When Disaster Strikes

It is the nature of large complex systems. When they fail, they fail catastrophically. Consider the old fashioned electro-mechanical switch that connected your phone to the network. If it failed, you lost service, but everyone else remained unaffected. Sometime around 1990 I remember a computer based switch failed. Long distance phone service for the entire east coast was knocked out for about twelve hours. The computer switch was cheaper and faster than the switches located in that little brick building without windows located somewhere in your home town, but when it failed, it was Katie bar the door.

The same can be said for major metropolitan areas. People have been living in cities for a long time because it is more efficient than roaming about the countryside in tribal groups of hunter gathers. However, when disaster, like a recent hurricane, hits a metropolis like Houston, millions of people are affected. I am confident Houston is going to recover. The south Texas area has a dynamic financial base and a lot of equally dynamic people. I have met some of them on business trips. Moreover, after the hurricane, damage control teams from neighboring states can move in to help.

Puerto Rico, isn’t so lucky. Federal law allowed Puerto Rico to issue municipal bonds with triple tax exemptions. Like Greece, this territory used access to cheap money to fund their social welfare system. This is very much like an unemployed person maintaining his family’s life style with credit cards. It will end and it will end badly. For Puerto Rico, the end came earlier this year. They defaulted on their bonds and are now in a condition of quasi-bankruptcy. The financial press noted sometime before the recent hurricane devastated the island, that the island’s infrastructure was in bad shape. Writers predicted that the next hurricane, and everybody knew there would be a next hurricane, would produce catastrophic results. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority filed for bankruptcy on July 2, reporting it would need more than $4 billion to upgrade its outdated power plants that rely on imported oil (Washington Post). By the way, the Jones Act which requires all shipping between American ports to be conducted by American flagged vessels, greatly increases the cost of everything in Puerto Rico including all that imported oil that is refined in the U.S. and shipped from American ports.

Unlike Texas, Puerto Rico is so broke (in all meanings of the word) it can’t possibly fix itself. The American taxpayer is going to foot this bill. Puerto Ricans are Puerto Rican citizens, but they are also American citizens without restrictions and they need our help. End of story. It isn’t going to be easy or cheap. Puerto Rico, unlike Houston, is an island. The power company in Ohio cannot send its emergency crews in their bucket trucks down the Interstate to San Juan. With 12% unemployment and no large scale wealth producing activities on the island, the financial infrastructure to fund the recovery doesn’t exist. I have also learned that a majority of the residents of that unhappy territory don’t have property insurance for a variety of historical reasons. The problem is compounded by an exodus of young productive ambitious Puerto Ricans seeking employment on the mainland. The island’s population is disproportionally old. Retired folks, like me, are not all that useful in rebuilding an island’s infrastructure and we draw Social Security.

So how about me as an individual? What can I do to prepare for an emergency? When hurricane Irma was targeting the upstate of South Carolina, I didn’t expect any problems other than a power outage. They seem to happen more often in SC than they did in MD. I had gas in my cars, shotgun shells in my closet, and plenty of flashlight batteries. I wasn’t worried about drinking water, but if I was concerned, I would have filled our rather large bathtub. Since we have a natural gas stove and a supply of matches, I could purify the water and cook canned goods. We routinely stock enough soup, chili, canned vegetables, and such to last a week or so. I wouldn’t expect a power outage to last longer than that.

I also have house insurance. During the storm (which barely touched us), a dead tree fell out of my neighbor’s yard and trashed a section of my fence before coming to rest in my yard, a foot of so short of our deck. I discovered that my deductible had been increased without my knowledge and that in the case of trees falling in one’s yard, a double deductible applied (one for the fence and one for chopping up the tree). My insurance wouldn’t have paid a penny. Fortunately, SC law states that while your neighbor’s live tree falling in your yard is your insurance company’s responsibility, dead trees are the neighbor’s responsibility. My neighbor graciously took care of everything. It could have been much worse. I am grateful. When I get a chance, I need to talk with my insurance agent. Evidently, I don’t know what is in my policy.

But what if we were facing what Puerto Rico is facing? Only 5% of their hospitals still have power. Fuel supplies for emergency generators are running low, machinery is failing, and it looks like it might be months before power is completely restored. Half the island is still without drinking water. Gasoline is pretty much unavailable. To prepare for such situations, Mormons are expected to maintain a three to twelve month supply of emergency food and drinking water. Where could a faithful member of the Church of Latter Day Saints store so many provisions in an efficiency apartment in a city like San Francisco? If all this stuff is in a nearby storage unit, how does the owner drive there without gasoline, or open the computer controlled security system to gain access to his locker? In places like the rural Midwest or the mountains of Appalachia, it seems the chances of survival would be much better. More people know how to live off the land, own animals that can be eaten, or know how to hunt. Also, more of these people are likely to belong to churches and know their neighbors’ name than is the case in suburban Washington, DC.

Perhaps, that is the big takeaway from this article. Know your neighbors, love your family, belong to something like a church that is likely to be there for you when things fall apart. Perhaps, in the end, we are not all that different from those bands of hunter gathers roaming around the grasslands of eastern Africa, looking for something better, moving on, confident that their clansmen have their backs.