Saffir-Simpson Scale OR Surge - Why not BOTH?

Houston's ABC Weatherman, Tim Heller, blogged:

[T]he National Hurricane Center has removed all references to storm surge from the Scale. I think they should reconsider that decision. Since the public is familiar with the Saffir-Simpson Scale, NHC should leave the Scale alone, but change how it is used: rank hurricanes based on the wind speed OR storm surge, whichever is the greatest threat.

Using this method, Hurricane Ike would have been ranked a category four hurricane based on storm surge.

It's Tim Heller's second post; I had already commented on his first post on this subject, but when he posted the above again -- clarifying that under the proposed new hurricane rating system -- Hurricane Ike would have been classified as a cat4 hurricane. I didn't fully understand that at first, so I commented on the original post again. Below is what I commented the 2nd time:

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I commented on this post earlier, but didn't fully understand the "OR whichever's worse part", but Tim explained it again in the 2nd related post:

"change how it is used: rank hurricanes based on the wind speed OR storm surge, whichever is the greatest threat.

"Using this method, Hurricane Ike would have been ranked a category four hurricane based on storm surge."

I will explain why I think Ike as a Cat4 would have been stupid, and caused another Rita Evac mini-disaster:

I live in SE Houston, in Zone C, which is only mandatory evac for cat4+. I am well above sea level and did not get any water in my home during Ike.

But if Ike had been rated a cat4, our entire Zone C area would have been mandatory evac for no other reason than this new proposed method of EITHER/OR.

Need I remind ANYONE that more people died in Rita's evacuation than the area that Rita actually struck?

SURGE is for people close to the coast and large-connected waterways.

WIND is for people further inland.

With as much technology as the weather folks have, and most have very high degrees, I find it VERY difficult to believe that having BOTH surge and wind categories to be too difficult, especially when the occasional weird storm like Ike would cause unnecessary evacuations.

We need BOTH, not either/or.

Thank you.

Hamburger Pemmican Experiment - 1b

I put the boiled hamburger into a baggie; there were lots of large and medium sized chunks. Later on, before putting the hamburger into the dehydrator, I used a coffee mug to mash up the chunks before taking it all out of the baggie. I only have one plastic liner for leathers/barks, so I used a regular tray as a guide to cut out some big circles from parchment. I ended up using 3 trays, but probably should have done 4, since five pounds (minus 2 hamburger patties for dinner) was crowded on 3 trays. I still had a few smallish chunks after putting it all onto the trays, so I mashed those down with a fork.

About ten hours later, hubby put the dehydrated hamburger into a baggie for me, then put it in the fridge. I'm not sure it needed to be in the fridge since it was bone dry by then, but we had room, and why take chances.

Today I poured the baggie of dehydrated hamburger into the blender, and used the highest setting to ground it up. I did this in batches since it looked like it would be too much to do it all at once. When it was all ground up, it looked like a cross between ground coffee and chocolate cake mix, except not quite as dark.

I had poured all the broth into a sherbet container, and put it in the fridge. When I took it out, the top layer of fat was harder than I imagined (I've never worked with such a large amount of beef fat, only chicken which is softer even when chilled). I ran a butter knife around the inner edges of the container, then use the butter knife to stab the fat in the middle, while holding the sherbet container over my rice cooker.

I thought it was pretty cool when the solid piece of fat stayed on the butter knife, while the gelatinous broth fell cleanly into the rice cooker LOL. There was a little gunk on the bottom layer of fat, which I rinsed off with tap water (it's hot today, so the water was already a little warm, which helped wash the gunk off without melting the fat).

I added a bit of water to the broth to bring it up the next level (4), then added 4 cupfuls of rice (my rice cooker came with its own cup that correlates with the raised measurement lines in the rice cooker), and turned it on.

I put the hamburger fat in the electric skillet to make sure it didn't have anymore liquid in it, and after it heated for a while I poured it into a measuring cup -- 1 3/8 cup. I measured 1 3/8 cup of dehydrated hamburger, then lined a cookie sheet with foil, and spread out the hamburger on it, then slowly poured the fat over it while slightly mixing with a large spoon. As I was mixing and spreading everything around, it reminded me of spreading warmed chocolate chips over toffee. I took a small taste and it was very bland, so I sprinkled about 1/4 tsp salt over it.

It looked pretty greasy once it was mixed up and spread out, but I put it in the freezer so it would harden more quickly. I hope I didn't misunderstand the directions about putting equal amounts of fat and meat in -- maybe it meant weight instead of volume?

Since putting it in the freezer, I played Mafia Wars, then came here to update the experiment series, and just checked on it in the freezer -- it setup really fast! I used a butterknife to score it into small pieces about 1/2" x 1". I tasted one, and it was greasy and crunchy, but at least the salt made it taste better. I don't see either of us eating these by themselves like we did with the hamburger jerky I made before evacuating Hurricane Rita -- that was yummy. The only thing I see us using this pemmican in is meat sauces, rice dishes, or beans.

One other thing I didn't consider when I decided to try making pemmican: The main reason I want shelf-stable meats is that we occasionally lose power where I live, even if a hurricane hasn't struck near us. If we have no power, then it gets pretty hot, and the fat in the pemmican would seperate from the dried meat, oops!

So after I package it up into meal-sized portions, it's going to stay in the freezer in case of power loss. At least it will take a few days before the freezer warms up enough to separate the fat from the dried meat (I insulate the fridge/freezer if power goes out). Mabye the Indians that used pemmican lived in a cooler climate 8^)

I'll blog later about how it went after using the pemmican in a recipe.

Meanwhile, the rice finished, cooled enough to put the inner pot of the rice cooker in the fridge, and later I'll put the rice into one-gallon baggies for the freezer, ala Biggie's freezer storage tip, so all I'll have to do is thaw rice for dinner over the next few weeks.

Ready to Survive a 90-day Quarantine?

Preparedness Pro blogged: Ready to Survive a 90-day Quarantine? It was quite an eye-opening article about the many ways people would need to be prepared in case of a 90 day quarantine, including scenarios we might not think of.

While I agree that everyone should try to be prepared for most foreseeable disasters, I had some questions and comments for her that ended up being too long. So Here's my long comment (and I'll link this blog post in her comments as a manual "trackback"):

Are there any recent or proposed protocols for quarantining various types of locations (big cities, ports, less-populated areas)? If so, are there different levels of whichever protocol might apply, such as: very contagious, but only lethal to young/old/immuno-suppressed; or mildy contagious, but more lethal across the board; or very contagious, and highly lethal D/T cytokine storm? <-I just made those up, perhaps there's already different levels with better names.

Anyway, hopefully there's some kind of realistic protocol based on our current population that considers the different levels of threats. The swine-flu threat took a bit too long before they tried to contain it IMO, even though it turned out not to be as lethal as it was first thought (like it was in Mexico). But once they actually closed some schools, some were closed for quite a while even after they realized the threat wasn't as bad as we feared (although I don't know each locations death rates, so the amount of time might have been justified).

Even if they just "wing it", making protocols up in real time, I'm guessing only certain areas of the country might be looking at the possibility of a full-blown quarantine lasting a full 90 days. Look at China during SARS -- it had a fairly high death rate, yet people still ventured out, albeit with masks and gloves.

But! Even if a partial quarantine happens in your area, don't be too lulled into thinking gloves and a mask will give 100% protection, even if it's an N95. When I first trained at the hospital, they spent extra time on new healthcare workers on wearing TB masks properly. She had a spray that smelled very sweet that she'd spray near the edges of our mask. If we could smell sweet, then we would have been exposed to TB. None of us new healthcare workers in our group got it right the first time!

Also, I'm pretty sure I caught rotovirus from a pedi patient! I had cared for, or assisted with IV, for many roto pedis, so it wasn't like I was inexperienced. But even though we tried very hard to always glove and wash our hands very good with roto patients, I had diarrhea the next morning. I helped hold the pedi during IV insertion, and it was difficult just like it always was with stout toddlers or kids. And I was gloved, but I got sick anyway. So despite training, certain situations will put people at risk (fighting, or not wearing masks properly), even with gloves or masks.

Hamburger Pemmican Experiment - 1a

The hamburger broth with fat cooled enough that I could pour it through a strainer without risk of burning myself, and it's now in the fridge with the meat. I'm thinking of pouring boiling water through the meat to get rid of whatever fat is left, but I'm not really sure if that's necessary, since I'll be adding fat back into it later on after dehydrating and powdering it in the blender. But since traditional pemmican used lean meat for the jerky, it will only take a few extra minutes to make sure there's no fat like with the traditional way.

Meanwhile, I checked on the broth a few minutes ago, and the sides of the container were still slightly warm. So I looked for the dehydrator, and found stuff on it, some of which needed to be thrown away. Then I got distracted outside, and visited with the neighbor (who told me where they buy their used cars from, and they're also a decent mechanic too, yay) while I swept the mowed grass on the sidewalks into piles to mulch my little raised bed garden later on after I put another bag of potting soil on, and some rabbit manure.

All the semi-wild, and tamed cats actually stuck around, probably because the yard was finally mowed (don't let gas/oil mix sit in lawn mowers too long!) So I had to tickle a lot of tummies after sweeping grass. Then I rode my bike because I'm still way out of shape from sitting around sick last year.

Maybe the broth will be chilled and separated after I wash the dehydrator, rinse the hamburger in boiling water, then setup the hamburger on the dehydrating trays.

Hamburger Pemmican Experiment - 1

I've read a few articles about how to make pemmican, and it seems like rendering the fat and grinding the dehydrated meat make it difficult. I remember reading on some OAMC sites that some people boil their hamburger, then pour off the water and fat so they can use just the hamburger in their bulk recipes.

So I'm thinking that if I boiled hamburger, drained the water and fat into a container that was put into the fridge, that I could easily scrape off the fat once it had risen, then have leftover broth for soup or beans.

Meanwhile I could dehydrate the hamburger, and since it was pre-ground, it might be easier to grind once dehydrated.

I used a five pound tube of 73/27 hamburger that hubby bought from Walmart -- minus two medium sized burgers. I think that's their fattest hamburger blend, which is good, since I hope to have as much fat as dehydrated hamburger.

I put the hamburger into my electric skillet along with about 1/4 cup of soy sauce, then broke it up with a wooden spoon (skillet is non-stick). I then topped it with water I had boiled in the kettle, to within 1/2 inch of the top. I set the temperature as high as it would go -- 400F -- covered it, and stayed nearby until it boiled. I washed breakfast dishes, and the wooden spoon I had used to break up the hamburger while waiting.

It didn't take very long to boil since I had added boiling water; it boiled over a little, and I had to be quick with the paper towels to clean up the boiled over mess. I uncovered it and lowered the temperature to simmer, and broke up the meat again, since it had big chunks in it that had pink in the middle.

I let it simmer longer at around 220F to get rid of the pink, and washed the wooden spoon and plastic slotted spoon I used to break up the bigger chunks. I'm guessing it simmered for about 20 minutes longer.

I used a plastic spoon to remove the bigger chunks (not as big as the first group I had broken up, but about meatball sized), and place them into a colander draining over a large glass bowl. Once I removed most of the hamburger chunks I could easily get to, I put the colander and drain bowl into the fridge. Then I covered the broth and fat with the smaller bits of hamburger to let it cool down before I do a pour-strain, since I usually burn myself if I don't let the liquid cool down a bit first.

What to scan for Emergency USB

An extremely well-written Katrina memoir includes a list of great suggestions to keep handy for bugging out. Most of those could be scanned and stored on an encrypted USB (or two).

LISTENING TO KATRINA - HYST - Documents

HYST = Have Your S*** Together

Take a peek at his entire memoir too. It's amazing he's able to write this so humorously about such a dire situation as Hurricane Katrina. But he pulls it off. Two pages prior to this page, he wrote about large populations trying to evacuate all at once. Been there, done that! Yes, I was in the Rita evacuation, and completely agree with him that bugging out/evacuating is dreadful -- we saw so many serious car accidents, so I really shouldn't complain, but it wasn't something I'd repeat unless my life were actually in danger, instead of possibly. More people died in the evacuation than died where Rita actually landed.

PS: We don't have a laptop, but hubby removed our hard-drive to bring with us during our Rita evac. Yes, we realized we couldn't just put it into any computer and have it run, but we would be able to access our saved files.