Natural Disaster

While my own little shire of Middlebury remained just slightly affected by Tropical Storm Irene, much of the state of Vermont was devastated. This set of video clips is but the tip of the iceberg, and I encourage everyone to look at the updated aerial videos on www.wcax.com and the WCAX facebook page.

Flash flooding caused intensive, almost unimaginable damage to the state's infrastructure. We watched in horror as historic buildings and old and new bridges were ripped off their footings. Graveyards gutted with coffins floating downstream. Cars tumbling end to end in the waters as everyone tried frantically to see if there was anyone inside. Thirteen Vermont communities were wholly cut off from the rest of the world for several days. Most of those are now connected only by rough ATV paths. Crews are working around the clock to improve the access to at least temporary 4 wheel drive accessible roads.

Fortunately while the flash flooding was horrible, the wind and fury of the storm had dissipated by the time it got here, so areas not directly impacted by rising water remained intact. This is giving our state the resources to scurry through immediate clean up and disaster relief, and then longer term rebuilding. Had high winds impacted the rest of the state we would be looking at a much more sinister situation.

Vermont is very resilient when it comes to food security. Many people have gardens, and pantries full of home-canned goods. Those resources were put to the test here as many communities that had been cut off ran low on food. Through generosity and practicality people shared the contents of their melting freezers and the jars and cans from their water-soaked basements. But had it been slightly worse, or in a slightly different configuration, food and potable water could have become serious issues. As it is, they are strained commodities.

Rain barrels and home gardens will not resolve all ills of all natural disasters, but they help.  Obviously if it all gets washed down the river, it won't help. But a few rain barrels full of water in a landlocked community can sustain many people for many days. Dried beans and corn, as well as home-canned pickles, dilly beans, applesauce and relishes, last for years all with no additional electricity. A well-stocked freezer will last quite a while after the electric goes out, and feed you for a long time afterwards. My freezer is bigger than my needs, so I've lined the bottom with milk jugs full of water. It'll buy me an extra day or two without power, and give me over 20 gallons of water if the electric is out for longer than that.

Redundancy is one of the primary keys of disaster planning. Have a woodstove, and a camp stove, and a firepit. Have a main garden, and a few cherry tomato plants on the patio and a few cucumber plants in hanging baskets. Or put in some storage crops like onions or pumpkins at a different location -- in a community garden plot or in an unused corner of a neighbors field, or in a vacant city lot.

I keep thinking about the community gardens in Harlem that I talked about a few weeks back. Had Manhattan born the brunt of this storm, they would not have been enough to feed many people for very long -- especially if they were under water. They would have helped though. Emergency rations rarely include fresh produce so the greens and fresh tomatoes would have been welcomed by most folks. But I compare this to the cities I've seen in Italy and Spain, where every apartment has a balcony, and every balcony is a garden. If the Tiber flooded Rome 6 feet deep, like our Vermont cities are flooded, everyone in their apartments would have still had enough to eat for several days from the lettuce and tomatoes and miniature fruit trees on their balconies. I'm not saying it wouldn't be boring -- but they would be in a better position to survive and patiently await assistance.

I'm not an outright survivalist. I don't think we need to bury tanks of water and dehydrated rations in sealed pits in the back yard (that we then can't shovel out when the ground freezes). But having food and water resources at hand makes sense.