Reporting in from Central Texas, highlights of my situation and of the past week:
- Haven't had running water since Sunday night
- 温度应达到的高点低40”s today with plenty of sun so I'm hoping the pipes thaw today and that there wasn't any damage to the interior pipe system
- I'm on well water instead of city so no dire need to follow the boil protocol when it eventually does start flowing again
- Have been harvesting ice off the ground since Wednesday as reserve water was not sufficient
- Harvested icicles from the roof yesterday including one that was 5 foot long which is insane for this part of the world
- Still have about 60% of my property covered in snow/ice from waking up Monday morning (5 days, also insane for this area)
- Never lost power, but all of my friends and family either lost power, water, or both at times
- Had to go down to the river to collect water in a 5 gallon bucket to use to flush the toilet, covered in snow/ice, which was quite a strenuous trek considering the steep incline of the path, but thankfully it wasn't uphill both ways
- My Husky has been thriving all week long
- I realize how truly precious access to water is and couldn't emphasize enough how much I under-appreciated the ability to do simple things like clean my dishes, wash my clothes, and to take a shower
- Also realize that even storing bottled water or similar just isn't enough for a long term catastrophic event - it helps but really cannot provide any semblance of a comparison to a sustained access of replenishing your supply
Plenty of lessons this week, but the biggest one is probably realizing that while I'm very mentally prepared for a collapse, I'm very under-prepared physically for such an occurrence, but also realize that the bar for becoming truly physically prepared is set pretty high for a civilization that depends so much on the chain of order of things to live day by day. We are wholly a civilization that is not in any way self-reliant, and it's not just a switch you can turn on or off. That bar may not be a level I'm able to achieve and definitely is not a level a vast majority of people will achieve; the cost to set up a proper infrastructure for such an event in today's economy is just too high to consider, and the money is no longer there and will only continue to worsen.
While those operating the energy companies decided to shut off the power to the plebs, you know damn well they made certain their families would be unaffected by such decisions. While people sat in darkness and cold those in charge never batted an eye while the Austin city skyline continued to be lit up at night, at least not until the plebs began complaining en masse, then it became okay to pass an ordinance disallowing
exteriorlighting on such buildings, though no ordinance for such buildings' interiors to be affected. While people froze, were unable to cook or clean themselves, were price-gouged on hotels and told to use glow sticks as lighting, those in charge never sacrificed a thing to their normal routines, being symbolically and literally insulated from such an outlandish consideration. In Oklahoma City, where a friend of mine lives, he and his girlfriend and their young children sat without power with ice forming on the
insideof their windows, and their city decided it was okay to light up and warm a huge stadium for a basketball game.
I do hope people are taking notice, and in doing so getting appropriately angrier with those who claim to be leaders, and I hope that this event has become an alarm clock to many people that something radical needs to change, starting with our officials, scientists, academia, media, and all institutions who have lied, cheated, conned, and spit on the masses as they continue to push ideas and agendas that have been demonstrably wrong time and time again.
但是现在我只是向唱诗班,焦虑nd stalling for time while wondering and getting desperately worried that the fat lady has missed her appointment...
Although, truth be told that not all Russian roads are like this.
. Lessons learned, and we will go on from here.
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