The Monsoon Apocalypse!

It's all fun and games until two towns in your home state get wiped off the map! RIP, Henryville. I can't find the name of the other town in the news sites. 


I read a USA Today story about one couple's canceled checks. The couple from Chelsea, IN died, and their canceled checks were blowing into yards in Cincinnati. Ugh. 


Here's a line that I stole from RTV6, "The Indy Channel:"


"The Federal Emergency Management Agency will get a firsthand look at the devastation left behind in Clark County, assessing tornado damage to determine whether the area will be eligible for federal aid.'


Stay classy, FEMA! Here's a story about the local volunteers helping the victims. What's the point of this post? I suppose it's to remind myself and my five loyal readers that the apocalypse comes for each of us when we are least expecting it, and sometimes in the weirdest possible way. 


I was busy "teaching" 6th grade girls' PE (don't ask) on Friday when I received a text message from Jodi in Indianapolis: "Well all of the kids are hunkered down because we have a tornado warning." Later, she elaborated: "We dismissed 20 minutes late to let the storm pass. I feel bad for the kids because they were 'in the position' for 30 minutes." I can't imagine being in duck-and-cover that long.


I do, however, think I got a taste of what Indianapolis saw on Friday as I was wrestling my car to keep it on the road during my 20-mile commute today. My first sign that something was a little off came as I exited the school building to get two eyefulls, two nostrilsfull and one mouthful of desert sand. As I turned out of the school parking lot, visibility was about 1/4 mile and the road was obscured by the same sand blowing across. Palm trees were bent in half. As I turned onto Nellis, cardboard boxes were blowing across the road and dogs were running for their lives. Two of my preset radio stations blinked out, and I can only assume that their towers blew down. Finally, during the last five miles, I was dodging large sheets of aluminum siding blowing over the wall from the neighborhood next to Vegas Valley. 


I'm not trying to say I have any idea what it's like to be a resident of Henryville right now. I'm just saying I was wondering about my disaster preparedness kit and whether it would get me through the next few days on the off chance that my school blew away. Have I practiced the preaching I ripped off from Anderson Cooper? Only I can be the judge of that, but after reading the stories, it seems like I still have a long way to go. 


Every day, I show my Explorations students CNN Student News, in a move I ripped off from John Faulds and Kathryn James jointly. Yesterday's transcript reflects an interview with Ohio governor John Kasich, who had this to say: "The fact of the matter is, people that live here are resilient, God fearing. They`re tough and we`re knocked down but not we`re knocked out."


A woman the transcript identifies only as, "unidentified female" had this to say; 
"Got a lot of good friends. We still got our family. What more can we ask for?"


Best of luck to the people in the flattened parts of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky as they rebuild their lives after their own real-life apocalypse. 

A Little Help From My Friends

A few weeks back, Ms. Tye sent Miss Gokey a text message informing me about a series called Doomsday Preppers that she thought I would be interested in watching. Here's something you either know, because you live with and/or in close proximity (within 30 miles) of me, or you never would have guessed because my posts are of the couch-potato variety:

***I don't have TV.***

I have Netflix and the internet, and that is all that I will ever need for the remainder of my life. Gosh, I hope both of these things survive the destruction of the Grid. (Hahaha.) The Doomsday Preppers website is a goldmine of fascinating stories about people who are succeeding far more handily than I am at preparing for  various disaster scenarios. You can find out which disasters are trending on the website, as well.  At the time of writing, pandemic is the favorite, although personally I hold with the 15%. You can watch video clips from various episodes, etc. What a wonderful feast for our eyeballs! Many thanks to Tye and Gokey.

In other (but similar) news, I was happy yesterday when Jodi announced that Anderson Cooper was doing a show on how to survive the end of the world.

Seeing as ***I don't have TV,*** I had to do some digging in the webospheres to find any information about the show, but my mad googling skills eventually landed me here. Oddly enough, he interviews cast members for...Doomsday Preppers! It's a small world after all.

As you can see, Anderson starts out in a mobile earthquake shack. Sadly, you can only buy a mobile earthquake shack if you are a government agency or part of some other special organization. However, it seems to me like you can hire people to fasten all your stuff down so that it can survive intact in an 8.0.

To sum up the remainder of what I was able to gather from the website, you should just go here, to the American Red Cross website, which will give you information that you already know from your real (if you're Miss Gokey) or vicarious REI classes: Prepare an emergency kit. Have food and medications on hand so that you can get by for a while (Red Cross suggests two weeks, others including James Wesley Rawles prefer much longer) without outside help. Know what disasters are likely to occur where you live.
Make and practice a disaster plan, and my personal favorite: take a class!

I resolve to count my blessings. I thought, "How splendid would it be to get my 8th grade Explorations class trained at CPR?" My own CPR certification was *FREE* from the School of Which We Shall Not Speak. The school nurse just threw a dummy down onto the floor and the next thing you know, I had a little card. (I want to challenge my current school nurse to do the same.) Once a quarter, I was able to leave my co-taught class to practice my CPR skills on a dummy in a drill! Yeah, the class costs $90 IRL. Boo!
But there are plenty of PDFs to laminate and other free resources through the Red Cross website.

As I leave you to enjoy the best night of the week as I watch Ken Burns and knit, I recommend that you take a minute to watch Anderson don his chemical and biological weapon suit, a less potato-chip-baggy version of which was featured in Phase 7, which I mentioned earlier this week.

Here's the link: http://backstage.andersoncooper.com/post/18094282206/chemical-biological-warfare-training-suit

Oooh! I almost forgot! There's also a GIVEAWAY! Good luck!

And many thanks to my friends (including Na'he for the flintknapping...coming soooon!) for the tips and recommendations! Keep 'em coming. >:+D