General obvious ways to prepare
- Don't sleep on the top floor in case a tree decides to crash through your building
- Get plenty of water and canned foods in case the power goes out. Same with flashlights.
- If you've got a generator make sure you don't use it indoors so you don't die from carbon monoxide poisoning.
- Keep a list of evacuation centers ahead of time (especially if you have pets).
- If you are required to get to work you may have to leave very early because the government would shut down the roads as being unsafe - you'll need to find routes that don't have the manpower to shut down/patrol the streets which are generally more dangerous and may have debree making them impassable.
quote:
Tarquinn's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
(How) do you prepare for something like this? Do you still have to go to work in this situation? If not, do your days off count as vacation?
I'm genuinely curious about this, but most of all, I hope you two are safe.
This generally is a way to see if your boss/company is a dick. I've had a boss tell us that the MA branch needed to make every possible effort to get into work and telecomuting was unacceptable (the guy who said this was safe in DC). The client didn't let anyone into the building because it was a federal emergency and it would have been dangerous/deadly to his own personnel. So a building being closed and employees having to eat vacation time as a result is not unheard of. It's just how the world works - fair doesn't enter the equation.
This same company frequently forced employees to come to work and waited for the storm/blizzard/etc to be at the worst for a mandatory evacuation, which generally meant that you were forced on the streets at the time which equated to the highest fatality rate.
Most bosses are generally a bit more sympathetic and will let you make up the hours so you don't need to take vacation, let you work from home, or even eat the cost of the disaster themselves. It's all situational.
edit: You have to understand that America is a very work centric culture. Most of our citizens don't take our vacation time. There is a very real problem of people living to work instead of working to live.
I'm betting that the reputation of Americans being lazy is because we generally only leave the country for the one week we have where we aren't working and overcompensate as a result. diadem fucked around with this message on 10-29-2012 at 04:40 PM.
How were things in Boston?
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Tarquinn had this to say about Captain Planet:
Thanks a lot, Diadem!How were things in Boston?
Just a nuisance here. I mean some people had flooding and there were a few downed trees and all that jazz, but nothing too bad.
NYC took some serious damage, however. My friends from NYC showed me some brutal pictures that look like something out of Fallout 3.
When I talked to my old man, some of the Nat. Gas mains, mains buried 15 feet in a culvert, have gotten exposed. I spoke to him when he was getting off Long Beach Island, some of the housing were covered in 10 feet tall sand dunes. And LBI is turned off, No power or gas. He mentioned haveing to turn off a few other town to. Dunno if it was my Cell breaking up, but sounded like even an LNG line may have been exposed O.o.
Sounded like the Barneget bay has a new inlet or two.
The pier at the Seaside boardwalk torn asunder.
I keep seeing pictures were blocks of housing and strutures are gone, no rubble, just replaced with sand.
1. Get lots of beer. It doesn't spoil.
2. Get everything up off the floor in the basement.
3. Make sure you have lots of gin and tonic water. The last thing you need in a hurricane is malaria.
4. Anything not nailed down outside needs to be secured indoors. In my case, that stuff went in the toolshed. Anything too big to fit should be laid on its side and out of the prevailing wind as much as possible.
5. Unplug all major appliances. Don't want to lose your fancy TV to a power surge.
6. If you have a generator (like we did), top off all your gas containers. For extra security, top off your cars, too.
7. Whiskey.
In all, we fared very well. The generator let us run the the fridge, freezer, and kegerator, a light fixture, and keep our phones charged(which was our only source of information for the last week). We had to go about 25 miles to get reliable gas, but we would do so before the lines got really bad. Luckily, the house suffered no damage. We did lose our wood fence, but that thing was a total piece of crap, so we're not concerned. Most luckily: no flooding. Just 2 days without power and 4.5 without internet or TV.
Getting to work on Monday, though, will be an adventure.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Glad to hear that you're okay.
