As in the news of the day section I have posted a few pictures and details of the typhoon over here in Hong Kong.
I thought a few of my lessons learned would be a good thing to type out, even though this is a homesteading/prepping forum and we all "think" we are prepared a bit more than the average Joe, there is always something to forget.
We have the usual preps for disasters, 30 days of food, medicine, batteries, etc...
but a few things we don't have, generator is the big one...we just cant have one over here, no place to buy and no place to hook it up. But we do have plenty of butane bottles and a small camp stove to run it. Solar power lights, batteries and all that. Thankfully we didn't lose power or water.
First lesson:
you always forget something, all of the things we thought we had...we didn't have enough lighters....simple butane lighters. two in the house total! But we do have a butane torch...
Second:
If you think it won't blow away....it will.
Tie everything down, the second we lost the rooftop canopy ( we knew we were going to lose it, it was 12 years old and in the sun) ...two 8 foot surfboards in their bags became flying missiles and landed 100 feet away!
140mph gusts WILL move 20lb steel weights holding down a table top.
Big potted plants will still slide across your rooftop and sound like a giant air hockey game is being played up there. That you being the brave man, will be tasked (ie: told) to go and try and catch said giant potted plant between gusts of wind...
Third:
Throw away your trash the day or two before...trash service will STOP until important things get back to normal.
We had a bag of trash in our bin from the day before...after two days in the house and outside in the stairwell...it got kind of stinky. See picture of trash pile below to understand why....
if this isn't picked up in the next few days, it's only going to get bigger and rats and other illness will start.
This is from this morning at 7:30am...My wife says it's growing....
Fourth:
Big cities are not the place to be!!
This should be first actually...After seeing the chaos of people trying to get back to work the following day even our small "suburb" would be walking death in a real major disaster. And my illegal 38 will only be good for the three of us to end our suffering....
This is seriously the day after the typhoon of all the idiots trying to get to work. I walked to the station to have a look and ran my ass back home. I made the executive decision and closed the restaurant for the day.
No way in hell would I go near something like this, nor expect my staff to go try and get through this!!
Fifth:
This is just in my general area that I noticed and not everywhere here....
Hong Kong people are lazy and refuse to look out for themselves or offer any help in cleaning up.
Today after going to the gym I walked through Tsim Sha Tsui area...the ones I noticed helping clean up and move branches and dangerous things out of the way?
The Indians, Nepalese, Africans and the Gwailos...hardly any local HK Chinese were offering any help whatsoever. They were all complaining that stores were closed and how put out they were during the typhoon.
Even in my village, my wife and I, our Swiss neighbor and the German neighbor and their wives and husband were out helping each other and others that needed heavy things moved or cut.
We DID notice a lot of domestic helpers out cleaning up though....
The lemming attitude of these people will be very dangerous in a really big disaster!
I thought a few of my lessons learned would be a good thing to type out, even though this is a homesteading/prepping forum and we all "think" we are prepared a bit more than the average Joe, there is always something to forget.
We have the usual preps for disasters, 30 days of food, medicine, batteries, etc...
but a few things we don't have, generator is the big one...we just cant have one over here, no place to buy and no place to hook it up. But we do have plenty of butane bottles and a small camp stove to run it. Solar power lights, batteries and all that. Thankfully we didn't lose power or water.
First lesson:
you always forget something, all of the things we thought we had...we didn't have enough lighters....simple butane lighters. two in the house total! But we do have a butane torch...
Second:
If you think it won't blow away....it will.
Tie everything down, the second we lost the rooftop canopy ( we knew we were going to lose it, it was 12 years old and in the sun) ...two 8 foot surfboards in their bags became flying missiles and landed 100 feet away!
140mph gusts WILL move 20lb steel weights holding down a table top.
Big potted plants will still slide across your rooftop and sound like a giant air hockey game is being played up there. That you being the brave man, will be tasked (ie: told) to go and try and catch said giant potted plant between gusts of wind...
Third:
Throw away your trash the day or two before...trash service will STOP until important things get back to normal.
We had a bag of trash in our bin from the day before...after two days in the house and outside in the stairwell...it got kind of stinky. See picture of trash pile below to understand why....
if this isn't picked up in the next few days, it's only going to get bigger and rats and other illness will start.
This is from this morning at 7:30am...My wife says it's growing....
Fourth:
Big cities are not the place to be!!
This should be first actually...After seeing the chaos of people trying to get back to work the following day even our small "suburb" would be walking death in a real major disaster. And my illegal 38 will only be good for the three of us to end our suffering....
This is seriously the day after the typhoon of all the idiots trying to get to work. I walked to the station to have a look and ran my ass back home. I made the executive decision and closed the restaurant for the day.
No way in hell would I go near something like this, nor expect my staff to go try and get through this!!
Fifth:
This is just in my general area that I noticed and not everywhere here....
Hong Kong people are lazy and refuse to look out for themselves or offer any help in cleaning up.
Today after going to the gym I walked through Tsim Sha Tsui area...the ones I noticed helping clean up and move branches and dangerous things out of the way?
The Indians, Nepalese, Africans and the Gwailos...hardly any local HK Chinese were offering any help whatsoever. They were all complaining that stores were closed and how put out they were during the typhoon.
Even in my village, my wife and I, our Swiss neighbor and the German neighbor and their wives and husband were out helping each other and others that needed heavy things moved or cut.
We DID notice a lot of domestic helpers out cleaning up though....
The lemming attitude of these people will be very dangerous in a really big disaster!
