Continuing with what rimrocker has suggested. Strongly consider putting together an Emergency Go Bag with the basics to keep you going if/when you need to leave home ASAP. Whether it is a Wild Fire, Hurricane or Electricity Outage, there are times when your Home Life can be quickly disrupted. There are multiple suggestions on the Internet on what items to put in the Bag and this is one example. Add and subtract as necessary. Go Bag In the event of an emergency that requires you to evacuate, everyone in your household should have a Go Bag packed and ready to go. Your Go Bag should be a sturdy and easy to carry backpack or duffle bag containing things you would want to have with you if you have to leave in a hurry. Items to consider for your Go Bag include: Bottled water and nonperishable food, such a s granola bars Personal hygiene items (toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, wet wipes, etc) Flashlight, hand-crank or battery-operated AM/FM radio, and extra batteries Portable cell phone charger Notepad, pen/pencil, and marker Local street maps (paper version) Spare home/vehicle keys Whistle or bell First aid kit Dust mask to reduce inhalation of dust and other debris Work gloves A change of clothing (long sleeve shirt/pants, rain gear, sturdy footwear, etc.) Copies of important documents (insurance/medical cards, contact lists, identification, marriage and birth certificates, etc.) in a portable, waterproof container or plastic bag Back-up medical/assistive equipment and supplies A list of the medications you take, why you take them, and the dosages Cash, in small bills Supplies for your service animal or pet
A few other points: When things get crazy text instead of calling. Texts are on a different network and have a greater chance of going through when cell towers are gone or overloaded with people trying to call. Having a Go Bag is a great idea. There are two kinds of evacs: the immediate one like a chemical accident or a wildfire on a really windy day and ones with more thought and planning, like a hurricane or a fire that is still a distance away. Responders hate the former and take great pains to make the latter work. A planned evac will often be carried out in stages. Also, we want to give people enough time to evac in the daylight well ahead of the hazard knocking on their door. Fast moving nighttime evacs are the worst and can get really confusing and complex quickly. The Go Bag is key for the fast evacs while you can plan better for the rolling evacs. In addition to your Go Bag, you want to think through the Eight P's: 1. Plan The first P is have an evac plan and then have a backup plan. Think through it and test it on occasion. See how long it takes you to pack everything up and get to where you need to go. Now imagine you're under stress and lots of people are trying to do the same thing. Adjust accordingly and don't forget secondary roads--everyone will be on the interstates. If you're a senior or disabled, the planning becomes even more important. 2. Papers Critical docs like birth certificates, passports, vet records for pets, Social Security cards, and such. They should be in easy reach or already in your Go Bag. If you will be taking two cars, have copies in both. 3. Prescriptions As noted by Mango, take your prescriptions and needed medical devices. 4. Pets Don't forget Fluffy and Rover. Make sure you have food, water, and a bed for them too. 5. Phones and PCs. Grab the laptop, don't forget the phone, and remember your chargers. 6. Plastic Credit cards and cash. 7. Photos Grab pics and other irreplaceable family memorabilia as you have time and space. Identify what you will take beforehand and get buy-in from the family. You don't want to get in a "wait, let me get one more thing" mode. 8. Petrol Gas up (or charge up) your car.
@rimrocker, when it really hits the fan, whenever that comes for me and the Mrs. in NoCal, I will think of you and tip my grimy, evacuating hat. You've done us all a calm, reality-based service in threads like this one. But many others too. Thank you.
I guess there was enough outcry that funding was restored and the web sites are generally back up, but... the data collection activities that they depend on is degraded and these centers are still zeroed-out in the budget resolution before Congress.
This looks like a rough year for wildland fire. A few things of note about these outlooks: June in AZ and NM is traditionally the worst fire month for that region. You get spring winds and little moisture until the monsoonal flow sets up in early to mid-July but you also get dry lightning ahead of the monsoon in mid-late June. But... the monsoon hasn't been as predictable in recent years as we'd like. If we start having big fires in May and they go through mid-July or later, that sets everyone up for cumulative fatigue issues by August. A lot of red in Texas and Oklahoma. 2011 was not a one-off, but instead, a harbinger. If you live in these areas, change your behavior to reflect the conditions. Don't do things you'd normally do with fire, cigarettes, etc. Be careful. There are enough idiot arsonists in those two states who will cause problems without someone carelessly adding to the problem. I expect there to be large fires in the Idaho and Montana forests that will burn from June/July through November. Smoke impacts will be horrendous. Both Oregon and Washington are completely red in August. That means not only the scablands and high desert of the east side, but the wetter areas west of the Cascades, including the Coastal Range to the Pacific. We've been worried about western Washington coming online--there are more urban interface areas in western Washington than California--and if this is the year, we are likely to see communities wiped off the map. On top of all this is California, which is a resource sink because of the population and values at risk. If they get going, there will not be enough firefighters for everything, so decisions will need to be made. If Texas is busy also, that means fires in remoter areas will not be prioritized. (This would be true even without the stupid personnel cuts--as it is, we will not be able to field the number of incident management teams and support personnel we have in the past.) Both the mountains and populated areas of California are showing red, which means lots of evacs and smoke. Of course, it all depends on ignitions, but we typically have 3-4 dry lightning events that, thanks to the summertime 4 Corners High, get spun up from California, through the NW and over to Idaho and Montana. If we get one or two that drops so many strikes we can't keep up, it will mean fire and smoke on the landscape for weeks and months. Traditionally, a fire year would have a regular rhythm, moving from the SW in June to the Great Basin and Rockies, then starting up in the NW in late July with California getting busy by early August. The great fear for wildland fire folks is all the regions going hard at the same time. We can't handle it. Add in Texas and the reduced capacity this year, and well, plan your vacation carefully, pay attention to the conditions where you live, and always have options on the table. Good luck.
Canada already in it. Lots of fires across Manitoba with over 17,000 evacuated. Saskatchewan not much better and most of the country looks poised to have fires on the landscape from now until October. That also means Canadian resources will be extended and not available to help us here in the US when we will definitely be short of personnel.
Military flight arrives in Norway House to ferry people out of fire zone: chief The chief of Pimicikamak (Cross Lake) Cree Nation is crediting Manitoba’s premier with getting planes in the air to evacuate his people out of a northern Manitoba wildfire zone. David Monias says Wab Kinew called Prime Minister Mark Carney Wednesday for military assistance. “We have been calling on government of Canada to send the Canadian armed forces to help us. But they told me they had to wait for the Province to exhaust their resources,” Monias said on social media. “Thanks to Premier Wab Kinew, he called the Prime Minister and they will get the Canadian armed forces to help us.” Pimicikamak was being evacuated Wednesday evening as Kinew announced the prime minister had approved military aid to fly an estimated 17,000 residents and cottagers from remote First Nations and towns to Winnipeg. The Cree nation sits in dense bush north of the tip of Lake Winnipeg about a six-hour drive north of the capital. Fires have been menacing the northern and eastern parts of the province for days, the Manitoba government has said, with 22 burning in the province as of Thursday. The town of Lynn Lake, about 1,000 km northwest of Winnipeg, was also emptied Wednesday. With fire cutting off access to connect to Highway 6 to Winnipeg, Cross Lakers were sent about 40 kilometres south to Norway House Cree Nation. “To those currently in Norway House: the Canadian Armed Forces have arrived with a plane ready to evacuate more of our people,” Monias said online Thursday morning. “These fires are unpredictable and dangerous. If the smoke shifts toward Norway House or worse, if the fire spreads in that direction, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to evacuate anyone from there,” he added. In Winnipeg, Kinew said the government had set up receiving centres for the wildfire evacuees. The province confirmed that Billy Mosienko Arena, located at 709 Keewatin St., opened its doors Wednesday night. It is being staffed by Manitoba’s Emergency Social Services a the Canadian Red Cross. Officials are asking evacuees to shelter with friends or family if possible before turning to the centre. It’s important that all evacuees register online, regardless of where they are staying. Registration can be completed online or by calling 1-800-863-6582 between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. Registering helps Monias, other officials and family members keep track of evacuees. “Do not return to Cross Lake, the smoke is thick and the fire is dangerously close. It is not safe,” Monias added in his online post. “We know many of you want to be with family or return home, but your safety is our top priority.”
New study published in Nature shows that drought has significantly increased across the globe during recent years because there's more evaporation under increasingly hot and dry conditions. In the quote below, AED = atmospheric evaporative demand. In the two maps, red and brown are bad. Better buy those acres outside of Duluth soon.
Yeah, I'm pretty much watching this happen in real-time. Stock tanks and lakes and creeks and such are just not retaining water like they historically did. eta: you have a link to the study/article? I poked around on their website and didn't see it
It should be even higher since that study. I'm sure the Trump administration will be doing all they can to stop studies like this. Denial is the Trump mantra after all. From the link.... During the past 5 years (2018–2022), the areas in drought have expanded by 74% on average compared with 1981–2017,
It would seem the entire global hydrological cycle would need to be monitored because the world is 70% covered by water and only looking at land would not give a complete picture of what is going on. Could it also be human water mismanagement causing these drought issues? This is a well known and clearly documented issue of drought and desertification being a vicious circle.
It would seem that way, yet that was not the purpose of this study as not a lot of people live or farm in the middle of the ocean. What's happening where people live is important. The study specifically looks at evaporation rates. The only thing humans are doing to increase that is making things hotter--and thus drier--through climate change. Still, droughts can be supercharged for humans if you mismanage water, including storing it in a place where lots of evaporation takes place, diverting water to other basins, or mining all your groundwater to have pretty pools, lawns, and golf courses.
Due to irrigation via pumping water from underground aquifers. crops are being grown in areas that would struggle to grow them just from normal rainfall. Some of these areas were part of the Dust Bowl decades ago, Irrigated Crops on the US High Plains ...The High Plains Aquifer, also known as the Ogallala, lies beneath the High Plains, from the southern edge of North Dakota, through eight states and into Texas. The Ogallala Aquifer was formed millions of years ago from streams flowing eastward, carrying the eroded sediment from the growing Rocky Mountains and from windblown sediment. Now underground, it is composed of poorly sorted layers of clay, silt, sand, and gravel that holds about the same volume of water as Lake Huron, water that has been there for so long it is called fossil water . Modern irrigation has turned the land above it into the highly productive cropland of today, with yields on irrigated fields often two to four times greater than those on dryland fields. Almost 95 percent of water pumped from the Ogallala is used for irrigation . But in the Central and Southern portions of the aquifer, the water is being pumped much faster than it can be replaced through recharge. It is essentially a non-renewable resource... ...Before the 1950s, the main crops grown in the region were wheat, alfalfa, and sorghum. With the advent of new technologies that brought deep well drilling, electric pumps powerful enough to bring water to the surface, and center pivot irrigation systems allowing widespread industrial irrigation after 1960, corn became a much more viable crop for the region. The potential for increased yields with irrigation combined with the increase of livestock numbers in the area by the 1980s shifted the crops to more corn and soybeans, especially in the north. Irrigated acreage and total corn production greatly increased after the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed, which created subsidies for corn ethanol production to help meet the US mandate for renewable energy....
