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PANDEMIC ALERT LEVEL
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When The Trucks Stop Running

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Satori View Drop Down
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    Posted: June 16 2014 at 5:26am


detailed report of what will happen if the trucks that deliver our food,energy,medicines etc

ever stop running for any reason


eg natural disaster

flu pandemic etc

things are gonna get REALLY bad REALLY quick

When Trucks Stop,America Stops

http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/What%20We%20Do/Image%20and%20Outreach%20Programs/When%20Trucks%20Stop%20America%20Stops.pdf



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Penham Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 6:57pm
Great article! That is exactly why stocking up on supplies is a good idea.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 9:24pm
Great find, Satori. And there's that phrase again - "just in time". In a SHTF situation, we'll find out how badly we've painted ourselves into a corner with our reliance on the JIT system Confused



http://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/What%20We%20Do/Image%20and%20Outreach%20Programs/When%20Trucks%20Stop%20America%20Stops.pdf








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"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CRS, DrPH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 9:25pm
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/06/16/simulation-to-test-earthquake-preparedness-in-illinois/

Thanks, that is very serious indeed!!

In Illinois, we are rehearsing for if/when the natural gas and oil pipelines that run through our state are disrupted.  

Illinois is on a very precarious fault (New Madrid), and it is predicted to give way sometime in our lifetimes.  Our new City of Aurora, IL police station was built to be earthquake resistant. 

If a big one hits, it will be widespread pandemonium.  Entire power systems will shut down for lack of natural gas, transport will halt, and a huge population will suddenly seek to evacuate to.....someplace.
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This is probably my favourite subject. As you know we're awaiting the rupture of the great Alpine Fault here in the South Island of NZ. It ruptures every 300 years +/- 50 years and it last ruptured 297 years ago, so we are due for one now. It will be at least an 8.2 and we have been warned to expect shaking to last for 3 minutes (imagine how much momentum will build in structures in that time).

We are a very sparsely populated country (the same size as the UK but we have 4 million people, and 33 million sheep!). The South Island has only 1 million people. Our road network will be shot to pieces and not one of local supermarkets have a store room. There physically aren't enough road workers or big bits of machinery to fix all the roads even in the first 10 years after the quake. My local supermarket gets 5 trucks in a day. We are frequently without products for a couple of months at a time and the roads are just fine at the moment.

After the great Sichuan earthquake in China in 2009, 153 road workers were killed trying to clear roads and repair bridges. They died from spontaneous landslips and rock falls during aftershocks. 

We have a huge TV campaign of adverts from the government about how to "Get Thru" the next big quake but no one I know takes it seriously. The great Kiwi attitude is "she'll be right" and so no one is worried about it. Heaven knows what will happen when it ruptures. 

I personally live in North Canterbury right by the mountains and I'm surrounded by large fault lines and best estimates suggest that they'll all go off once the Alpine Fault goes off. The trouble is the last time it ruptured in 1717 only the Maori were here and they had no written language, only an oral history tradition. There were no Europeans here at all so no one really knows what will happen. 

I am worried about it. I was revisiting my emergency preps this week. If it went off now, I'm just not ready. I am very concerned about getting caught in a collapsed building. Since the Canterbury earthquakes in 2010 that killed 180 people, I carry a torch with me at all times.

We are getting a new house next month, and should move into it the other side of Christmas, and unlike all our neighbours who have built in brick with a concrete foundation, we will have an all wood house with wooden piled foundations, wooden windows with small panes of glass, full reinforced bracing throughout and a lightweight steel roof. We are doubling up on all the strapping and on all the pile ties. We don't have to but the cost is minimal and I won't worry so much knowing it will stand up to whatever comes our way.

To me, the earthquake is a bigger and more real threat than a pandemic.
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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Trucks are the life blood everywhere. If they stop so does civilization.

KiwiMum no one is prepared. We can try and prep but for the most part much of the food will go faster than we think and getting water and making it potable will be harder than we think. You all with wells and or springs are very lucky.

Just do our best and try to make a go of it. Some will survive and some will not just a fact!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 10:39pm
KiwiMum - underground and earth bermed houses fair well in earthquakes, because they move with the earth rather than trying to match the ground's acceleration from the foundations up. In the next few years I'm hoping we can move out of California and it's prohibitively expensive building regulations to somewhere with reasonable land prices (most likely Oregon) and build us an earth bermed home. With sufficient insulation and high thermal mass, no heat is needed in the winter or air conditioning in the summer - gotta love that Big smile
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^Kiwimum, thanks for all the detail!  

Even though I'm in the States, I've worked a bit with the former Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand and have always wanted to visit your land.  I have friends in Christchurch and was horrified by the quake in 2011.  

You are absolutely correct to have the attitude that you have.  From other postings, I believe that you are one of the few to take the issue seriously?  This was ours....like your old quake, we mostly had Native American Indians who witnessed these.  The mighty Mississippi River ran backwards for a bit!  

1811, December 16, 08:15 UTC Northeast Arkansas - the first main shock
2:15 am local time
Magnitude ~7.7

This powerful earthquake was felt widely over the entire eastern United States. People were awakened by the shaking in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Charleston, South Carolina. Perceptible ground shaking was in the range of one to three minutes depending upon the observers location. The ground motions were described as most alarming and frightening in places like Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky. Reports also describe houses and other structures being severely shaken with many chimneys knocked down. In the epicentral area the ground surface was described as in great convulsion with sand and water ejected tens of feet into the air (liquefaction). 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rickster58 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 11:05pm
KiwiMum

You could very well face a duel catastrophe in the event this fault line has any underwater rupture points. A quake of those magnitudes is sure to produce a tsunami. Have you got a couple of escape routes to higher ground planned?

I admire your prep skills and combined with your knowledge, you will most likely make it through any disaster.

What scares me the most (and I am very much like you in my prepping and survival abilities) is my unprepared desperate neighbour knocking at my door. As the days go on, it wont just be the neighbour, it will be every survivor and every opportunistic marauding gang looking for what they can get.


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Originally posted by rickster58 rickster58 wrote:

KiwiMum

What scares me the most (and I am very much like you in my prepping and survival abilities) is my unprepared desperate neighbour knocking at my door. As the days go on, it wont just be the neighbour, it will be every survivor and every opportunistic marauding gang looking for what they can get.


You and I, both!  The world is plentiful with examples of this madness...the march of ISIL through Iraq demonstrates how a band, unified in purpose, can sow havoc.  

Even the lone-wolf predator is to be feared.  We don't need a disaster to fall prey to one of those, it happens constantly in Chicago where I live.  

Somehow, we need to develop communities that will band together, share resources & expertise, and survive what is thrown at us.  Doing it all alone is daunting.  Best wishes to your mates down under!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote onefluover Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 11:25pm
.
"And then there were none."
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rickster58 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 16 2014 at 11:45pm
Originally posted by CRS, DrPH CRS, DrPH wrote:

Originally posted by rickster58 rickster58 wrote:

KiwiMum

What scares me the most (and I am very much like you in my prepping and survival abilities) is my unprepared desperate neighbour knocking at my door. As the days go on, it wont just be the neighbour, it will be every survivor and every opportunistic marauding gang looking for what they can get.



You and I, both!  The world is plentiful with examples of this madness...the march of ISIL through Iraq demonstrates how a band, unified in purpose, can sow havoc.  

Even the lone-wolf predator is to be feared.  We don't need a disaster to fall prey to one of those, it happens constantly in Chicago where I live.  

Somehow, we need to develop communities that will band together, share resources & expertise, and survive what is thrown at us.  Doing it all alone is daunting.  Best wishes to your mates down under!


Thanks Chuck, we are all going to need it the way things are going. The world has truly become a madhouse of late.

We have potential flashpoints all over the world, all seemingly escalating towards conflict and war.

Added to that is half a dozen potential pandemic viruses on the loose, some gaining ground frighteningly quickly.

Then we have what I like to call the 'crazy file', which includes current events like missing airliners, presidents who secretly release bad guys from jail and who are seemingly funding different sides in some of the above mentioned conflicts. Also in that file is why your president has allowed your borders to be compromised?

Overarching all of this is the constant threat posed by Fukushima, which as I see it, will continue to reek havoc on humans for hundreds of years.

So much to prep for ....

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Originally posted by rickster58 rickster58 wrote:

KiwiMum

You could very well face a duel catastrophe in the event this fault line has any underwater rupture points. A quake of those magnitudes is sure to produce a tsunami. Have you got a couple of escape routes to higher ground planned?

I admire your prep skills and combined with your knowledge, you will most likely make it through any disaster.

What scares me the most (and I am very much like you in my prepping and survival abilities) is my unprepared desperate neighbour knocking at my door. As the days go on, it wont just be the neighbour, it will be every survivor and every opportunistic marauding gang looking for what they can get.



Rickster, you will feel the Alpine Fault in Sydney, in fact you should feel it quite strongly. You're right about tsunami. Remains of historic tsunami around NZ show that not one bit of the coastline has escaped them and in some places they were 30 m high! There is an interesting map showing the heights that you can google quite easily. 

The Alpine Fault also ruptured in 1450, and there are tsunami deposits from 1450 that buried some Maori coastal fishing camps under 2m of sand!! 

Thankfully we live high up, higher that any tsunami would ever get. We were very careful when we picked our land. The city of Christchurch is our local city and it is only a few metres about sea level. I have planned a few routes to high ground if I get caught whilst out shopping but if it were in rush hour, it would be gridlocked anyway.

My ideal scenario would be that it goes off at 10am on a warm Saturday morning while we're all out in the fresh air. Worst case would be 3am on a cold wet winters night.

We have taken a particularly good precaution to cope with the worse case middle of the night option. I'm assuming we would get out asap so I have strapped one of the big screw top barrels I've mentioned on here previously to a fence post in a shady spot about 8 m from our house. In that barrel  I've have taped a spare key for the car to the inside of the lid along with our emergency checklist. 

Then in the barrel there is: 4 wool blankets, 4 pairs wool socks, 4 emergency ponchos, 4 torches, 6 x 1 litre bottles of water, chocolate biscuits, cheese spread, crackers, chocolates, a first aid kit, a portable radio with a packet of batteries. And my husband added a litre of brandy - for medicinal purposes only you understand!

This would enable us to get in the car (which is never locked) start the engine and get the heater going, we could eat and drink and keep warm and sleep, until daylight when we could access other supplies.

Our checklist is comprehensive. Having both been in very stressful situations before, my husband and I know how the brain can shut down on some levels so our list is in 3 parts, high, medium and low priority. As soon as the quake happens, one of us will start on the high priority things. Most important is to isolate each of our water tanks to ensure our supplies remain intact and unpolluted. By putting this all in a simple tick list with a pen attached, we won't forget something vital. 

We have practised our list and can do it all in 40 minutes. 

A cautionary tale happened to my friend in our big 7.1 in Sept 2010. She had prepped with 3 large crates containing food, water etc and had stood these inside her garage door. The quake however damaged her garage and they couldn't get the doors open and so couldn't get to their supplies. That's why mine stand out in the field strapped to a fence post. 
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 17 2014 at 12:57am
Originally posted by CRS, DrPH CRS, DrPH wrote:

^Kiwimum, thanks for all the detail!  

Even though I'm in the States, I've worked a bit with the former Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand and have always wanted to visit your land.  I have friends in Christchurch and was horrified by the quake in 2011.  

You are absolutely correct to have the attitude that you have.  From other postings, I believe that you are one of the few to take the issue seriously?  This was ours....like your old quake, we mostly had Native American Indians who witnessed these.  The mighty Mississippi River ran backwards for a bit!  

1811, December 16, 08:15 UTC Northeast Arkansas - the first main shock
2:15 am local time
Magnitude ~7.7

This powerful earthquake was felt widely over the entire eastern United States. People were awakened by the shaking in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Charleston, South Carolina. Perceptible ground shaking was in the range of one to three minutes depending upon the observers location. The ground motions were described as most alarming and frightening in places like Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky. Reports also describe houses and other structures being severely shaken with many chimneys knocked down. In the epicentral area the ground surface was described as in great convulsion with sand and water ejected tens of feet into the air (liquefaction). 


The Christchurch earthquakes were very frightening. The first one happened out of the blue at 4.35am. Naturally we were asleep and I woke up to have a picture crash down on our bed and in the pitch black I could feel the bed moving not only forwards and backwards but diagonally up and down and it yet it wasn't leaving the floor it was the whole house moving. I remember a roaring vaguely but that was it. I didn't realise at the time that my husband heard it coming and was in our boys room holding them in their bunk beds, so he was standing up throughout it. 

We had many aftershocks, the biggest of which was a 6.3 in the following Feb and killed all those people. My husband was in the middle of the city when it struck and was thrown off his feet. Thankfully he was outside at the time. 

We had a plan in place. I had studied earthquakes a few years before at the university here and I knew what to do and that my hubby would get home asap. None of our friends had a plan and I saw one friend who was hysterical. Psychologically everyone here has been affected. We could hear the aftershocks coming. Our ears became accustomed to them. Even now if a particularly noisy plane goes over or a truck rumbles past a shop you see it in peoples faces. 

A sound I will never forget is that of the glass in our bedroom window flexing. It's a horrible sound and it goes it will implode into the room. We always draw our curtains, and I've made sure the childrens beds are as far from the windows as possible. We were lucky it never did shatter in our house but it did in other peoples. 

We did have liquifaction, but not quite where I live. It just came up through the ground, silently. Water also rose silently and without flowing, it just rose up through tarmac and pavements and our tupperware lady said that within 10 minutes of the 6.3, there was over a foot of silent, unmoving water in her garden and street. Very creepy.

It's very interesting about the Mississippi running backwards. I'm sure somewhere on the Discovery channel I saw something once about the huge tsunami risk in Seattle. I seem to remember the Indians had a name for Seattle that just implied disaster.
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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^You are a very impressive woman, KiwiMum.  Be safe.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 17 2014 at 9:02am
Onefluover - my wife has friends in Portland, and I have a good friend who lives near Roseburg after moving from San Diego. She can't say enough good things about it.
There's a lot of science involved in below earth home construction now, and it's been found that the problem of damp is easily fixed by insulating the structure. The earth will chill the walls and floor sufficiently that condensation will form, so insulation placed between the house and the ground is key to allowing the mass of the house to store energy in the form of solar radiation from it's south facing windows (in the northern hemisphere) without the earth acting as a heatsink. One of the best in the field is a guy by the name of Rob Roy who lives in a house he built in New York State near the Canadian border.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 17 2014 at 9:09am
Originally posted by CRS, DrPH CRS, DrPH wrote:

^You are a very impressive woman, KiwiMum.  Be safe.


Agreed - you never fail to impress with the level of your preparedness, KiwiMum   

"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep"
"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary.
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Thank you. 
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 17 2014 at 12:43pm
KiwiMum...you are really the ultimate prepper! You are my kind of gal. If I lived where you do I would be scared to death. Earthquakes, tornados, floods and wildfires are all so scary and some have it more than others. You guys live in a wonderful place where you are living off the land something burb people can't do.

You have done a great plan which I pray you will never have to use. I hope we are all just a little nutty about prepping and will never have to use what we have stored up.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rickster58 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 17 2014 at 1:06pm
I totally agree .... KiwiMum is an inspiration to all. Thanks for your contributions to this forum.
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Despite all my concerns about the next big earthquake, I still really want to be around when the Alpine Fault does rupture. And I want to be young enough to really enjoy it. I'll be gutted if I'm an old woman in a wheelchair.

We are expecting some pretty huge geomorphic effects from the Alpine Fault and I really want to be around to see them and their after effects. In an ideal world it would rupture in a year or so when our house is finished and I'm more organised.

All earthquakes start the same way and then they either don't amount to much or they keep growing and getting bigger. Although they are scary, they are also quite enjoyable. It is awe inspiring to witness a force that can lift not just your house, but your whole farm. I do really like the shaking sensation, it's like being a child again and being jiggled about.


So far the earthquakes have tipped me into a vegetable bed, caught me with an open beehive - and the bees really knew it was coming, they went a bit berserk a few minutes before it arrived and I was hurrying to close up the hive but when it struck I was holding an open 5 box hive upright for fear it would topple over. 

I was leading a cow out to pasture when one quake arrived and the cow didn't even bat an eyelid, she wasn't at all bothered. Another time I was just lifting a pan of boiled eggs off the stove when a big one came through, the water went everywhere so I just put it back down on the stove and ran out. When I came back in and picked up the pan again, another one struck. I ended up with hard boiled eggs that were like bullets and had to go to the pigs. 

Like anything, it's not all bad, though it's highly likely when you do wake up one morning and hear that NZ has been devastated by the Alpine Fault, that my internet connection and phone will be out for quite some time, so it may be a while till you hear from me again, but hopefully all will be well and we'll be enjoying the ride.
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Good attitude
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"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary.
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Thanks, Kiwimum!  Great stories! 

I live in Illinois, in the American midwest, and we are famous for our tornados.  I've never been through the strongest ones (EF5), but I've seen the thunderhead storms that spawn them from afar, and it is sobering to realize that people are probably dying under those clouds while I watch.  

Last November 2013, my wife and I were visiting our capital city, Springfield Illinois (notorious for spawning state Governors who end up in prison!).  My i-phone, which has a Red Cross storm alert app, lit up like a Christmas tree....all sorts of storm and tornado warnings a few dozen km north of us.  Instead of trying to rush back home (3 hour drive), we saw sights & let the storm front move on.  I'm glad, this is what we might have driven through if we left early....another EF5.  




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KiwiMum...you go girl! I lived in Tornado Alley in my youth and that is why I live in the foothills of Colorado...not many tornados ever touch down in the foothills. Was in a 4.1 quake in LA and a 3.1 here in Colorado...Yes Colorado has faults and quakes and don't like those at all.

I always feel bad for victims of disasters of any kind. I just don't know how they recover!   I think they really never get over it.

I too hope you are young when you go though a big quake KiwiMum it gets harder when you get older.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 18 2014 at 11:38pm
I don't envy you guys your tornadoes. At least earthquakes don't kill people, it's buildings falling down that kill people. But tornadoes.......that's a force to be reckoned with that you can't escape. The largest earthquake won't hurt you if you're standing out in a paddock - unless the ground swallows you up that is. 

If I lived in tornado alley I would definitely have an underground shelter with at least 2 exits. 

Isn't the world an incredible place? 

CRS, Dr PH, that photo is amazing. It looks like those houses were chopped in a blender. Incredible. And very scary.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 19 2014 at 10:06am
The thinking behind me wanting to build an earth bermed home was in no small part as a hedge against wildfires and severe weather/seismic events. Chuck's picture only reinforces that. Scary
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 19 2014 at 12:35pm
Jacksdad, there is some great info available about fireproofing your home from a wild fire perspective in Australia. It's all about protecting against flying embers that get sucked up into your roof space which is how the fires get hold of a property.

There was an area where a wild fire swept across the countryside a few years ago, and after it had passed, helicopters flew over and noticed one property where the fire had come up to the fence lines, and gone round the boundaries leaving this little farm untouched. Someone investigated to see why and the homeowner was a permaculture fan and had taked Bill Mollison's advice about non-flammable trees and shrubs. He had planted out his whole property like that. 

This guy had also fire proofed his home. He had taken his family and left in front of the fire and when they returned they found their coir door mat smouldering and about to combust, but everything else was fine. The outside of their boundary hedge was burnt and blackened where the fire had abutted it but had failed to catch fire. 

Fire resistant plants all have the following features: a) a high water content b)high ash content c)little mulch or litter drop or fast composting litter, d) are evergreen and e) are fleshy or sappy.
Examples: fig, willow, mulberry, coprosma, monstera, some acacias. Fire resistant ground cover includes: passionfruit, ivy, comfrey, taro, succulents, wormwood, aloe, agave, iceplants, sweet potato, sunflowers adn pumpkins.

There is a list in one of Bill Mollison's books but I can't find it at the moment. We are about to plant out the windward side of our property in Vinca. We have put in coppicing woodlots that are quite established but have long dry grass around the roots. We will replace that with vinca, which is non flammable. We have also put our Eucalypts on the down wind boundary as these explode like a fire bomb (and without wildfire they cannot reproduce). 

I'll try to find a link I saw ages ago about fireproofing a house but it'll be later on today. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CRS, DrPH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 19 2014 at 7:23pm
Originally posted by KiwiMum KiwiMum wrote:

I don't envy you guys your tornadoes. At least earthquakes don't kill people, it's buildings falling down that kill people. But tornadoes.......that's a force to be reckoned with that you can't escape. The largest earthquake won't hurt you if you're standing out in a paddock - unless the ground swallows you up that is. 

If I lived in tornado alley I would definitely have an underground shelter with at least 2 exits. 

Isn't the world an incredible place? 

CRS, Dr PH, that photo is amazing. It looks like those houses were chopped in a blender. Incredible. And very scary.

Thanks, KiwiMum.  I knew something was up, and I was tempted to drive over to the disaster site to offer my support (I'm highly trained in first aid & disaster relief, am a CPR instructor etc.), but I had my wife with me and did not want to put her in harm's way.  

Look at the path that this thing cut through the humanity of Washington, Illinois USA....

CRS, DrPH
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 19 2014 at 9:24pm
That photo is incredible. Thanks for that. I've just shown it to my children. It's quite amazing how one house can be devastated and its neighbour is fine. I'd take earthquakes over tornadoes any time. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2014 at 1:59am
KiwiMum - wildfires are the hazard that originally got me thinking outside the box. We have them every year in SoCal (we just got hit by a bunch of them last month and it's not even fire season yet). Homeowners are constantly advised to maintain a defensible space of at least 100 feet and to use fire resistant plants wherever possible, but all too often it falls on deaf years. That said, in the last round of fires one lone house in the middle of a large neighborhood survived, and it turned out that the homeowner had used ice plant all around his property. It stopped the fire in it's tracks.

To be honest, once I started researching high thermal mass earth bermed and underground homes, I fell in love with the simplicity of the design, their minimal footprint, and the benefits in terms of maintaining a stable internal temperature year round. The problems of damp in early homes has been taken care of by a better understanding of where to build in the first place and the availability of modern building materials, such as waterproof membranes and high efficiency foam insulation.

Plus, I've always wanted a Hobbit home LOL





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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2014 at 12:33pm
I've always wanted Bilbo's larder. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 20 2014 at 12:51pm
Jacksdad, I do know that a sort of back draft is created in a fire and hot air is sucked into the roof of your house and that is the most common way a fire gets a grip on your house. 

We live in an area where all the bush was cleared 80 years ago to create farmland and now it's divided up into 10 acre lifestyle blocks. Everyone's plantings are still quite young, so there's no fuel for a bush fire except the odd young tree and lots of grass. One of our neighbours as planted a ring of eucalyptus around their house, within 4 m of it. A single spark could ignite it on a hot day. It's madness. 

We are thinking of planting laurel as a boundary hedge since it doesn't grow too high and is fireproof but apparently it attracts flies, so I need to research that a bit more to see if it's true.


One thing I remember hearing when I was younger was about a family in California who were surrounded by a bushfire and so jumped in the swimming pool and as the conflagration met over their heads, they were boiled alive! Urban myth?

I'm pretty sure that the best way would be to make your home as fireproof as possible and then get out and come back when it's over. 

There was a load of fires near me 2 years ago and farmers just opened their gates and let the animals find their own way. They all survived and were rounded up later. 

I guess an earth bermed house with good sturdy shutters over doors and windows would be the best possible house in a bushfire. You could seal it up and leave knowing the fire would pass over it. But personally I wouldn't stay inside in case all the oxygen was sucked up by the fire and I suffocated. 
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