I Survived a Tornado 🌪️

Subtitle: this is why you absolutely MUST be a prepper, IMO.

➡️ Could you make it through a grid down situation?

➡️ Even in small, homespun communities you can have crime and looters.

➡️ The authorities decide the priorities, not you.

➡️ When the stores re-open, you may be surprised at how little is there.

➡️ Are you prepared for mandatory curfews and members of law enforcement and the military ensuring you obey the edicts?

Links:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125110/13781130

Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Transcript

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. Today's episode will be different from the norm because I'm in a situation that is different from the norm. I survived a tornado. And I intend to take a few minutes each day to update you on the progress or lack thereof. Because it's so important, in my opinion, as I always say, I don't give you advice. I don't tell you what to do or what not to do. I opine for your entertainment only. And that's it. You have to make your own best decisions in this life and do what you can for yourself and your family. In my opinion, everybody should be a prepper. At this point, I recorded an entire episode about that exact topic. And I know going into this that there will be plenty of people who tune out and don't listen. As I've said many times before, if I recorded an episode about FOMO, and Yolo f your job, if your boss just quit, just walk off, it's whatever, who cares, you'll find something don't worry 10s of 1000s of downloads. But if I sit here and I talk about prepping and how important it is to be prepared for whatever, a job market crash, a silent depression, an economic crash, a natural disaster, some force majeure act of God situation. People don't want to hear that. No, no, no, no. Nevertheless, it's still an important message that needs to be said. And it needs to be said over and over and over again for that one person that wakes up and clues in and says, I might have been caught with my pants down this time. But I am not going to allow that to happen again. So I'm recording this part of the broadcast on Sunday, May 26. What a way to spend Memorial Day weekend when so many people are cooking out drinking beer, or they're going to a cemetery to honor a loved one or a veteran who died in action. Here we are in the aftermath of a tornado. What fun. So last night slash the early hours of this morning is when it all erupted. And all day yesterday, which was Saturday. There were a number of tornado watches and warnings that went out throughout the Midwest and the South. Basically all day through Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, etc. The threat of bad weather was present. For us, it hit later. Along about 10 o'clock was the time to tune into the meteorologist and really keep a close eye on the weather because it was starting to look dicey. We had to seek shelter at about 1115 The storm like the tornado warned storm hit us about I'm gonna say maybe 1130 1140 Somewhere in there. But we needed that extra time. Because you've got to get everybody rounded up. The farm animals had already been put up they were in the safest possible place that they could be. And I will tell you upfront, thank God, they all survived. Nobody's injured. Nobody died. Thank God for that. But in terms of getting the family and the dogs into a safe area that takes a little bit of time, especially in the evening like that. We were tired. Everybody was ready to go to bed. And it was like oh god, oh, no, no, we gotta go do this. So we got into shelter and I don't even know what all noises that we heard. I'm honestly not sure. Torrential rain. Yes, I suspect hail. But some of the other things. I don't even know what it was that we heard. I fully expected to come out and find Windows busted. Doors may have been blown open. I mean, I was really prepared for something terrible. Again, thank God our property damage was minimal. Some limbs down things outside blown around. But it wasn't like the roof came off the all of the windows shattered nothing like that. In other parts of town that did happen to people there are buildings with the roofs gone. Huge. I mean he Huge trees that have been completely uprooted, tons of power lines down. Nobody in the area has electricity. And there's really not a firm ETA on when power is going to largely be restored. Naturally, they're going to triage the situation. So the hospitals, I mean, I think some of the major emergency response type of places, first responders, like the hospitals, the fire station, the police station, the courthouse, I think those places have backup power anyway. So for example, if someone had a heart attack or stroke, they could still go to the hospital, but they're going to triage where the power comes back. And I feel like this is a really important point for prepping. You may be in a part of town, that's not on the same electrical grid with the hospital, or the police station, or the fire station. It may take days, it may take weeks, depending on the severity of a situation for your electricity to be restored. Do you have a game plan for that? People love to rip on preppers. That's just a bunch of Chicken Little The sky is falling, doom and gloom. I saw somebody write an article the other day, I think it was on substack or medium. And he was like these preppers have been saying the economy was going to collapse for so long. We're all desensitized to it. And I thought, yeah, you are. And then when the ES HTF happens, God help You mean they say he looks out after children and fools. I hope that's true. Because you're going to need all the help you can get. People want to mock preppers until a situation like this happens. And it's like, well, the prepper at least has a box van and a television, the prepper can eat the prepper has water, the prepper can take a bath. So you see what I'm saying. It's all fun and games, until something actually goes wrong. And then it's like, well, dammit, we don't have anything, we don't have any provisions. I'd rather sit and eat military rations, those Coast Guard life saving protein bars, add water and stir the nigga without I'd rather have water I can drink period, water that safe for us to take a bath in something is better than nothing. The onus is on you to take care of yourself. If you think that society is going to help you, you think that the government is going to help you. You think that there's going to be shiny, happy people holding hands in a disaster. Good luck. Let me tell you something in my community. And I'm not saying this is a point of pride, believe me, I'm saying it as a source of embarrassment. And I'm also telling it to you so that you can wake the f up in my community, whether nation showed a video of people in a street fight. They cued it up by saying something like Well, normally natural disasters bring out the best in everybody and communities come together and people want to rally together and help each other. But that's not always the case. And they showed a group of people in a street fight. I'm thinking a Public Enemy, you better wake up and smell the real flavor. Yeah, you had better because some of these people that you think are your buddies might not necessarily be that helpful to you. In a true grid down emergency situation. In fact, some of them might just want to mooch off of you. tempers are running high. It's hot, it's humid. I was thinking earlier, at least this happened at a time when we're not having to go out every few hours and break ice so that the animals can get a drink. I mean, sometimes you have to just thank the Lord for small miracles, it could be worse, could be a hell of a lot better, but it could be worse. But it's hot. So that adds to the tension. It creates a tinderbox kind of situation. You gotta get your mind right, whether you live in an area that's prone to tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, a grid down situation that could happen to any of us. The electrical system getting overloaded, some kind of deliberate sabotage. Here's the thing, we kept power, even through a tornado warning storm, we kept power.

And we thought we were going to be really damn lucky. So we get back in. We start looking around, make sure that the barn is still there. Our roof is still there, the windows are still intact, et cetera. And we're like okay, we there's some limbs down, stuffs been blown around outside but all the animals are safe. We're safe. The house is still standing. Thank God. It We got ready to go back to bed along about 1230, the power goes off and kaboom. We're like, oh, no, oh, no. Oh, no. So earlier this morning, the people with emergency management, were talking about how all the substations are down, they're going to start trying their process of getting the hospitals, the police station, the fire station, the little area there, where the ambulances are, they're going to try to get all of that back up and running first, then they will start a process of deciding where to tackle in town, in the cities in the country, et cetera. And I'm like, The Who knows who the hell knows how long we're going to have to sit out here. And make do, but that's what it's about. When this hit, what it boiled down to was, wherever you were, when this storm hit is where you were going to be whatever you had on hand, already, whatever provisions, whatever preps that you already had on hand. That's what you're hung with. So if you had nothing if you had no food in the house that doesn't require any kind of preparation other than maybe add water and stir. You're up the creek without a paddle. Take whatever opportunities you can as learning opportunities and look for gaps in your preps. It's a lot easier to get by, in my experience anyway, in situations like this, if you have things that are easy, you don't have to open and shut the refrigerator a lot, especially if you don't have a generator. Now if I'm talking to you, and you've got a whole home generator that runs on natural gas, and you're on Easy Street, Mazel Tov, that's great. If you don't, then you're going to have to think about what what do I have on hand that's going to require little or no cooking preparation, maybe add water and stir maybe not even that peanut butter sandwiches, can chicken pouches or cans of tuna, and so on. Hopefully, when I record my next update, it'll be good news. Time will tell. Today it is Tuesday, May 28. So we do have electricity again, ah, imagine angels strumming their hearts and flying around with cute little cherubic faces, you definitely come to realize how dependent we are on modern conveniences and our creature comforts when those things are rapidly taken away from you. Now, things have really shifted into dealing with the aftermath of the storm. Because it's not as though everything is back to normal, not by a mile. I will say that the city has done a better job than what I expected. Because it's a small community. We have a lot of people that are in rural areas. I just wasn't expecting that things would move as quickly as they did. I had told the family based on what we saw last year, there was a really bad storm on Father's Day last year. And there were people without power for a week or two in some cases, and they were calling the news station saying they felt like they had been totally abandoned and forgotten about. I told the family we need to be prepared for a scenario like that. One thing that I'm going to say straight away, do you have a backup power supply? I understand that people don't like to imagine grid down situations. They don't like to think about long term widespread power outages. But this day and age you have to we've had it good for a long time. And we've really imagined American exceptionalism. And the idea that we would never this is like people that say we would never have another 2008 We would just never have a grid down situation. We would never have long term power outages have been lower problem. But then people who've been through a natural disaster can tell you that, actually, it can happen. It could happen tomorrow could happen today. For whatever reason. 2024 has been a stormy year. This is the kind of spring slash summer where every single day, there's a chance of thunderstorms. It's basically like here in the Midwest, we're living in a swamp. It's crazy. It's hot, it's humid and every single day. We have chances of thunderstorms and not garden variety showers, but severe tornadic thunderstorms. It stormed again this morning. But fortunately, we kept power. So I have Wi Fi. It's comfortable in the house again. Believe me it got very stuffy but it's comfortable in the house again, and we're all right. Nobody's injured. Nobody's in the hospital. Thank God for all of that. But now the focus is on trying to put all of the pieces back back together again, because there are still swathes of the town that are not back to normal. So as I mentioned, do you have a backup power supply? If you don't? And I always say I don't tell you what to do or what not to do, I opine for your entertainment only. And that's it. If we were a couple of friends sitting around at the bar, and this topic came up, I'd say, you know, if I were you, I would really, really think about if I could afford some type of backup power supply. Again, whether that's solar generated gas or propane dependent, doesn't have to be some $30,000. Whole house generator rig, it can be something that you take out into the yard, you store it somewhere in your garage, maybe or in a barn or shop area. And then you can wheel it out, you have to keep things that are fuel supplied away from the house, it has to have enough area outside away from windows and doors so you don't get carbon monoxide poisoning. Can you figure out something? Is there something that you can do so that you can plug in things like your refrigerator if you have a deep freeze being able to plug that in. So if you squirreled food away, you're going to be able to keep that and it's not going to all spoil during a long term power outage? Will you be able to plug in a television to stay weather aware, charge up cell phones charge up a computer or a tablet, hook your Wi Fi up. If you're in the middle of a downpour or a tornado, obviously, you're not going to be going outside and setting up a generator at that point in time. If you have satellite internet or satellite television, it's not going to work during a downpour or tornado anyway, more than likely, there may be a period of time where it's just not safe for you to be outside messing with the generator. If it were me, I would simply want to contemplate whether I could find and afford a resource like that. I know that some of you will laugh and think that I'm being hyperbolic when I say this, having some sort of backup power supply and the fuel to put in it. If that's applicable, if you're not talking about something that's solar powered or battery powered. That could mean the difference between life or death, the ability for you to cool or heat your house in some way. If the power goes out in inclement weather, if you're dependent on oxygen or a CPAP, you have to think about what would happen in a grid down situation. Nobody likes to I get it, but you have to. So as of right now in my community, about 65% of the power outages have been fixed. However, that still leaves 35%. I would assume people that are probably out even farther than we are that live even more rural than we do are probably the ones that are still affected. There's a curfew going on. And it will persist for at least another week. They're having to figure out what to do with GreenWaste. I think for the most part roads have been cleared. And by that I mean main roads and highways i It's my understanding that there's still some like city streets and rural roads that have not been cleared. So in some cases, entire trees have been uprooted and are still down. Trash is not going to run for a period of time. I don't think they've decided yet how long that people will be without trash service. But that's something else that we don't really think about. We don't think about who's going to pick up all of my refuse in an emergency situation. There are some areas that are just simply blocked off. This is another reason for the curfew because they don't want a bunch of looky loos they don't want people going around the emergency barriers. There is a town it's actually like two towns over from us to the east. Because it hit us and it just continued going east. It was an EF three. So for those of you that are familiar with the Fujita scale, it was an EF three here. Then it was an EF one in a couple of other places to the east. Then it picked up momentum somehow and it was an EF three by the time it got into Rogers, Arkansas. So we're not talking about oh, it was a little wind. Oh, it was a little hail. You're just being dramatic. It was an EF three tornado. And allow me to assure you it was really freaking scary.

So when a town about two towns over to the east from us, they're in even worse shape. They have even more power outages. In fact, the entire town 100% of that town is still without power. Their water system has also gone down so they're completely without water. There are a handful of stores in the area that are back open again. As you can imagine the shelves are pretty bare. A lot of people have already been in there buying whatever they can find. So things like bottled water or jugs of purified water are coming out of major Premium they're having to bus and truck those items in from other communities that weren't impacted by the tornado. So now we're in this mode of having to deal with the normal resources and the normal tools not being available. Things like the feed store for your animals, the grocery store, a Walmart, places to buy gasoline, places to get water. Not even Mickey D's is open. A lot of people think well, I would just go and take all of my meals at McDonald's. What are you going to do if the McDonald's doesn't have any power? I think people have this false perception that Walmart's and McDonald's will be open no matter what a zombie apocalypse could happen, and you still be able to go get a Big Mac or be able to go to Walmart and get cheap stuff there. It's, that's not always the case. You may walk into the Walmart and find there's no bottled water, everything in the frozen section has been thrown away because of the power outage, and it's not safe to sell anymore. Wouldn't be safe to consume anyway, if you could get your hands on it. I know Believe me, I know that these episodes about prepping have low viewership. People don't want to hear it. They tune out. Oh, shouldn't talking about prepping? Again, I hate that I don't want to think about that. Just imagine me pleading with you and imploring you to really think wherever this message finds you whatever part of the country or some other country that you might be living in. Please consider what your options are. What can you afford to do? What are you capable of doing? Even if that is nothing more than canned goods. Having canned tuna, and some chicken noodle soup on hand, in an emergency is better than having nothing. You don't have to spend buku bucks on these really high priced meals that say the last 30 or 40 years if you can afford to get meals like that. That's great. But a lot of us with inflation being the way that it is right now you have to work twice as hard to make half as much and then the half as much that you get doesn't go half as far as it should. If you can afford to spend $100 For what maybe 15 of those freeze dried meals that say they'll last for 40 years, I get it. Can you get canned tuna, canned chicken, chicken noodle soup, it might not be the sexiest meal that you've ever had to open it up and eat it straight out of the can with no judging up no heating up nothing. I mean, a can of chicken noodle soup at room temperature is not the sexiest meal I've ever had. But we ate peanut butter sandwiches, things like that. Things that will keep on the shelf so that they're not necessarily dependent on refrigeration. If you have a generator, and you can plug the refrigerator in, you have more options, because you don't have to throw all of your food away. And you can have things that are cool. If the power goes out, when it's hot as hell, you're going to be really grateful for being able to put bottles of water into the refrigerator, you're going to be grateful for things like yogurt, cheese, popsicles. Please think about these things ahead of time. I mentioned in a previous episode, my contacts within the intelligence community are telling me that it could get very dicey, the closer that we get to the election. I do not know what's going to happen and don't pretend to know. What I do know is that these people have never steered me wrong if they said that poop was getting ready to hit the fan in some way. Every single time. They've told me that it's come true. As much as I would love to go up to Boston and be tourist for a day and walk around through the JFK Library. I don't know that I'm gonna get there this year. And I sure as hell I'm not gonna go as we get closer to November. There's just no way. Now we've got to deal with the tornado and the aftermath of the tornado. And every day, it's a storm. There have been days where it's actually been clear here and I've looked at it would be storming Boston, like we can't go now. Crazy times that we're living in. Please be safe. Please think about things ahead of time. If you wait for a disaster to strike, it's too late to prepare. The preparation has to happen beforehand. Today it is Wednesday, May 29. We still have electricity, thank God. The areas that took a direct hit from the tornado do not and there's no estimate as to when they will be back up and functioning again. A lot of homes and buildings are decimated. There's still a lot of GreenWaste entire trees that were uprooted and tossed around. Branches, limbs etc. Power Poles and power lines that are down here. A few businesses have reopened, Mickey D's is back open, Walmart is back open. As you can imagine any place that's fully functional right now is covered up. As I warned you, though, a lot of the basic necessity items are out. So if you went up there looking for canned goods, or bottled water, you would be out of luck. I think this is another reason why it's so important to prep, and to have certain items on hand at all possible times. So that in a worst case scenario, if you need it to function as your own grocery store for a period of time, you could and you wouldn't be completely without drinkable water, a way to clean yourself, food, etc. Because you can't always count on the stores to be available. And the aftermath of a tornado certainly drives that home. McDonald's, it looked like there were people lined around the block multiple times trying to get up there. So even though a lot of folks have been griping about their steep prices, if that's the only way that you're gonna get a hot meal. It is what it is. The feed store was an interesting situation, they were running on generator power. And they had people standing at the door. And they would only let you in for what they deemed to be essential items, ie animal food or animal medicine. And that was it. And when you went in, you had to be escorted by an employee of the store, they would watch what you were getting and only let you into certain parts of the store. And then there was only one cash register open to be able to ring up the purchases. That to me was a flashback to the pandemic. Because there were some stores that would rope off sections and tell people you're not allowed to go there. You can come in for what we have deemed essential items only food water and that's it. You can't look at cosmetics, you can't look at clothing, even though I would think clothing would be pretty damn essential. Unless we're all living in a nudist colony. You can't look at hair dye, et cetera, you're going to have to stay in the food and water section of the store. I guess they thought that wouldn't be in the food section. But maybe it would be on an article of clothing. Or maybe it would be on a tube of mascara. I don't know. To me, the whole thing just seemed like an exercise and compliance. Are you going to go along? Or are you going to be a problem pal? Anyway, the point is, even as these businesses start to come back, they may tell you what you can go in and obtain from them. That really was not something that I was prepared for because you would think that they would want to make up for lost revenue, they would want to get open and allow as many people to come in and start buying as possible because it would help their bottom line. It was really eerie. That's the word that I would use eerie to think about somebody escorting you through a store. And then you're told what you can and cannot buy. That was freaky. There are some areas where Rubberneckers And looky loos have caused a big problem. I heard last night that a first responder was run over by somebody that was driving a truck and they were looking at damage not paying attention to what was going on and they ran a man over. So that's terrible. We've also had the issue of looters. It's not been a huge issue. I don't want to overdo it and be Chicken Little. But the issue has come up and the sheriff has been on TV telling people that's not going to be tolerated here. There's a special place in hell for you. If you try to loot from someone who's already been victimized by a natural disaster.

It's important to know that these criminals and low lives exist. It's unfortunate that they do. But they do. One of the guys was on TV, his mugshot, and this is not a Les Miserables situation where he's having to steal a loaf of bread to keep himself and his child from starving. It was obvious that he had been well taken care of and had not missed any meals. It struck me that he was just a terrible sack of trash, opportunist going around trying to steal from other people. The old school preppers used to always say beans, bullets and band aids. I remember my friend Ron telling me that over and over again. At the time I was in my late 20s early 30s I thought he was a kook every geopolitical dustup every bit of political news he beans, bullets and band aids. It's getting weird out there. It's getting scary. And I would just laugh, but as I've gotten older, and I've lived through more, I'm like I believe he had a point. I think, I think maybe all Ron knew a little bit more than I gave him credit for back in the day. I want to be careful how I say this, especially since this is my daytime broadcast. There are people within the prepping community who feel like whatever you have, okay. But unless you have a way of ensuring that what you have remains in your possession, it's really worthless if you catch my drift. Now, I don't know what the laws are people listen to this broadcast all over the globe, in your city and your state in your country. It's impossible for me to know what the laws are about self defense, about defense of your property, etc. The onus is on you to know those things. Whether you talk to somebody in law enforcement or you talk to an attorney, you really need to know what your rights are and what legally you can and cannot do. Each community is different. As I say, there is a line of thought that you have what you have. But if you don't have any way of making sure that you keep it, if somebody else can just come up and take it from you, a bad guy that has a broomstick, or some other kind of weapon can show up and take it from you, then is it really yours? It's incredibly depressing and unfortunate, that we have to even think in these terms. It's gross, and it's unpleasant. Nobody wants to think about looters and thieves, but we have to these people exist. In that type of situation. What is your game plan? Do you have enough of a support system whether its immediate, immediate family members, a trusted neighbor, a best friend, somebody from your church or place of worship? Do you have some means of saying I need somebody to go and obtain food or I need somebody to go and obtain water, I need somebody to go and obtain medicine while I stay here and guard the fort. So that if a thief comes up, he's gonna get a hell of a lot more than he bargained for. I think this is another important reason to already have those things on hand. So that you don't really have to leave for any purpose outside of a true blue medical emergency or a death in the family, you can stay there and take care of the Homestead through the cleanup and restoration process. This has been for me a really eye opening experience. It's helped to identify gaps in our preps. And it meant something to me to get on the air and tell you what this has been like. I hope nothing like this ever happens to you. But we just don't know we live in an uncertain world. The weather patterns are odd. I have my own theories as to why that is. But the weather patterns are odd. The last report that I saw was that this summer was going to be one of the hottest if not the hottest on record. So far, we can't get out of the springtime thunderstorms. And even into June, they're projecting that we will continue to have this swampy, muggy type of environment where there's a thunderstorm every single day. And some of them could be tornadic. We've had years where we experienced drought conditions, and it would be so dry, that the ground would crack and all the grass would be dead. And we'd have to start paying the animals way too early because the grass was dead and there's just nothing left out there. Be prepared for Come What May because we just don't know we're living in uncertain times. And as I've said on the air before, in my opinion, everybody should be a prepper now, it shouldn't matter about splitting hairs, Doomsday Preppers and Chicken Little and well this person is all the time thinking that the Antichrist is on the scene or this person is all the time thinking World War Three is forthcoming. Who cares about any of that? Your spiritual beliefs or are yours, your beliefs about whether or not we're teetering on the brink of warfare or yours? It's not my place to have a judgement about any of that. What I can tell you is that hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, those types of natural disasters are not a respecter of persons. They can happen to anybody at any time. And if you haven't made a game plan beforehand, and you're having to try to cobble your parachute together on the way down when you've already been shoved off the cliff and you're trying not to go splat at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. You've got big problems. Stay safe and stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode.

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