All I Can Say Is WHEW!

By now some of you may have seen the news videos of the angry Ides of March event that hit Southeast Michigan yesterday.  It took place in a small town just 14 miles from my house.  I can’t recall any instances of Mr. T being this close to a place where I reside.  I usually drive right through the town of Dexter and cruise by the neighborhood that was hit on my way to Cabela’s (I prefer to take the back roads and avoid the freeway for these trips). Looking at the videos of the houses that were damaged, I’m sure that my efforts at maintaining power to my house in case of an outage would have been for naught if my house was at ground zero.

A whole slug of videos have cropped up on YouTube and I kinda liked this one.

I liked this video as it demonstrates the recklessness of youth and their attitude of invincibility.  The park where this was shot is located a few miles northwest of the town and one of the comments below the video does mention that someone at or near this location did call into town to warn folks. In this day of cell phones and instant social connection, I’m sure there were many anxious phone calls and alphabet characters flashing around through the tweetosphere.

My candidate for QOTD is one of the comments listed below the video:    “Play Disc Golf in hopes of breaking your overall “yards per throw” record and improving your handicap….”

(Disclaimer:  I tried to insert a direct link to the comment and was not successful; No infringement was intended if I violated some kind of web etiquette)

My take away from this is that I’m very relieved that the damage was limited to property and no serious injuries or fatalities were reported. The cleanup and impact on the lives of those who were hit is significant and my thoughts go out to them. And it reminds me of the recent storms and devastation that hit southern Indiana and Kentucky where entire towns were quite messed up and many families suffered tragic loss of much more than a structure. I’m thankful for organizations such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army and small town America’s penchant for helping their neighbors.

Events such as this open the floodgates for all kinds of thoughts to enter and leave one’s brain. I don’t mean to make light of the fact that this was such a downer for those who had their houses damaged or lost, but when I heard the county emergency sirens going off, my thoughts were what do I grab and take down to the basement with me. I just adopted a border collie and of course, he was on the bug downstairs list. My wife’s shitzu (sic), being an accessory rather than an actual dog, was farther down the list, probably just below the laptop and a good 12-pack of Diet Coke at #38 (just kidding honey).

What I actually did was to go into my office, turn on the local news station and see what they were saying about the weather .  .  .  .  it turns out that their radar map showed something they called the “hook cell” or rotating section of cold air against warm air. This danger zone was located south of a small town 4 miles to my south, so I felt removed from immediate danger and didn’t go to the basement.

Taking this train of thought a little further, I tried to think about what important items I could realistically grab in a short amount of time, say 60 seconds, in an actual bug downstairs and cover your ass situation. I came up empty. The firearms are in safes, but the safes might be laying in the next township when I came up for air after the event. And do I grab an AR under my arm in case of looooturs? I don’t keep things that I don’t want to rust in the basement even though it’s “finished” with a walkout and I have a de-humidifier running most of the time. Michigan air is rather humid.

Critical papers and documentation?  I fail the prep test there. Most are in a file cabinet and would be confetti in the wind. I haven’t taken the time to scan important documents and keep a flash drive of these items even though I’ve bookmarked and read this story by someone who had to bug out and relocate from Katrina (let’s see, that was only 6 1/2 years ago; plenty of time to take care of that tedious stuff later).

Food and water?  I have six or seven jugs of spring water and a freezer full of half a cow I bought recently from a farmer. But what good will that do me if the power’s out and the house is turned into kindling? I can watch it thaw!!

So, basically, I am relying on fate or good luck to allow me to continue along in my everyday routine and not be a random victim of nature’s fury. So far, so good and for that, I am thankful.