So would you use the same justification when someone starts a wildland fire to attract attention, resulting in the loss of someone’s home? After all the person lives in a high risk area and should have been prepared for a naturally started wildland fire and should have taken precautions to protect their home from fire. It is only an inconvenience, as they can certainly rebuild with the insurance money.

The arrogance and supremacy attitude is almost nauseating. Someone goes hiking, gets lost and we (the generic we) are ready to attack and crucify the individual for getting lost and requiring rescue, but someone takes what might be at minimum a significant event in the lives of those affected by the power outage and at worst the possible loss of someone’s life and we seek to justify the individual’s actions. I just don’t get it. Have we become such a selfish society where self-preservation takes precedent over the lives of others?

Just my 2 cents-
Pete

We are transitioning to an "it's all about Me" society. We aren't completely there yet.

A wildfire is not at all the same thing and your comparison is ridiculous.

As for the arrogance and supremacy attitude, I agree, there isn't one person here who hasn't been guilty of that.

screw the power lines. if i've got the energy to cut down power poles with an axe, i've got enough energy to climb one and cut the phones instead. this has its own potential butterfly effect, but it seems less than cutting the power. that's assuming said energy wouldn't be better spent on other methods of getting attention, which for anyone here WOULD be the case.

Lessee. . .$299 for a McMurdo FastFind PLB or $100,000 damage to the power grid (not counting the cost of lost power to the communities those lines service)? geez, that's a tough one. . . hmmm, since I have already spent the $299 and have a McMurdo FastFind PLB in the bag, I'll forgo dropping the poles. $299 for something I hope to never activate; a PLB is cheap insurance.

I still carry various kits in the truck -- water, food, an AXE, yada yada yada FAK, but there are better ways to be found than dropping some rather expensive breadcrumbs.

Actually a wild fire is a good comparison and should not be chided as "ridiculous". A wild-land fire is in many ways worse then having the inconvenience of having to do without loosing power. Power will more then likely return in a day or so. However if someone lights a wild-land fire in an attempt to effect a rescue then the fire gets out of control and burns down your home...who is worse of? The people who had no power for a couple of days or you and your family who are now homeless?

Back to a power outage. My family and I have seen and were directly affected where a careless person took out power to our northern rural area of about 300 homes. The damage caused by the power surges, then the actual outages ended up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair which was all not covered by insurance. This cost did not also include peoples lost work wages when they had to stay home to deal with the after effects of the outage.

I guess the difference in view comes down to how likely one thinks it is someone might die if you cut the power. I myself would guess the odds low (not zero) since anyone in that situation probably already died during a previous power loss. I would consider starting a wildfire to be a more serious prospect, an act far more likely to kill or injure others & beyond what I might be willing to do. Those two choices do not have similar consequence risks in my estimation.

Every time I pull out of the driveway I have, in different parts of my minivan, a cell phone, CB radio, FRS radio, PLB, and a I'll add a handheld HAM radio once I get a license. Likewise spare batteries are kept in two places, front and rear. And a signaling laser, a week of lifeboat water & food, etc. I do take preparations to avoid getting into situations where escape necessitates a big impact on a lot of people. But if I do get in that situation I am willing to balance significant inconvenience to strangers against life-or-death survival.

Without a doubt I would do it.

This guy obviously isn't the brightest light in the harbor:

"The man had gone out in his boat on the Geikie River, which feeds into Wollaston Lake, said Coun. Ed Benoanie of Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation.

"But once the man left the river, he couldn't find the passage through the ice that's still on the lake. "There is a way to get home, if you know where you're going, but he didn't know the way, " said Benoanie, noting the man isn't a resident of Wollaston Lake.

Montreal Gazette article

This guy's boat didn't sink. He was just lost.

It sounds like he was too dumb to be where he was, too dumb to be allowed out alone in a boat, too ignorant of local conditions, and too stupid to use his axe to cut wood to start a fire, or three fires, which could be seen from the air and reported.

Instead, he did the most destructive thing he could do to get attention. Short of setting his own boat on fire, of course, which would have been less work, but more costly to him personally, which he obviously wasn't of a mind to do.

Sue

While I am a fan of M4040, I would not presume to speak for him on this issue (or any other). Heres a link to his site.

http://www.m4040.com/Selections.html