This is a Test…

Create an emergency preparedness plan.

I’ve had a couple brushes with emergency plans in the past, some of which I’ve documented on my podcast, Audio Chimera. When exploring the building where Thom McAn was housed, my manager and I followed the pneumatic tube system up and down, and discovered the bomb shelter materials stored in the basement. That included blankets, water (not necessarily for drinking), crackers, and a Geiger counter alongside a Civil Defense helmet. I guess the last item was to show those cowering in darkness who was in charge. (AC Episode #10.)

In 1979, when the Three Mile Island reactor was headed for a meltdown, I was working in radio and monitoring the Emergency Broadcast System while simultaneously playing happy music. That night my job included serving up irony by maintaining the illusion of normalcy. Eventually it all worked out. (AC Episode #16.)

As the turn of the century approached, when we were supposed to be partying like it was 1999, we instead feared the Y2K bug. Since early programmers allowed for storage of dates only as XX/XX/XX, everyone thought the addition of four numbers for dates would cause a worldwide catastrophe. (I guess programmers thought 2000 was too far off to worry about, like me seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey and thinking it was sooo far in the future to almost be unimaginable.) As a contingency, I stored water to flush the toilet; that was my greatest fear, that water flow might be interrupted. Other people bought generators in case the electric power grid went down, and others stored food. I know of one person who bought a generator (but never hooked it up), and hoarded toilet paper and Dinty Moore Beef Stew. The latter may have kept them alive (although perhaps eaten cold out of the can?) but may also have killed them due to the salt content.

In the end, Y2K came and went without major incident, and we moved effortlessly into the 21st century—at least until 9/11/2001.

After the war began in Ukraine in 2022, we began keeping some extra provisions in the wine cellar. The room is hardly radiation proof, but at least we’ll be able to eat—and drink (after all, it is the wine cellar)—until our flesh would melt off, if Putin decides to send some nukes our way.

Did you read flippant doubt in that comment? Good for you. I still approach the future with cautious optimism, and think the human race will survive, though the birth of the future will be (is being?) accompanied with a great deal of painful contractions.