. 14T is the definition of depression. You can see it in the price of oil which is $18. THAT is called deflation. If oil was $150 I might believe in the V story. The reason oil is 18 is the government isn’t pumping funny money into it to blow up its price so it reflects reality. NOT the QQQ ytd. Virus is still active and depression is still active and will be for a long time to come.

      Actually by 2021 people will not be hiding in their houses they will be loosing their houses. 22 mil jobless maybe if everyone looses their jobs we could double the S&P

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