Costco Covid Report - TP Panic Persists

So this morning I stopped by Costco for gas and some staples.

It was about the busiest I've seen it at 10 am when they open - very long lines.

A lot of people buying a lot of bottled water and large quantities of stuff.

Worryingly, there was no rice to be found at all, which was darn strange.

Other staples were there and in plenty except for one basic item:

Yes toilet paper is still out of stock and the shelves are bare.

Methinks the TP hoarders are getting this particular disaster preparation wrong, and like tulip bulb buyers are fixedly going after the wrong item.

After all, its really the wrong item to lose your S#!t over. If you catch Covid19, the virus may just make you feel like S#!t, but it doesn't make you explosively have to S#!t.

Settle down people, this is not worth panicking over.

Just A Bit Of Panic Buying Going On

Went to Costco today for some normal shopping.

Both bottled water and toilet paper were notably absent which was pretty darn abnormal.

The last time the water was gone from Costco was back in 2017 when the water system was down for the area due to a major main breakage.

Not sure the fixation is on stocking up on toilet paper. I would have expected a run on french toast making supplies and cold/flu medications.

The problem of course is if everyone starts panicking bad things will happen which will cause more panic and become a rather unfortunate feedback loop that we don't really need.

While Michigan allegedly still has no confirmed cases of Covid19 infected persons, it's likely just a matter of time until that changes. This is especially so as they've made Detroit Airport a location for enhanced screening of passengers from China. Given government's efficiency so far in testing and the just about absolute likelihood of their releasing infected people by mistake, this is not a matter of if but when. Since people are already panic buying toilet paper and water now, I'd hate to see how they react when a confirmed case gets announced here.

Monday Night Boil Water Advisory For The Area

Due to a major water main break, there is now a boil water advisory in effect for Wixom, Farmington Hills, Walled Lake, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills Commerce Township, areas of Novi Oakland Township (sand Rochester Hills.

Basically one must boil any tap water and let it cool before using.

Since I keep a reserve on hand of a few cases of bottled water (Costco does make minor incident planning rather easy), this should prove to be no more than a minor inconvenience.

Of course, they just announced that schools will be closed tomorrow due to the boil water advisory, so that will prove more of an inconvenience.

Update: Boil water advisory is extended through Friday for the whole area and lots of restaurants are ordered closed. On top of that we have very low water pressure now at the house.

CPR and AED training today

In a nice break from the billable hour (break hell -- I had to go work late to catch up) the firm I work for offered CPR and AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) training this afternoon.

I signed up, one of only two lawyers in the session, the rest being IT, secretarial or administrative personnel. I guess the other attorneys wanted to keep their billing up. One of the people in the firm is a certified Red Cross trainer and she led the sessions -- very ably I might add.

Very useful stuff to know - helping a conscious or unconscious choking victim, performing CPR and rescue breathing and using the AED properly (it was more a familiarization - learning how it worked and some procedures and combining it with CPR. Really its pretty simple stuff to learn, and they've made it easier to remember - chest compressions on an unconscious choking victim or heat stopped victim is the same pattern only with an occasional check sweep to try and clear the airway on a choking victim is different. Simple, effective and it leaves you prepared to render assistance in an emergency.

The class made sense for both the firm and the participants - training in how to be a first responder is never a bad thing, and incidents can happen even at placid law firms, so having trained and able employees is a good thing.

Just another bit of preparedness to have and hope to never have to use for real -- but again certainly better than if something happens to known what to do rather than just stand around uselessly.

I strongly recommend everyone at least take the basic CPR / First Aid course - not very time consuming, very informative and the life you save may be your own or your friends, family or colleagues, hopefully until the professionals can arrive.

Tomorrow the firm is offering CPR for infants and kids -- having kids I am confirmed to attend -- I'll just make up the billable hours another time.

The Unthinkable - A vital book worth thinking about

Amanda Ripley's book The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why is a very readable, and very important book indeed.

The book discusses human reactions to disaster scenarios, and the effect these reactions have to survival in a disaster situation.

The book goes through multiple historical disasters - fires. floods, plane crashes, terorrist attacks and analyze ordinary people's response to the events.

An interesting analysis is her writing on why it takes so long for people to evacuate from dangerous ocations such as a fire or plane crash. Human activity, combined with a lack of training and education of the general public for what to do in such an event explains it.

General human response when untrained to a sudden disaster is to mill around and get confirmation from others that it is happening and generally slowly react to the situation. Of course this is the wrong thing to do, but that's how it works.

I can confirm that reaction is darn slow, and I reacted exactly as she describes in her book - the wrong way.

At work earlier this year the fire alarm went off.

Did all of us immediately move towards the exits and get out of the building? (the right thing to do if there is a fire).

Nope, we milled around, exactly as Ms. Ripley describes others reacting in her book, conferring with each other to see if it was real or not.

Then most of us went to our offices and gathered some belongings - again exactly as she describes how most people would react.

Given that I actually smelled smoke I got out of there faster than most (but still relatively glacially slow), meeting the firemen going in as I was going out.

Many others came out long after the very small fire in a downstairs office was put out. Thankfully it was not a real disaster and was very contained, but it certainly could have been lots worse.

The firm had not conducted a full-scale fire drill before and we still do not practice one.

After reading the book I'm now a bit better educated and prepared and the next time the fire alarm rings -- I'm outta here quick and will tell co-workers its time to go as well.

Ms. Ripley properly castigates the lack of real education the public is given regarding disaster preparedness. Apparently the government and others (for example the airlines in regards to airplane evacuations) do not want us really informed as they think we'll panic. The problem is that panic occurs when you do not know what to do. Informing the public about disaster preparedness and effective reactions to disasters will most likely save a lot of lives. In dealing with a fire for example you don't want to waste time searching for the stairs if you're on an upper floor - you should know where they are and where the alternate exits are.

As an aside, there's an interesting disaster quiz that can be taken at the NY Times, and much of the info it contains seems drawn from Ripley's book.

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Whyis well written and very well worth reading, after all the life saved as a result may be your own or your loved ones.

At long last, Power is restored.

While I was at work, the power was restored to our street sometime after 11:00.

Certainly it has been the longest blackout we've experienced -- from last Sunday afternoon to today.

We're now catching up on cleaning, laundry and hot running water showers.

Of course, they're predicting more storms tomorrow so this may very well be the proverbial calm before the storm.

Maybe I'll go take another shower, just in case.

Day 7 Without Power

Just in case someone took me seriously when I said last one out of Michigan please turn out the lights - you're a wee bit premature, some of us are still here.

We're here, still with no power.

One of our subdivision's resident wags has put up a sign at the entrance to the subdivision.

On one side it reads: We need power.
On the other: Hey DTE you missed us!

On heading out to work this morning, I saw two DTE trucks drive right on past our subdivision. This of course signifies absolutely nothing, but hope springs eternal, especially as laundry piles up.

Day 6 Without Power and more rain to mess it up.

It had to happen.

Apparently due to the minor rain storm we have had this morning, we have a new estimate for power restoration instead of Friday at midnight -- it is now:

Sat Jun 14 23:45:00 EDT 2008

Yet another day. This doth suck.

Day 5 Without Power - The fun wore off long ago

Actually, I got a shower yesterday at a friend's house with power, which beat bathing in the lake. Of course, I now owe said friend a nice bottle of wine, and it is worth it.

Still no power and its a bit of a pain indeed. We've carried a bucket over to a friends house who is on city water and it is functioning so we go back and forth to get enough to flush toilets, do basic cleaning etc.

I can see the commercial now "for just $10 a day you can provide an Oakland County family with running water....."

No computer, no internet of course, which I can live without at home, and lots of difficulties due to no running water supply, which makes you appreciate what you've got and gets some creativity going for shaving, washing and keeping kids and house clean.

On the upside, with no power, you also get more focus on your family, so thats a plus. Abby at 4 is having a little trouble understanding how the generator makes the lights work, and hates the noise, but is dealing with the loss of power well except for at night when she is a bit afraid of the dark.

DTE's Estimate as to restoration is still Friday at 11:45 pm. My mother-in-law arrives on Friday at 5 pm. This will not be pretty.

Another thing I've found that works real well: Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. The CFLs draw much less power and gives basically the equivalent light of a comparable incandescent so the load on the generator is much lower.

For example, the bathroom used to have two 100 watt bulbs, I had changed them out last week after one burnt out with GE CFLs that each take 26 watts and give off essentially the same amount of light, so I save 148 watts that can be used for other things, like powering the fridge and sump pump.

I've installed similar bulbs around the house already and they make a real difference in power loading with a minor difference in lumination. The only issue is they don't work with dimmer switches and we have quite a few of those, like in the kids rooms, so we just set the light low. Very recommended if you have a generator and want to run your lights while saving watts.

Scott of Providentia recommends I check outThe Lehmans non-electric catalog and nitro-pak.com.

Thanks for the tips, Scott, I'll be checking them both out shortly.

Without power for 4 days and the Saga continues

Last Sunday afternoon, a storm came thorough the area.

Not a bad storm, as far as storms go, with winds up to 80 miles per hour accompanied by some wicked rainfall and some thunder and lightning. This was not a real disaster by any stretch of the imagination.

Unfortunately the storm knocked out power to over 273,000 people in the area and as of today at least 160,000 are still without power.

The current estimate from DTE is that my area will get power back on Friday at 11:45 pm. - over 6 days after the storm struck. I'm not too confident of the estimate, given they underestimated those who were out of power by over 100,000 people.

It is certainly not a strong energy transport infrastructure that can be taken out for almost a week by one relatively minor storm. I had hoped the energy infrastructure people had learned from the 2003 blackout (when we were out of power for 5 days) to make infrastructure more resilient, but that doesn't seem to have trickled down to Oakland County.

On the upside: We had a portable generator that we bought after the 2003 outage.

Downside: It is not working 100% and not putting out enough amps to start the well pump for water. One part is putting out the full and proper 12, the other only 6 instead of 12. So we have some light, the fridge and sump pump work but thats about it. This will be fixed.

Upside: overall the food supplies on hand are adequate and no problem getting to stores for additional supplies. Hand sanitizer rocks and baby wipes, of which we have many on hand, have tons of uses especially when there is no water.

The BBQ with its side burner works like a champ for cooking and reheating food.

Downside:

1. Clear deficiencies in flashlights, our electric lantern (provided as a gift by Lagniappe's Keeper after the 2003 outage) just died when Abby hit the top of it for some 4-year old exuberant reason as yet undetermined -- but certainly without malice aforethought. It was a good lantern but not very resilient we now need another one.

Plus, some flashlights had been hidden by tiny hands so we only had my surefire for awhile to get things going again and to find the other flashlights.

2. Need more hand sanitizer on hand in the emergency box.

3. More stored emergency water, flashlights, and water filter would be good.

4. Need a hand crank radio or such.

5. Need more gasoline on hand. The 7 gallons or so that we had would not be adequate, we semi-occasionally use it to keep it fresh and got caught at a low point below our normally stored 12 gallons.

6. Need more 5 gallon buckets and a funnel.

7. Probably should have a second propane tank on hand for the BBQ.

On the upside this was an opportunity to test and see if we learned anything from the 2003 outage, and it appears we have. Now if we just had water.....