Some Assembly Required – Natural Disasters

As I write this, hurricane Helene has caused massive damage in the mountains of NC to the west of me and a Category 5 hurricane is bearing down on Florida. I think it would be a little tone deaf to write about the ins and outs of my restoration when so many people have had their lives turned upside down, due to a natural disaster. This causes me to think about my personal preparedness in the event that a natural disaster strikes near me and to think about some common ideas we may all have about planning in case things go very badly. For my entire career I worked in nuclear power generation. One facet of our safety culture was to always ask “what is the worst thing that could happen”. This kind of thought process could lead to some interesting decision making, for complicated tasks and for simple ones. I do remember working at the nuclear plant upriver from Seneca, SC where one of my civil engineering friends was upset. “They just decided that we need to plan for a 48″ rainfall in a 24 hour period!” Well, we both thought that was pretty inconceivable but now I am not so sure. When faced with that design directive, we discovered quite a few things around the plant that needed to be improved if this type of rainfall were to happen. And if you start to look at your home or work environment with this mindset, you may want to make some changes also.

Most of us carry insurance on our homes, our lives, and our automobiles. This is prudent and is a way to mitigate risk. I insure my older “collector” cars with Hagerty. Hagerty offers “agreed value” insurance, which means if there is a total loss, you don’t have to haggle over what the car was worth right before it suddenly became worthless! Most of my cars are not really collectable and the world would not come to a stop if any of them were destroyed in a natural disaster. Still, I would like to keep them out of harm’s way if possible.

Frankly, the biggest risk to our cars probably comes from driving them. I would think that fire might be the next most likely hazard, as they are kept full of gasoline and stored in garages with other flammable materials. A fellow right down the road from me lost his 60’s Camaro to a garage fire. I actually have an internet connected fire detector in my garage. There can be some false alarms in that environment but I can live with that in return for an early warning if a fire were to break out.

So floods are not really something that I have worried about in the past. A big tree falling on my shop? Yes, that is always a possibility. But not floods. But man, if 2 feet of water got dumped on my property, I suspect my shop and storage building would flood. It is something to think about, when you ask yourself what is the worst thing that could happen.

Again, losing a car to a natural disaster pales in comparison to the devastation that we see in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. It is going to take a long time for those folks to rebuild their homes, workplaces, and communities. If you were fortunate to avoid damage yourself, consider yourself fortunate and think about how you can help those people in need. Stay safe.