Nashville Flood 2010: The Disaster You May Not Have Heard About | NewsBusters.org

Nashville Flood 2010: The Disaster You May Not Have Heard About | NewsBusters.org: "A great American city is currently buried under a sea of water, but you may not know much about it given all the attention media have given to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the failed car bomb attempt in New York's Times Square."

I think we can state categorically that Obama and the Feds were not there Day 1. It's been nearly a week.

What do you do for your family and community, if no help is coming?

Peak Water

Tavis Smiley . Guest Blogger . Freshwater Scarcity: The Greatest Crisis Most Americans Have Never Heard Of | PBS: "History teaches that a difficult adjustment lies ahead, just as it has whenever population levels and key resource bases have gotten unsustainably out of balance. The chief question is how much suffering the adjustment will entail, and which societies make the nimblest adaptations and emerge as world leaders and which will not and decline."

So humans are all bad and are sucking the planet dry and all that. Admitted, we are using a whole bunch of pretty wasteful techniques to farm and stuff and we can do better.

Upfront costs are a big deal for farmers, so I understand that we haven't gotten to the latest and greatest tools and techniques. That is one of the problems of being an innovator, you are often leap-frogged by those you learned from your mistakes.

So what can we do? We can do some things to deal with our own family's water security. While being in an apartment isn't great even a suburban home would be better.

A well would be nice but it is the aquifers that are being depleted. So that might not be a good long term solution. But it is a good short-term solution.

If you live near an ocean or the Great Lakes some kind of system to purify water like a solar still or something would be very handy.

Rainwater harvesting is another solution. Straight from the sky the water is pure enough but after catching it with your roof you'll want to filter out the bird poop and other things. A big container to hold it in and some plumbing and such.

This is not the most urgent thing to work on. This is a medium to long term issue to work on. But it is something to keep an eye on.

You should have some stored water in your home for water main breaks, flooding and the like. A way to purify untreated surface water and things like that.

Punishing Savers, Again - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Punishing Savers, Again - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine: "When President Obama took office, the personal savings rate for Americans was an anemic-but-getting-healthier 5 percent. That number peaked a year ago, and is now down to 2.8 percent. This drop is even more striking when you consider that asset prices have, until the beginning of this year, been dropping or flat almost across the board."

For some reason they don't even mention the fact that there are a lot of people out of work or underemployed and living off of savings.

China May ‘Crash’ in Next 9 to 12 Months, Faber Says (Update3) - Bloomberg.com

China May ‘Crash’ in Next 9 to 12 Months, Faber Says (Update3) - Bloomberg.com: "China is “on a treadmill to hell” because it’s hooked on property development for driving growth, Chanos said in an interview last month. As much as 60 percent of the country’s gross domestic product relies on construction, he said. Rogoff said in February a debt-fueled bubble in China may trigger a regional recession within a decade."

Well, why not them too.

I'd've thought they would have learned their lesson from everyone else on the planet doing that first.

Beef prices shoot up after harsh winter -

Beef prices shoot up after harsh winter -: "A harsh winter and cash-strapped ranchers — let's not forget commodity speculators — have reduced cattle herds and caused prices to shoot up nearly 25% since last year, the Financial Times reports. Expect that burger or steak to cost more in the months ahead, the meat experts say."

Another indication that food prices are going to rise for a while.

Will There Be Food Shortages?

Probably not outright shortages, but it looks like some foods will be more expensive then usual over then next little while.

The bees did not do to well this winter. It looks like we lost another third of the bees this winter, which has been happening since 2006.

And Roundup resistant weeds are spreading. Meaning more work for farmers which will have to charge more, to cover their costs.

The oil spill has pretty much shutdown the Gulf fisheries. California's Central Valley's water was shut off. The cooler then normal weather has reduced crop yields in many northern plains states. And ranchers have been encouraged to cull their herds for some time.

What can we do about it?

There are two things: Store inexpensive staples now and grow our own.

A lot of food is still quite inexpensive, so we might as well stock up now. It is a great inflation hedge and will help out in times of need. Just make sure you know how to cook it.

Start a garden. Get out there and plant some food for yourself. Learn the skills so if it does get bad you can feed yourself. It is a little late to start seeds but nurseries have plenty of plants for sale now.

How to Handle a Water Emergencies

What would you do if you opened the faucet and no water came out?
How long would you wait before going to the store to get water or other drinks?
Do you have any water at home, work, school or in your car to last at least a little while?

There are a couple of water emergencies going on over the weekend.
In Boston a major water main broke leaving 2 million people without water. Because of the loss of pressure the system is contaminated so they have to boil their water before drinking it.

Boiling water is very simple take a large pot of water and put it over high heat until it comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat and let it cool. Here in Denver with my stove we can get half a gallon of water to a boil in about 5 minutes. Then it takes about 2 hours for it to cool. 

The water will taste a little flat. To perk it up pour it between two clean containers a few times to aerate the water.

Alternatively you can filter the water. Understand those refrigerator and pitcher filters are mostly just activated charcoal and they deal with taste not contamination.
You need a filter with pores smaller then 1 micron to filter out spores and some filters go so small they even filter out viruses.

Stores are surging lots of bottled water in but it still takes time as everyone is doing the same thing, going to the store and buying bottled water.

Most people think to go first to the supermarket or megamart for bottled water, but lots of stores carry it. Convenience stores obviously, but I have also seen pallets of water and other drinks at home improvement, office supply stores and sporting good stores. 

Tennessee has a different problem. They are being flooded and one of their water treatment plants is underwater. They need to keep the pressure in the system about 20 psi or contamination can backflow into the system, requiring a purge. So the government is asking people to halve the amount of water they use, but not why. Now the problem is people are filling up all the containers they have, but since everyone is doing it, it is hard to keep the pressure up and the water might be getting contaminated.

It is best just to have a few cases of bottled water stored up before something happens. It is very cheap insurance to fill a few empty and clean soda bottles with water. I don't recommend using milk jugs since they are biodegradable and will start leaking in a few months.

• Keep at least 1 gallon/person/day on hand. 
• Keep it under the bathroom sink or other cool, dry place that won't freeze.
• Rotate semi-annually.