I cannot help but be amused by this story that says “Searches for ‘Cords of Wood’ Hit Record as Cold Blast Chills Lower 48.” You shouldn’t have to be a prepper to know to store a year’s worth of firewood. Buying it at the last minute means you might get green wood that doesn’t burn well. Around here, some people store two or three years’ worth. I am currently burning wood we bought in August 2023.
Yes, it’s cold here. We’ve had snow. We’ve had temps in the teens, but we’ve also had some sunny days mixed in. I try to carry in the firewood on the sunny days. It can be quite comfortable when it is sunny and 22°F if you don’t wear flip-flops, shorts and a hoodie like so many people I see in the cities. When we lived in the South, we were always astounded at the number of people who didn’t own winter coats.
To have this lengthy cold spell in November and December is unusual, but it’s not unheard of. In any case, it’s 20 degrees warmer than the cold we experienced over Christmas 2022.
Not having sidewalks, paved roads, or a paved driveway means I don’t have to shovel snow. If it snows, we just stay home. We are snug and warm thanks to the wood stove.
Lake Effect Snow
We are too far south to experience lake effect snow, which is caused when wind over the great lakes absorbs moisture from the warmer water below and then releases it as snow over land, but I have lived in the places that did. I don’t recall four or five feet of snow, as the news reported, but a foot or two was not unusual. Many a night I had to put on ski pants and giant snow boots to walk the dog before I went to bed. I don’t miss that kind of snow.
I’ve seen multiple videos of trucks and cars trapped on roads and highways in New York and Pennsylvania. Snow was predicted for days, with plenty of warnings about disrupting travel over the Thanksgiving weekend. I guess if it didn’t make it on TikTok, some people won’t hear about it.
We stayed local for the holiday, traveling half an hour to celebrate with friends. I hope none of my readers are inconvenienced by weather over this holiday. If you were, I hope you were prepared with food, water, and blankets in your vehicle.
Dealing with FEMA
Over Thanksgiving, we heard of a family who got $5,000 from FEMA. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Except the cost of their repairs was $25,000. This marks only the third person I know of that has gotten any money out of them.
We have been dealing with FEMA and getting nowhere. Our claim was rejected, so we appealed. We were told to submit any receipts for chainsaws or generators. We already had both, like many around here. Maybe they’ll reimburse us for our new, larger generator.
Here’s laugh: The FEMA representatives and others we have dealt with from various relief agencies don’t know what it means to ford a river. When we say our ford was washed out, the think we mean we lost a vehicle in the flood. We have to explain that a ford is a place where you drive across the river or stream, and yes, your tires get wet. That’s why we started to call it a land bridge.
Some inspectors don’t even have four-wheel drive. You won’t get up our hill without it, even before it snowed.
My neighbor had his claim rejected because he didn’t respond when they tried to reach out to him via phone. That’s because he has no phone or Internet because the liens are down. Likewise, he has no cell phone coverage because of where we live, but that doesn’t matter to FEMA; they are not used to the idea that people in this day and age live outside of cell phone coverage areas.
He comes down to our place occasionally to make phone calls and surf the web on his iPad.
More FEMA Fun
To give you an idea of government regulation gone wrong, I have heard FEMA is refusing to put FEMA trailers on land where houses were washed away. Why? Because after the flood, the area is now considered a flood zone and therefore not eligible for a trailer. So a place where people lived in for decades is unsafe for a trailer, which is by definition moveable. And by the way, FEMA, hurricane season is over.
Apparently, there are also issues because the trailers don’t have running water and sewer hookups, likely because the resident’s septic field was washed away in the flood and the water contaminated the well. The only good news is that people in tents are not being kicked out. Yet. (I expect most of the tent campers are peeing in the woods.)
Flood Damage
Many of the people who lost houses also lost vehicles. In other cases, tractors and other equipment were swept away. I have seen Ford F550s with dump truck bodies smashed into trees and bent out of shape by the water.
The video below shows damage in parts of Tennessee and into North Carolina. I’ve been to Roan Mountain, Tn., where the video starts, but I haven’t even heard of most of the towns it mentions. What you are seeing is how things are two months after the flood. This is the cleaned up, repaired view. Note the narrowness of the streams and then look at how wide the flood plane was. I drive by our small streams and rivers and I have a hard time believing they had that much water in them.
You will see two kinds of debris piles: one, piles of tree trunks, vehicles and building materials washed into big piles by the river like the image below; and two, piles of furniture, home goods, and wallboard and flooring torn out of flooded buildings and piled by the side of the road for collection.
The scenes from the video are very similar to how things look around here. Yes, cleanup is underway and lots of road repairs have been done, but extensive damage remains.
