Divemedic

So there was a group of motorcycle riding college students in Oklahoma who apparently cut off a man who was riding in his pickup truck with his wife and kids. Apparently, the man in the truck took this as a mortal insult, began a road rage argument, and called ahead to have some friends stop them in a roadside ambush.  One of the ambushers fired a shotgun in the air to get the bikers to stop.

The armed friends held part of the group at gunpoint and threatened to kill them, while the trucker beat one of the bikers, and the fat one pulled a knife on one of the bikers and threatened to cut his throat. Then, they stole a cell phone that was being used to film the incident. Here is video of the incident:

At 6:48, the Fat guy, who claimed to be part of the Hell’s Angels, told them that losing the cell phone is the price you pay for doing the wrong thing. If you listen 7:44, the fat guy told one of the students: “You shouldn’t even be up here, you don’t live here. Go home.” Then he says “I hope none of you plan on pursuing this with the law.”

Well, the posted the video, which drew the attention of the cops. You can count the felonies yourself: Armed robbery, aggravated battery, brandishing, intimidating a witness, and more. I am sure there are dozens of crimes that could be charged here.

This is NOT how you handle a road rage incident. Even though there was an arrest made, the small town sheriff appears to be covering for his locals, and is refusing to make more than one arrest, or even release details. It is obvious that the police are engaged in a cover up.

Even if the motorcyclists were in the wrong, the locals escalated the issue, and then  committed robbery and battery. This goes WAY beyond self defense. This is how NOT to defend yourself from road rage.

If you have a generator outside during a power outage, how can you legally protect it? What law would allow you to point a firearm at a looter who is attempting to steal your stuff? In order to protect your survival equipment, it must be within ‘curtilage’ , according to Jon Gutmacher, the attorney who is the author of  FLORIDA FIREARMS Law, Use & Ownership. 

As a general rule of thumb — if you’re concerned whether you can display your firearm  if you see someone who might be trying to steal it,  and it is not already inside a fenced area — perhaps the quick solution is to erect a  temporary fence that attaches to the main dwelling house and surrounds the generator.  It must be at least 3 feet high, but can be as simple as using chain or heavy rope between short posts — as a temporary fence.  You can even have an opening, although I think it legally smarter that any opening be closed when not attended.  Even if you can step over it — as long as it is at least 3 feet high — it’s within “curtilage”.  That way,  any unlawful entry into the gated area is a “burglary” and a forcible felony, and display of a firearm and a verbal threat should be totally lawful. 

There are a few things that I had in the house that really made getting through the Hurricane with the level of safety and comfort that we had possible. Most of this stuff, you probably already have:

A set of Black and Decker 20v tools. Since they all use the same battery, buying these tools meant that I had plenty of batteries on hand. Having a bettery operated chainsaw meant that I could save the fuel for use in the generator:

1. Cordless Drill
2. Electric Chainsaw 
3. Reciprocating Saw

A Fluke Multimeter: The fact that it measures true RMS, and allows you to check frequency is a good feature to have when measuring generator output. Besides, Fluke makes the best meters in the business, IMO.

A good set of screwdrivers, a pair of adjustable crescent wrenches, and a pair of Klein wire strippers.

A case of Chem lights: These are good for when you are in your safe room, and need long duration light without killing flashlight batteries.


A couple of these. Be careful, some of them are made by inferior companies. I know, because one of mine didn’t hold a charge for more than an hour, even if it wasn’t being used.

A cable bike lock, to secure your generator while it is outside running. I chained mine to the second car during the day, and when I shut it down at night, it went back into the garage.

A propane stove, and the adaptor to use it with full sized propane cylinders. Also, make sure you have at least two cylinders.

Good work gloves. Your hands are essential to survival, and an injury during a natural disaster means that you are now useless. I use mechanic’s gloves from WalMart. They cost about $15, and are much better than gardening gloves or generic leather work gloves, because they are more comfortable and allow more dexterity.

Plenty of rechargeable batteries. While we ran the gennie during the day to cool down the freezer/refrigerator, we also watched TV and recharged batteries, and got cleanup done. These tools were vital to making that happen.

During the power outage, I began following my local utility’s page, because the page is giving updates throughout the day, informing customers when power in their area will be restored.

One customer went to the page, and rated them one star. In the comments, he began saying that the power workers here were stupid and lazy, and if this storm had happened in New York, power would already been restored. I pointed out to him that when Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, it was of Cat 1 strength, with winds of only 80 miles per hour and a storm surge of 4 feet.

Northerners in general, and New Yorkers in particular, have this condescending attitude that everything “up north” or “up in New York” is sooo much better than here, and that is largely attributed to the opinion most of them share that the people in the south are stupid, fat, lazy, uneducated hick rednecks who spend their days humping their cousins and lynching blacks.

Even my wife and her family, being from New York, agree that the loud mouth New Yorkers are wrong. To illustrate:

Compare the strength of Sandy to Irma.
Irma hit Florida with 142 mile per hour winds. Twice as many people lost power here as did in New York during Sandy.

By the time Irma got to this area it had been over land for almost 14 hours. We had sustained winds of 85 mph, and gusts to over 100 mph. That makes Irene in my area comparable in strength to Sandy in New York. The difference? We didn’t demand that they call Irene a “Superstorm” and didn’t freak out. Except for problems with fuel delivery, most restaurants and stores were open by Tuesday, as long as they had power.

Part of my neighborhood flooded. The only way a vehicle could get in or out was 2 feet underwater. We were on our own, and our flooding was far from the worst.

When winds finally died down to below 35 miles per hour, the utility crews were able to safely work. They reported that 65% of utility customers were in the dark. Within 24 hours, that was down to 50%. (They restore shelters, hospitals, fire stations, and other essential service areas first.) They then concentrate on repairs that will bring on the most customers the fastest. By 48 hours, only 45% were in the dark. Another 12 hours, and only 25% are still without power. They are now down to repairing outages affecting individual streets. They plan on having all customers restored by Midnight on Sunday the 17th, six days after the storm hit. Less than a week.

Compare that with Sandy:
 Sandy leaves millions without power for days or even weeks


Cleveland residents, who had almost no winds, complain that power was out from Sandy for days.

Even Manhattan, where sustained winds were less than 50 mph from Sandy, was without power for four days. The other boroughs, a week or more.

Millions without power in the outer boroughs for over a week.

So don’t lecture me about how New York is better. I have lived through more hurricanes than I care to remember. I was a professional responder to nearly a dozen of them. If you don’t like the way we handle them or the way we do things here, go back where you came from. We won’t miss you.

If you like it here, listen to the people who live here you might learn our way is just as good, or even better. You might decide that you want to become one of us. We would love to have you. Heck, I married a New Yorker. I hold no grudges.

Remember: you joined us, we didn’t join you.

The electricity came back on at 4:30 this morning. The Hurricane Irma event now appears to be over, at least at my house. Wife goes back to work today. I go back Monday.

Here are the stats:
13.5 inches of rain
103 mph maximum wind gust
93 hours without electrical power

I didn’t even have to dig into emergency food supplies.

Stored supplies used:
39 gallons of fuel (I only had 6 left)
2 cases bottled water
1 chem light (for light during the worst of the storm while we were taking cover in the safe room)
1/4 tank of propane

Damaged:
We lost a tree, with another small tree needing to be staked up.
The cable from the house to the satellite dish will need to be replaced.
The UPS powering the satellite system is dead and will need to be replaced.

One of the things I learned from past storms was that during the storm and the days immediately after the storm, it is easy to get cabin fever. You can’t sit there and watch the news without driving yourself crazy. So we did during the pre-event checklist was record lots of programming for entertainment. While the gennie was on to refrigerate food, we watched movies and TV shows, and our Internet was up. At night, while the power was off (I didn’t want to be the only house on the street that was lit up at night- that makes you a conspicuous target) I read books on the Kindle. She entertained herself with her Kindle Fire.

Next time, I will have more fuel for the generator. I also want to get some better window covers. Other than that, things went well for my preps.

I just found out that, although my family weathered the storm, not all were so lucky. A firefighter that I worked with for several years passed away during the storm. Details just now are sketchy, but from the few facts I was able to gather, it appears that he was at home during the peak of Hurricane Irene and had some sort of medical emergency. When he was finally able to get to the Emergency Room several hours later, he was scheduled for emergency surgery, but by the time weather and road conditions allowed an on call surgeon to arrive, it was too late.

When he showed up for his first day at work at the age of 22, I remember that he was wearing a backpack. He is what you would call a very big man at 6’4″ and 300 pounds. Someone asked him if he had brought a change of clothes, as firefighters are known to do. He replied that t wasn’t clothes, but his lunch. His nickname was born. We called him lunchbox.

He just turned 35 years old, and leaves behind a wife and a 3 year old son. As you can imagine, his family is devastated.

As I said before, I have a pretty comprehensive disaster plan, honed and adjusted after riding out or responding to more than a dozen disasters (10 hurricanes, 1 tornado outbreak, and the widespread brush fires of 1999)

It is organized into several sections, or phases:

Preparation (this is the normal, ongoing preps I am always taking)
Evacuation or pre-event
Shelter
Subsistence
Recovery

Pre-event was through Sunday.
Shelter was carried out from Sunday morning through Monday at first light.
Subsistence began yesterday at first light, and will continue until electrical power returns. This is the most tedious part of the storm process. The last time I had to do this was Hurricane Charley in 2004, and I was without power for 12 days.

I shut off the generator just after dark. We did a patrol of the area, and there are quite a few neighbors sitting in chairs on their driveways, enjoying the cool, post-hurricane weather. Eight other homes are continuing to operate generators at night, and two are living in RVs parked in their driveways. I have the only operating generator on my street of 14 houses.

This morning, I got up at 6 am (the eastern sky begins to lighten at about 6:45), refueled the generator, started it up and checked the freezer temp, which was up to 24 degrees. I fired up the propane stove and made breakfast burritos.

I took a quick ride to the closest three gas stations, but no luck on fuel. I have enough for two more days of running the generator at my current rate of consumption. After that, I will have to steal fuel from our second vehicle.

I am hoping to convince the wife to add a whole house gennie that runs on propane so I can install a 250 gallon tank, and maybe this storm will do the trick.

The power went out at about 11:35 last night. The UPS that supports my Internet connection and security cameras died 45 minutes later. I patrolled the house by flashlight and chem light until dawn, then I went outside for a first light check. No damage to the house, but I did lose a tree. I managed to get in a pair of one hour naps. Some idiot caused a bit of excitement at 3 am, just when the winds were gusting to 100 mph, walking up my driveway with a flashlight. He left while I was deciding what to do about it.

Once the winds died down, we set up the generator, and we are currently on generator power. Word is, it will take up to two weeks for power to return. I plan on running the generator only to keep the refrigerator cold enough to protect my cold food. Doing that, I have fuel on hand for three days. After that, I will either need to find fuel, or rob it from my second vehicle.

For now, we are doing pretty well as far as damage and supplies are concerned.

Communications are normal. Phone is up, cell phones are up, Internet is up, and satellite TV is up using a backup cable from the house to the dish. The regular cable will need to be replaced.

Security: We are both armed, and the generator is chained to the car.

So all is well, and we are waiting for the power to return.

We just began getting winds over 40 miles per hour. Monitoring the HAM and CB radio bands, as well as friends checking in, reports of looting all over the state, and the local area. Some are on social media, some by text, and some from the radio. Links are not available for all reports.

Fort Lauderdale:

Looters ransack a sporting goods store. It is caught on video by a news crew. 9 are arrested.

Miami:


Three different foot lockers are ransacked.

Orlando:

Looters enter a sporting goods store and begin stealing guns. A standoff ensues, the SWAT team is called, and reports I got are that the cops arrived with armored vehicles and then called for National Guard assistance.

Local to me:

Armed looters are posing as power company employees, and attempting to enter homes.

I have armed myself, and my security cameras are recording nonstop. So far, we have received 6 inches of rain, winds are sustained at 35 miles per hour, gusting to 47.

TV is out, power has gone out twice, but come back on within a couple of minutes.

We have about 18 more hours of this.