What is the next likely problem?

I am just throwing this out there for discussion.
We can not be ready for every possibility. The world just does not work that way.

Where I am now it is fall and soon to be winter.
The next thing here is cold and snow with all that brings like power outages, horrible driving conditions, blizzards, ice storms, slippery sidewalks(I just reminded myself to get some more ice creeper cleats for my boots) and the risk of people freezing to death.
You know, the regular stuff.

So in your neck of the woods and at this time of the year,
What is the next big thing you should be ready to face in addition to normal accidents?

I don't consider winter a problem. Just another season to prepare for.

The big issue around here is rising crime and the poor economy. My job is fairly secure, but we have put back extra food, and I have added some security measures around the apartment, like alarms on the doors/windows, and some extra trips to the gun range to train.

No comment......

Zombies!! LOL

For me it is winter..

Flooding, November though February. Bing up "Howard Hansen Dam King County" and you'll see the scenario. 1 in 3 chance of a flood that displaces 60,000, 3-4,000 of them requiring Red Cross shelter for a period of 3-4 weeks. With problems with the dam this could happen every year, or two or more times per year, for up to the next 5-7 years, or until the Army Corps of Engineers can permanently fix the dam. This is not a good time to live or work or own a business in the Kent Valley south of Seattle. I live out of the flood area but we risk loss of power, interruptions in flow of heating gas, water conservation measures (to avoid putting additional water into the waste treatment stgream) and sewer backups (sewage treatment is located down in the valley). I have a role in sheltering several thousand folks with no good plan, or no where else to go. This is our hurricane scenario in the Pacific Northwest.

ice storm..not just a branch busting freezing rain but one like they had in Quebec some years ago that brought down even the huge transmission towers..i need to get over to the Big Box Shop for a generator!!..otherwise--nothing...

The biggest things I have to worry about are:

My job - My wife's job - things are still a mess. My company will be letting about 300 people - about half the people in my location - go within the next 12 months. So far I'm safe. It would help me out a lot of you guys would be so kind as to go out and buy a new American-made or European-made car.

My children's sanity - both of my kids are in their early teens. I'm currently researching military academies as a solution (not really, but its come to mind). Are all young teenage girls this complex??

Angry mobs of Olympics Chicago 2012 supporters. They are not happy. Right now I think most of them are in the shock/denial stages, but soon they'll go into the anger stage ... then watch out!

Home power loss - just about everything in my home relies on electrical service - heat (we have propane but need electricity for the furnace), drinking water (we have a well), sanitation (each toilet gets one flush, though we could melt snow for flushes). A long-term loss of electrical service would be relatively catastrophic. We've talked about getting a generator, but so far its not been enough of a priority. Yeah ... I'm stupid.

An exponential increase in the "me first & screw you" kind of mentality that seemed to have at least temporarily gone away immediately after 9/11. It was amazing to see people so kind as to yield the right-away (per the law) or allow you some space to merge into traffic when a lane ended. Today they all seem angry when they hit the road and not much better when out of their cars ... at least around here. It think more and more people think that theft is an acceptable idea IF it is from corporations or those with at least what is perceived as higher incomes. My daughter had a garage sale and it was amazing to see how many people were trying to steal stuff - just trying to walk away with it. I think they perceived us as having higher income so they felt there was no real harm in stealing (that we somehow deserved it).

Traffic Jams - there is so much repaving of local roads that I literally cannot drive anywhere without the regular threat of sitting in a repaving-induced traffic jam. Eventually the roads will be real nice, but it is pretty much a nightmare around here. These don't mix well with the attitude previously mentioned.

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The elevator will be slow - again.

Early snow
Not ready! But I want it... l o l

Ken,

You sound like you're having a lot of stress and some of it is coming out in an almost comical set of unrealistic fears.

Rioting over the Olympics Bid? What?

In reality, it sounds like what you're fearing is a loss of control over things you could never control in the first place.

Job? Nobody's job is "safe" and nobody can force anyone to buy a car.

Teens? They are becoming adults. I'm sure you drove your parents crazy too.

Me First & Screw You? That's the core of the American Dream, isn't it? Robin Hood is a folklore hero from long long ago, remember?

Traffic Jams? Yes, they suck. But you know that they must fix the roads and there's never a good time to do it. Ever.

As for the rest - again, it's a matter of obsession over a perceived lack of control and - more importantly - thinking that a lack of control is a bad thing.

It's not always bad to just let things happen. In fact, it's liberating. I used to RAGE at traffic jams. Absolutely RAGE. Same goes for flight delays. And you know what? You can't control those things, and to rage about them is pointless. You didn't cause it, you can't fix it, you can't change it. So why worry? And to the political matters - well, that's also only worth some of your mental energy, not all of it, because nothing - absolutely nothing - in the political life-cycle of the world is permanent. There are people and policies I like, there are people and policies I dislike - and there's a ballot box I go to at every single election and sometimes the people and policies I want are voted in and sometimes they are not. And I take the bad with the good and try to keep positive about things.

Hold your freakin' head up and stop griping

You have so much more to be thankful for than billions and billions of other people. We all do. We have the time and ability to type to one another here, we are able to do things that most of the people in the world can't and we have opportunities here - even in this terrible recession - that just don't exist elsewhere.

Chin up.

Actually you can fix traffic jams, move
I hop across the street to work, traffic jams just make it easier because then I play a slow game of frogger rather than a fast one.

That is the plan ... sooner or later.

Amen.

As for teenagers -- my parents admitted they had it pretty easy. My brother, sister and I weren't dramatic and never got into significant trouble. We had sports to keep us busy and part-time jobs when we were sixteen.

A friend of mine's stepson was recently enrolled in a military school, because of behavioral problems at home and to get him away from the bad crowd he was running with.

You have a list of concerns so now you can analyze them, address what you can and know that some things are just out of our control.

Illinois taxpayers are fortunate the Olympic bid did not go through. Londoners were told the 2012 games would cost the city $4 billion and that has since been revised up to $15 billion. From what I've read, the last Olympics to turn a profit was Los Angeles '84. Chicago doesn't need the Olympics to prove it's a great city. American sports enthusiasts now have 7 years to save up for a trip to Rio!

As for winter, I love it and don't worry a bit about it! I hope we get lots of snow. Our neighborhood is never friendlier than after a big snow. Strangers help drivers whose cars get stuck. Neighbors shovel sidewalks for those who can't. And everything is beautiful, especially when a sticky snow highlights every twig on the trees.

If the power goes out I'll get out some candle lanterns, bundle up and go to sleep earlier. I look forward to snowshoeing and perhaps sledding my pup. Summer is my least favorite season here. Power outages take out the a/c. Tempers flare even more in traffic when it's hot and humid.

Odds are that twenty years from now participants on ETS will still be talking about what might happen, and the old timers will be marveling about what had not happened in the interim.

Be prepared, but don't lose faith.

It took 14 months to sell my house before I was able to move. That was mid last year.

My kids ate two and three year old teen agers, I got the "I hate you dad" already when I was trying to make him go to bed the night before preeschool. I tried to start them young going outdoors because of all the statistics about Americans being overweight couch potatoes, now they run circles around the dining room table if were stuck in the house for more than a day or two, I fear winter may be long for me. I did find a snow shovel small enough, one of those mini car trunk ones are toddler size.

Sorry, being in the Chicago area its my sad attempt at humor. There were a lot of emotions wrapped up on that stuff locally.

Seriously, in the upper midwest where I live there aren't really any big threats outside of society.

Tornados are the worst of it, and they are rare-ish. We do our best to plan ahead on those. Loss of electricity, as I'd mentioned, is a pretty big deal mostly for heat and the damage of frozen pipes.

Bad snow - I have a big-ish tractor and we'd just wait it out.
Bad rain - we don't flood much around where I am. Those prone to flooding already know it.
Hurricanes - not here.
Terrible cold - just another winter around here.
Food shortages - not likely - could always eat a horse or two.
Water shortages - not likely - we have an above ground pool as a backup (could filter or treat it) plus a pond behind our property.
Terrorism - not likely - and if it hits, probably mostly local impacts only - hopefully
Crime - not so much where I am, but with kids older I do think about keeping a gun more handy.
Loss of telephone - not a big deal in our house
Loss of TV - a big deal to me, but it would make the wife happy.

I suppose fire is a constant threat - I'm talking house fire - not brush fires.

Now that we have some property in way north Wisconsin one of my new fears is one of the kids being disoriented while out scouting the property and getting lost for too long. I've asked them to carry a basic survival kit and cell phone while "scouting". I don't think they understand how bad it could be.

As I've said somewhere in the past, the thing that drew me to this forum was not so much a desire to protect myself & mine from disasters, but to teach young folks how to prevent, gear up for, and react to unexpected nights (days) out in the wilder areas or nights with less gear than expected, mostly associated with Boy & Girl Scouts, but also with my family.

I spent Sunday watching a whole series of the "I Shouldn't Be Alive" series. I'd seem some already, but they really emphasize the randomness, unexpectedness, confusion, and the importance of some key stuff - letting people know where you're going & when you should return, importance of not doing stupid stuff in remote areas (think ahead), water, water, water, shelter, signaling, attitude, water, ...

My only comment on that is how mundane most of the life threatening emergencies are Ken.
The big and horrifically sexy stuff like earthquakes and tornadoes or exploding oil refineries make the national news.

A woman and her kids loosing toes to frostbite because their car broke down on a side road (in December because they were on the way to Grandma's for Xmas and tried walking for help) usually just makes the local news, if even that.

Usually it is the small stuff that gets us, a fall down the stairs, a slip in the tub, an average everyday auto accident.

Industrial safety taught me to never under rate the potential for small disasters.

After a couple decades of bachelor life, I have meet a woman who makes me contemplate changing my status.

I return the floor to you, and waive the remainder of my time.

You're going to end your life?

Hey, they burn down Detroit every Halloween, so how far-fetched is it?


Sounds like you have a real discipline problem!


I haven't turned on my TV in 5 years. I can't think of any reason I would want to turn it on again. I should get rid of it.

In the winter season a night-time auto accident is probably my most serious problem: run into deer, end up in a ditch, can't be seen from the road until morning. My car kit is geared towards that scenario.

About five years ago I got caught in an unforecast ice storm, a serious problem in a city where no one knows how to drive on the stuff. It's unnerving to see three unrelated 20+ car pileups from the driver's seat of your car... Yes, I do know how to get home from work etc without crossing a single bridge.

Hyper inflation, food shortages, rioting in the streets, martial law, famine and pestilence -- IOW, interesting times. After that it gets really bad and then we recover.

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Hold your freakin' head up and stop griping

You have so much more to be thankful for than billions and billions of other people. We all do. We have the time and ability to type to one another here, we are able to do things that most of the people in the world can't and we have opportunities here - even in this terrible recession - that just don't exist elsewhere.

Chin up.


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Wish I could say that to 99% of the people I work with. If I did, I'd be accused of being "insensitive' to others. In fact, I'm offended that I can't offend anyone. We're living in a world of political correctness, the cost of which is mediocrity.
I'm not singling anyone out, far from it. Everyone needs to get it off their chest occasionally, the sooner the better.

I spend a huge amount of time working and playing in the bush during the fall, so anything from getting lost to divorced is a possibility!

Winter can arrive here anytime from about mid-October onward so like the OP Scafool it presents me with the same set of problems.

Mike

"when the situation is hopeless, there's nothing to worry about..."

Zen parable (adapted)

Amen to that

Thank you Martin , and excuse me if I have 'adopted' your post , or part of it , as been directed towards me, especially the RAGE part. I needed that and have read it with many thanks flowing towards you.

I am not American and not in the U.S., but even then, your quoted paragraph applies to me and my neck of the woods.


Many thanks.

With El Nino back in the neighborhood, I will be expecting flooding or more snow than usual, and some power outages. The worst part of the flooding will just being kind of marooned, as I chose property on high land.

Wood heat, stored water, water collection abilities. No power is like camping out in a large tent.

Sue

I DID get rid of my TV - in 1999!

Third best thing I ever did.

I suspect the solar cycle will throw us a few decent curves. It's that time again.

Up here, the Howard A. Hanson Dam failing is our next most likely disaster. Other than that, the usual Winter power outages and getting snowed in. They've made quite a few improvements as far as the power goes, though, so hopefully that'll be a non-issue again this year.

So, basically, stocking up on some consumables, and getting the sleeping bags ready for extra warmth if needed. May have to get the lizards out if we lose power for more than a couple days, though, depending on how cold it is inside. Never fun. Thankfully, my dragons are of the cute instead of creepy-crawlie type, so the inlaws (on another power company) don't mind an invasion too much. =)