My experience was rather different. First, I didn't go to South Carolina, which was the "easy" trip from Atlanta and much of the southeast. I expected that route to be crowded, with a high chance of being clouded out, so I ruled it out. Never expect any trip to take the amount of time that mapping programs say and always be prepared for a worst case. The most direct path for me went through Atlanta and in all the times I've taken through the Atlanta area on I-75 I've only had it go smoothly once, and that was about 9AM on a Saturday. Not in the cards for this trip. I think that the infrastructure around any big city is simply inadequate for the traffic.
Because of that, I arranged my trip assuming it would take two days of driving. As we've done in the past, we scheduled to stop once we got past Atlanta - going up and back. On the way up, we stopped in Woodstock, GA, which is pretty much an Atlanta suburb but north of the bypass loop; we stopped that close because I have a friend there and we thought we could visit - but he ended up being out of town. On the way south, we stopped at Valdosta, GA. In both cases, the mapping programs indicate about 8 hours of driving and it took about 9 to 9-1/2 hours with most of the rest around Atlanta. On the way south, we could have stopped a bit north of Valdosta, perhaps Macon, to make the days more equal in drive time, but that's a minor tweak.
For this trip, we "auditioned" a mapping app we haven't used before, Waze. The feature they base themselves on is community edits, but the problem with that is there is usually isn't a way around the problems. We still had a long delay on the way up (near Ocala, Florida, of all places) and on the way home, it routed us far west of Atlanta on country backroads, for no apparent reason. In the first case, there was simply no exit off the interstate to run in the same direction and get around the mess. By the time you could do that, you'd do better to just stay in the traffic crawl. On the way home, we assumed it was to route us around something that had been present hours before when we set up the route.
Yes, we had a bug out bag in the backseat, along with gallons of water for the cooling system, tools to make expedient repairs on the car, water to drink, and necessities for hoofing it.
Post-Harvey, my dominant thought was the one I often have: I don't understand how people who live in a hurricane zone don't always have preparations in place to be without power or water or both for a few weeks. Still, even if the house was surrounded with sandbags, in a flood this epic, you're getting forced out of the house. DON'T GO IN YOUR ATTIC UNLESS YOU HAVE A WAY OUT. It's a death trap. We could talk about not living on a flood plain but that's pointless if you're already there. And while I'm on the topic, the statistics of something being "a thousand year flood" don't preclude that you could have two in a row, in a short time; it just means that if the statistics are correct, you can say the probability of that happening is low. Saying the chance of it happening twice in a row is one in a million says it's not very likely, but as Powerball proves, very improbable things happen all the time.
I have a feeling that the National Flood Insurance Program is going to experience some modifications in the light of Harvey. They already say the program is "underwater" (with no apparent sense of irony), but when something this terrible is on TV 24 hours a day, it's the reflex of congress critters to throw money at it. I would love to see the program shut down and let the insurance market work it out, but with only one political party in Washington, I'm afraid I don't see that happening.
Gasoline production has been cut about 20%; the shortages we see now are the result of panic buying. The industry is trying to get those refineries back online as we talk. Might I suggest that when supply is reduced 20%, if demand went down 20% there's no problem? While gasoline demand isn't extremely elastic, there is some. Simply cut down your use of gas to the extent possible. If everyone could cut their use by 20% there would be no problem. I know that for many people, cutting their use by 20% isn't an option because their driving is commuting for work. Those of us that can reduce our driving should do so. The supply system is coming back online and this shortage could be over quickly, perhaps within a week.
Up like a rocket, down like a feather. Out here in the great state of Mexifornia, gas prices started up the day after Harvey hit. We usually run 50 - 60 cents higher than the other 48 because of state taxes and there are only 7 refineries that will brew the special "swill" that we feed our tanks. Now we are over $1 higher and I assume it will keep climbing.
ReplyDeleteNext time you stop in the Valdosta area, hit Ray's Millpond Restaurant:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.raysmillpond.com/menu.html
31° 4'50.57"N, 83°10'29.01"W
We got to Santee, SC. on Sunday and left Monday morning. Weather worked out fine. There seemed to be quite a bit of traffic in front of the motel after totality. Since we were almost on centerline just watched from the parking lot just outside our room. Went to the Boone / Blowing Rock area for a week to cool off. Lows in the mid 50s. :)
ReplyDeleteWhen we got back I filled up and got an extra 10 gallons for the generator. Already had 5 gal of Rec 90. Last thing I wanted was a storm here and no gas available.
Left Tuesday morning, not Monday. Duh.
ReplyDeleteI think that the infrastructure around any big city is simply inadequate for the traffic.
ReplyDeleteYou consider it inadequate because your commute-awfulness setpoint is lower. Consider the idea from chemistry of a dynamic equilibrium. The San Francisco area discovered that commuters have an awful-commute tolerance setpoint. Any road improvements will be consumed with people moving father out until the commute is just as awful as before. Road improvements increase capacity, they don't decrease commute awfulness.
I don't understand how people who live in a hurricane zone don't always have preparations in place to be without power or water or both for a few weeks.
The government will save them, that's the government's job and the government is good at it. 6 hours a day of government school telling them that for 12 years, then 5 more years of government school after sexual maturity, and all the time 4 hours a day of TV. Given the deluge of lies, it's amazing that any first-world human can independently determine the sky is blue.
DON'T GO IN YOUR ATTIC UNLESS YOU HAVE A WAY OUT. It's a death trap.
Roofs are fragile. People could dig through 5/8" of plywood roof sheathing with their keys in the available hours if they wanted to. They could kick the nails up out of the rafters in 30 minutes. They don't want to. Cows, sheep, chickens, and humans are easy to fence as domesticated animals because the fence exploits their mental blind spots. Dogs, pigs, and goats are harder to fence because their mental blind spots are smaller. The IRS is the fence for humans. What prevents millions of humans from taking the license plates off their cars? The computer virus installed in their brains.
Roofs are fragile. People could dig through 5/8" of plywood roof sheathing with their keys in the available hours if they wanted to. They could kick the nails up out of the rafters in 30 minutes. They don't want to. I really doubt that. I can buy that maybe they don't even think of it. I can buy that they're in their living room, or in bed, and flee into the attic without even having keys in their pockets and have no tools whatsoever, but "don't want to"? I'd rather die than that? I don't think so.
DeleteThis sounds like a fun experiment, though. My house meets the Hurricane Andrew codes from 1993, although it was built in 1980. My roof is 3/4" plywood. The shingles are held on by nails, not staples.
I could put a house key with a known weight on it, attach it to a motor, and see how long it takes to cut through plywood. I have to admit that even with 40 years as a woodworker, I'd never thought to do that. I saw a story about one guy in Katrina who had a hammer and just kept beating on the plywood until he broke through, then kept beating until he and his wife could get out.
From what I've read of some floods, though, people had on the order of minutes or half an hour, not hours. Special circumstances? What's a "normal flood"? I mean, Houston is the worst one on record. That's a special case. Katrina was the worst until Houston, I think.
What prevents millions of humans from taking the license plates off their cars? The computer virus installed in their brains. Really? What about it simply being a cost/benefit ratio? A rational decision that it's not a big enough hurdle to fight over? That it's not a hill worth dying on?
Your place is built a lot better. This place has thinner than 3/4" nominal plywood over rafters on four foot(!) centers. The only thing that saves it is 2x4s purlins on top of the plywood every two feet to support the 5V metal roof over foam board insulation. When the 2x4s fell on top of a plywood seam, they air-stapled both edges of the plywood to the 2x4 every six inches from the inside out before the ceiling was put on. Turns out that not only didn't they install half the rafters, they also didn't install half the metal roof screws. The overloaded screws lifted in 2004, unsealed the rubber washer under the head, and leaked. I'm just a home handyman, but the metal roof vendor has a handout with a picture of where the screws go.
Delete> but "don't want to"? I'd rather die than that?
I suspect the conscious thoughts are 'I'd get in trouble', 'it won't actually rise far enough to drown me', and 'my neighbors would laugh at me for making an unnecessary hole'.
> What about it simply being a cost/benefit ratio? A rational decision that it's not a big enough hurdle to fight over? That it's not a hill worth dying on?
'Even though we outnumber the soldiers on this train platform 100:1, we'll let them handcuff us into these boxcars because there will be a better opportunity to escape later on.' Not necessarily, the governmental equivalents to Temple Grandin work hard not to scare the tax-cattle on the way into the slaughterhouse. 'There is work in the East'. 'Social security savings are in a lockbox.'
> but "don't want to"? I'd rather die than that?
DeleteI suspect the conscious thoughts are 'I'd get in trouble', 'it won't actually rise far enough to drown me', and 'my neighbors would laugh at me for making an unnecessary hole'.
It's hard for me to imagine people feeling like they'd get in trouble for cutting through their own roof or be worried the neighbors would laugh. I can see people saying, "it won't rise enough to drown me" and getting caught with "too little too late" when it started to rise enough to be dangerous. Some people are simply going to misjudge the severity of the situation. I stand by the admonition not to go up there, though. It seems to me that there's a handful of possible outcomes and only one of them is good.
>... That it's not a hill worth dying on?
'Even though we outnumber the soldiers on this train platform 100:1, we'll let them handcuff us into these boxcars because there will be a better opportunity to escape later on.' Not necessarily, the governmental equivalents to Temple Grandin work hard not to scare the tax-cattle on the way into the slaughterhouse. 'There is work in the East'. 'Social security savings are in a lockbox.'
If you honestly believe that paying for a license tag is identically equal to being herded into box cars to death camps, I just don't know what to say. I'm surprised you haven't shot up your local tax collector's office, or all your local government offices - in which case you'd be dead. If everything is a life or death challenge, you would have had to have killed everyone years ago, or most likely, died trying.
If you honestly believe that paying for a license tag is identically equal to being herded into box cars to death camps
DeleteThat isn't my position. The problem in Germany wasn't the cost of the serial number tattoo, it was all the ways people lost self-defense power once it was normal to be tracked in such detail. Similarly for automobile license tags here, which unlike cell phones are mandatory. That Swiss civil defense book said the goal of defenders in an occupied country was to make the tracking grid coarser, which allows more freedom to happen in the bigger spaces between grid points. Here is a proposal to drastically shrink that grid tile size:
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-i-replicated-an-86-million-project-in-57-lines-of-code-277031330ee9
The Teslas vehicles are already brimming with cameras and sensors with the ability to receive [over the air software] updates -- imagine turning them into a virtual fleet of [license tag scanners checking in with government databases to discover license tags flagged for enforcement attention]. Ubers and Lyft drivers could also be outfitted with these devices to dramatically increase the coverage area.
A Trail of Tears is generically an ethnic cleansing whose reality is hidden well enough the mainstream media can cover it up. Today you don't have to be force marched off to the badlands, you can merely have your healthcare taken away in all the ways Denninger writes about. Human bodies are just as susceptible to death from infection after a minor injury as they were in pioneer times. Today we don't think like that, because treatment is so available. But the British National Healthcare System just told overweight people and smokers they get to wait a year for operations. That's it. That will kill them just as surely as a death march or boxcars, it just doesn't look as bad on TV.
I misunderstood your meaning, so I stand corrected. You raise good points about the loss of privacy. License plates are a good example because they've been in place for a hundred years and nobody thinks about them. Everybody accepts them as a minor intrusion that we think about maybe once or twice a year. Then someone combines a massive database with cheap technology and suddenly full time surveillance is available. I think the future is going to be full of things like this.
DeleteAnd the NHS situation is something I've written about over and over here before - and will again. It's one of the reasons I rail against Obamacare. A whole lot of good that has done for all of us who voted for the Stupid party over and over again on the promise they'd do something once they had enough power. Until the healthcare system collapses, and especially as collapse gets closer, that's going to happen more and more.
I sure wish I had solutions, but I don't.