The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Floods, Floods, and More Floods

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

Join Ken Jensen, James Yaeger, Sara Hathaway and Chin Gibson for an in depth look at how to prepare for, ride out, and clean up after a flood. 

Welcome back to the Changing Earth podcast with author Sarah F. Hathaway and co-host Chen Gibson. Blending survival fiction and fact to bring you entertaining education that will help you dream, survive, and thrive. And now, here's your hosts, Sarah F. Hathaway and Chen Gibson. Hello, and welcome back to the Changing Earth podcast. This is episode number 461. Sorry, guys, no live show tonight, and I won't have any Changing Earth news on the show either. I really encourage you to keep your eyes wide open because there are a lot of volcanoes that are erupting right now. There's a lot of global flooding going on right now. So definitely keep your eyes wide open, stay prepared, stay vigilant, and make sure you're

paying attention to what's going on in our planet as well as what's going on with our societies. going on in our planet as well as what's going on with our societies. Today's show is going to be a great show. I've put together some of my best flooding interviews that I've done. I've got Ken Jensen here. I got the interview with James Yeager lined up and then a really great one that Chin and I did in regards to how do you clean up and stuff like that after a flood. And because we're having so much flooding on our planet and so much a threat of that happening and just, you know, a situation where you could actually be in the flood zone and needing to know how to clean up afterwards and take care of this. I thought it'd be a great show to put together. I'm really excited about it. So stick around, stay tuned and enjoy all the information you're going to get flooded with.

You're listening to PBN. Your path back the stability. I'm back again with my good friend Ken Jensen. He is the host of the Prepper podcast, and he is going to help us out today with getting us ready in case we live in a flood area. So thanks very much for being back with me, Ken. Thank you for having me back. So what's three to five ways that people can prepare their home for a flood if they live in a flood-prone area? Number one is don't move to a flood area.

Right. Okay. Tell the people of Sacramento that. And you know what? I'm joking, but I'm serious as well. You know, you don't want to have to deal with the flood. Well, then don't move to a flood zone. It's that freaking simple.

The next thing is if you happen to move to a flood zone, well, get your butt some flood insurance. That's number two. Yes, sir. All right. And all these preppers are like, well, I know that crap. We brought you on here for this. They need to really look into their flood insurance, though, as well, because flood insurance has many. I used to sell insurance.

So flood insurance has a lot of different aspects than your traditional home insurance, and it usually boils down to not as much as covered. So they need to check that out and make sure that they're going to be covered for the groundwater movement and things like that. Right, right, right. So get your flood insurance and check it. going to be covered for the groundwater movement and things like that. Right, right, right. So, get your flood insurance and check it. Go ahead and call Sarah at home at three in the morning and ask her questions about flood insurance. Definitely not, definitely not. And the next thing you need to do is have a household inventory. You need to have written and visual inventory of the personal property that you have in your household.

Things like major appliances, electronics, jewelry, and artwork. You know, the stuff that you'd be surprised at how much clothing people have in their closets and how much money that in itself is just worth. Right. And how many shoes do you have, Sarah? I got a couple of boxes of them in there. My husband makes me throw out two pair when I get one pair. So I'm not that many as I used to have. Smart man, smart man.

Now, I have more shoes than any man should ever have. I'm going to be honest here, but most of those are hunting boots and hiking shoes. And then I have specialty running shoes for long distance running. So I have quite a bit of money in my closet as well. And if you're going around and you're thinking about what do I have in my house, you're taking pictures of your stoves and your microwaves and your TVs. Collections. People have like stamp collections and stuff. All the big stuff, the major stuff. And you forget that you've got like $2,000 worth of clothing right there in your closet and if you get that you know you need to get that on there

and then jewelry artwork and stuff like that you know there's a lot of jewelry that people have a lot of people have you know waste valuable money on expensive jewelry so you know make sure that you get that documented as well. It's pretty important. Right. Firearms, things like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now, after you're done documenting all this stuff, well, you need a place to put it.

And I am going to tick off everybody and say that one place that I put documentation of my stuff is in cloud storage. Cloud storage. Well, I'm not putting it on google drive i'm not putting it on uh i'm not putting it on what's the other main cloud storage oh i don't know computer question for me yeah no well i'm not putting it in the typical cloud storage. Oh, Dropbox, that's what it is. Oh, right. I'm actually putting it on a server, a remote server, kind of like what I do with my websites and stuff like that. That's my lifeblood is my website.

That's a business of mine. So I'm going to protect it. Well, I'm not going to put my personal information on something with a public URL that can easily be sniffed out by hackers and stuff like that. But if I get a dedicated server and I'm paying a monthly fee on this dedicated server, I can keep my important stuff like that on a cloud device. And that way, if you're stuck in a flood or in a fire or something like that, well, then you have the ability to retrieve that from another location. So not only do you have that, but then you've got the digital copies on your own computer, that kind of thing.

Right. You could always put like an external hard drive. You could keep it at your buddy's house in another town or something like that. Flash drive at somebody else's house kind of thing as well. Yes, you could do that. And if you are smart about it, if you're nerdy enough like I am, you would probably set up something where you are automatically going to back up your hard drive to that external drive through the cloud anyways. Right. Okay. All right. Well, the better place to put this, the place that everybody can easily do is put all your copies in a waterproof, fireproof safe. Right.

You're going to want, not only are you going to want this documentation in the safe, but you're also going to want financial records in there, insurance policies, home deed and lease, identification, money, important memories. Uh-huh. You know? You're going to lose a lot of stuff marriage certificates yeah you'll lose a lot of stuff in a flood and this doesn't guarantee anything right but what's really nice is if you have an in-ground safe that's waterproof and fireproof, then the chances of a flood taking your safe off the foundation is not very likely. But you're going to want your contact list. You're going to put your favorite survival books in there, evacuation maps, and put your camera in there with all the inventory copies. The camera that you took for your inventory, Put that in there.

Because after a flood comes through. After a fire comes through. Something like that. You can get in there. And your camera has a good chance of still being in good condition. And now you can go around and document everything. While it's there and fresh. Right.

Yeah after. So that was number four. Number five is. Prepare your home. Okay. Preparing your home. Now I'm talking things like basements. All right.

In your basement, you got a sump pump, have a battery operated backup. You need your sump pumps running to keep the water out because not all floods are landslides, right? Right. Most floods are just basically that. It's standing water. So if you have a sump pump, you can keep most of that water out, especially if you have a basement. That is the perfect place for a sump pump. Get yourself a water alarm.

If you have a basement, you need a water alarm, plain and simple. And all it is, a little switch, and when the water touches it it's going to alarm upstairs and you're going to know to go downstairs and check it out and see why your sump pump is not working and why your battery operated backup sump pump is not operating and uh you may just go out there with a manual pump and continue to pump away. Or you can tell your teenage kid to get his butt down there. He's been mooshing off of you for 17 years. There you go. There you go. The next thing that you want to do is keep your gutters clean. All right. And, uh, you know, if you don't keep your gutters clean, the water goes where you don't want it to go. And I actually kind of had a run in with this.

I'm, I'm ashamed to say I had a run-in with this i'm i'm ashamed to say i had a run-in with this we had a real bad storm and one of my gutters i didn't realize was stopped up and it all was coming down onto my siding into my window sill and kind of messed some stuff up bad can we had one uh so full of acorns and stuff once Once the water got into it, it actually was pulling it off of the house. I was like, whoa, got to get that under control. Yeah, pulling the whole gutter off. Well, mine actually leaked through my window into the house. Oh, man.

It was bad. It was real bad. That's good on insurance. You can still claim that on insurance, though, Cause at least it's not like a groundwater movement. Ah, but you better clean your gutter out first. Otherwise they're going to tell you. Fair enough. Maintenance was slacking.

Yes, they would. Fair enough. Definitely do that. Unless you have a friend that works for them. Make sure that you have a friend that works for a good insurance. For insurance. Then you're all set. Right.

There you go. Yeah. All right. So, uh, the next thing is electrical devices, receptacles, switches, sockets, for a good insurance for insurance then you're all set right there you go yeah all right so uh the next thing is electrical devices receptacles switches sockets circuit breakers that kind of thing have to be 12 inches above your projected wood your your projected floodplain so if you're in a flood zone you are supposed to know about how high that water will typically rise if you have a basic flood. Well, stay at least 12 inches above that because normal doesn't normally happen. Normal is not

really normal. That's an average, which means you get lower and higher. So at least be a foot above that number. You can install backflow check valves in your piping because if you're in a flooded area, you should know that water is going to settle in the lowest place that it can go. So when you're upstairs and you flush your toilet, it's going to end up in your teenage daughter's bathtub while she's taking a shower. Yeah, it's nasty. We had that happen in Michigan. shower yeah it's nasty uh-huh so you have that happen in michigan yeah so you can put these backflow check valves in your piping uh that'll that'll keep the water from going the direction it's not supposed to right if yeah this was uh they put the backflow on the line like down the neighborhood so every time anybody in the neighborhood flushed it was coming into our basement which was awesome so yeah that sounds wonderful yeah my parents so how many

gallons of iodine and uh betadine did you purchase so that you could just drown your entire floor with it oh man i don't know i was pretty young when it happened we were also severely ill with the flu at the time so my mom was yeah my mom was basically bucketing sewage out of the basement while she was taking care of uh you know all of us all sick i'm puking all over the place upstairs so it i'm sure it's one of her fondest memories you know well i'm telling you, no matter what she did the rest of her life, that's a wonderful woman right there. Right, exactly, exactly. So you can, in your home, you can also consider turning off, you know, you need to consider turning off all your utilities if the water gets in there. Because, you know, electrical things and gas things don't really work too well with flood stuff. So don't mix electrical and water.

Just shut it off. Yeah, be familiar with how to do that before you're faced with that situation. Yep. And I would recommend having some material on hand. Be prepared for that flood to occur. Because you're in a flood plain because you didn't listen to number one and not move there. Right. Sandbags.

You know, you should probably have some sandbags. I do have that on there. But did you know that sandbags actually don't do all that well? Sandbags don't really hold water back like people think it does. What does is the plastic sheeting that you're going to put in with your sandbags okay so what you're going to do is like a pyramid style thing with your sandbags and you're only going to fill your sandbags halfway and you will have plastic go down kind of the middle of the pyramid and that plastic sheeting this is going to be

thick plastic okay plastic sheeting in conjunction with your sandbags can reduce the amount of flooding that's going to happen in your area but let's think about this most people are thinking sandbags you're going to sandbag your entire yard no you're not going to sandbag your entire yard you dummy you're going to put sandbags around like your door entrances and stuff like that you know if you have like a brick house or something then you're in luck because the water is not going to come into that as easily as it would um if you had wood with siding and that kind of thing, a wood frame house. You put sandbags around the door to keep things from coming in because your house actually doesn't do too bad of a job of keeping the water back. Even though it does destroy the wall in the process, it's going to keep the damage to a minimum.

So that's the benefit of the sandbags as you use plastic sheeting it's a leak reduction around the windows and doors and the other time that i would use sandbags is to redirect flood water movement so if you know the flood water is coming by your home you don't need to use this plastic sheeting. You can put your sandbags there to redirect it. Let's say 15 degrees is all you need to redirect it to keep it from coming into your yard and flooding you out. So your sandbags can be used to redirect at 15 degrees and it'll pass by your house and flood your neighbors.

Perfect! And it'll pass by your house and flood your neighbors. Perfect. Well, you know, that pesky neighbor, they were whining and complaining to the. Yeah, they were always peeking over the fence anyway. Yeah, and there's the reasons why you don't have chickens anymore anyway. So flood them out. So we already talked about having our documents and everything ready to go. What else should we have personally ready to go in case we needed to, you know, in case we knew the flood was coming? We're going to leave our house.

What should we have ready to go personally? Okay. All right. So you need to know when to leave. All right. You need to know when to leave. All right. You need to know when to leave. And here's a hint. Before it floods.

Yeah. All right. Follow any recommended or mandatory evacuation orders. Flooding is not a freaking joke. Okay. So last year, 2015, I have preliminary stats here. In 2015, 155 people died. Fatalities.

All right? Due to flooding. That's a lot more than lightning. Lightning was 27. Tornadoes were 36. Hurricanes were 14. Heat. That's a lot more than lightning. Lightning was 27. Tornadoes were 36. Hurricanes were 14. Heat, overheat, 45.

Winter, everybody prepares for those blizzards coming through and they live in Texas. Winter killed 28 people last year. The cold, just in general 52 uh wind you know all those straight line winds that rip the tops off of houses 65 rip currents 58 but floods 155 wow so this is a big freaking do and you need to know when this is people going is people going, I don't need to leave. This isn't going to happen, and they stay. Exactly. When they say, hey, mandatory evacuation, they say, hey, I live in freaking New Orleans,

and I can do whatever I want, so I'm going to stay here. Right. I don't think it's too soon for those jokes yet. So you need an evacuation kit. Your evacuation kit, you're going to need your bug out bags, you know, one per person. I would have your bug out vehicle kits. All right. I'm not going to go into the details in your bug out bags and bug out vehicle kits, because if you want to know about that stuff.

Number one, I think you may have already covered it, Sarah. Number two, if you haven't, go to the prepper podcast, because think you may have already covered it, Sarah. Number two, if you haven't, go to the Prepper podcast because I sure as heck have covered it. Yep. I've got it on my website as well for a download for a bug out bag. It's kind of the basics. So have your bug out bags, have your bug out vehicle kits, and that's going to have waters and stuff like that. But I would say for your evacuation, have more drinking water. And you're going to want this drinking water to be in jugs and stuff like that but i would say for your evacuation have more drinking water and you're going to want this drinking water to be in jugs and stuff you know you don't want something that can be contaminated uh have first aid kits available and have maps of the area

you know um in waterproof um laminate you know in a waterproof type uh seal to put your map in there so that it doesn't get all wet and then you can't use it right and uh you also are going to want to have um sorry there's a phone going off in the background people don't know when to hang up anyways hey this is real-time podcasting right here. I don't want you to edit that out. All right. All right. You need to plan evacuation routes, and you need to practice those evacuations. You need to be ready to move to higher ground. You need to know which routes are in flood areas in the ground elevation of those routes.

You need to know those roads night and day because guess what? Floods are going to remove signs and landmarks that you would typically use. So you need to know the roads without signs and landmarks. You need to know where you're going. You need a copy of emergency numbers by the phone so that you can call as you're leaving you need to teach your children to do the exact same thing and you need to have bug out locations available for you to go to now i was talking about knowing which routes are at what elevation right man a really easy way to do that is typically by using um using the u.s uh topographic maps or even just using Google. You can use Google, their elevation map.

That will give you a good idea of what's at what elevation. The topographical maps are really nice. They're easy to read. It's not complicated. And they give you a really good idea of where you need to go. Right. Right. Yeah. So your bug-out vehicle, it could get in trouble, right?

I mean, you're going to jump in your car. You're not going to walk. I'm not going to walk away from a flood. That's the perfect time for a vehicle. So in there, I'm going to say that you need to have emergency life vests because vehicles oh great they get flooded uh and idiots like to drive across moving water right so have emergency life vests have emergency sos beacons and have an amateur radio because guess what it's an emergency it's not right now, whether you have a license or not.

Uh-huh. The other thing that might be a good idea is they make the flashlights that have the window breakers on them. You know, people die in their car because they can't open the door. So if you have one of those window breakers, it's a good thing to be able to help you out and get you out of that vehicle. Yep, that is a great idea. I actually have a big flood kit that has a lot of stuff in it. And I don't know if you want to go over that, but I do have a lot more items that I can tell you. But that was the flood kit that you should keep in your home, not ready to evacuate.

But it has a lot of the same stuff because you're going to try to move your flood kit into your vehicle as you leave. Right. When you are driving, okay, so there's water across the road, how much water can you drive across safely? Okay, so the numbers are typically when driving, Okay, so the numbers are typically when driving, less than two feet of moving water can sweep you off the road. Wow, that's not very much.

No, it's really not. We're even talking big jacked up pickups and stuff that people think can go through anything. Two feet of water will move that truck right off the road as well yeah because you create that layer between the rubber and the road of water right and then you're done yeah yeah and you've got all that side all that side force coming in at the tires from the water going around it right yeah that makes sense and then what about our walking you know what what's uh if you had to get out of your vehicle you know what's a safe up to what depends i guess on your strength base right yep so safe walking um you know i've seen some of the biggest baddest guys try to cross a river and they're the first ones to go down so i'm not going to say strength has a whole lot to do with it.

It's more technique. But walking in less than six inches of swift-moving water can take you off your feet. And it can take you right down the river. But here's the thing. You don't know the depth of the freaking water before you start walking through it and before you start driving through it. So don't freaking cross the water. All right? If you don't know the depth of it so don't freaking cross the water all right if you don't know the depth of it don't cross it turn around and go some other way um but you know

there is what what if your route you chose to take the highest route because you listened to sarah hathaway uh tell you that you needed to take your road on the highest route. Well, if you must cross and it's not too wide for you to do it, you can follow a lot of the river crossing techniques that allow you to tie off and do other things. And you can probably get across, but you need to use proper techniques. Most river crossing techniques allow you to have like a backup in case your feet lose their placing. That makes sense. The other thing I was thinking is maybe if you had your walking stick or something with you, you know, go test it out first before you just go, you know, blow in through that water. Go, you know, give it a test and see.

Maybe you could have a ring on your stick or whatever of how deep, you know, the water went. So it's just an idea instead of just driving across it unknown. Putting a ring on your stick is probably a good idea if you're wanting to walk across because you could just put that ahead of you, and that's your six-inch mark. you could you could just put that ahead of you and that's your six inch mark and as you're walking across as long as it doesn't go over that ring you're still good to go um and then you can you know if it if it goes over six inches you can't go far enough to tell how deep it is anymore right because you don't need to go any further so at this point if it's six inches deep you probably shouldn't drive across it because you really don't know how deep it is but you can walk

across it until you get to that six inch mark you still gotta have a good wide stance because people can you know there there's the person that can get swept off and you know an inch of water because they're you know they they trip over their own shoelaces all the time. Yeah. And I don't think that a size or strength really has any matter there. There's some people that just bumble along anyhow. So, um, let's wrap it up, uh, steps we should take, um, and then tips for getting, you know, to high ground safety is probably going to be mayhem. So, you know, you already gave us a lot of really good pointers there as far as, you know, knowing it by the back of your hand because the signs are going to be out and things like that.

So let's just kind of wrap it up with the summary there of, you know, steps and any more tips you have for getting there safely. All right. Any more tips you have for getting there safely? All right. Step number one, listen to the radio and watch the news because it's a flood. It's not the end of the world. So guess what?

The news and media are actually going to cover it. Yeah, right. Listen to weather radio alerts because now I'll be the first one to say that weather radios can get really annoying at times because every time an alert comes on, it freaking screams at you at the top of its lungs until you turn it off and then a tornado shows up and you didn't have it on. Absolutely. That's Murphy's Law right there for you, too. Yeah, yeah. Make any last-minute evacuation preparations. Depending on how much time you have, you may have time to make some last-minute evacuation preps. And do that before leaving.

You know, that's like turning stuff off, that kind of thing. Your utilities, whatnot, yeah. Yep. Go ahead and fill the sandbags or build walls for leak reduction with the plastic sheeting and stuff like that. Elevate important items and furniture as high as possible. If you're in a floodplain and you get to, you know, if you are in a floodplain and you get to a flood or flash flood warning, it's time to leave. Not a watch, but if you have a warning in your area, then it's time to leave because you got to get out of there before it floods because once it floods, you're stuck.

Stay out of flood water. Oftentimes, it is extremely toxic. Yes. Yep. times it is extremely toxic. Yes. Yep. So that's the basic steps I think that you

should take in the event of a flood. It's more of like lessons learned and important things to keep in mind. But this is all stuff that you're going to do right before leaving. All right. Well, I think we're ready for the next flood that comes in.

None of these listeners are going to be among those 155, I hope. Yeah. Well, that is unless they get stuck in the chaos of everybody else trying to get there. Right. So get there first. Yeah, right. You've got to be the first one to get there. Know your warnings. Get out. Don't waste time. You know, yeah, it's more important to know. It is more important to know which roads are elevated the highest than it is to know the roads that have the most traffic. have the most traffic because if you are on the road with the most traffic but it is higher than all the other roads you are probably the most safe because you're out of the flood zone yeah

absolutely even if you are stuck in traffic at least you're stuck up above where the flood is yeah yeah i mean that makes sense so for evacuation i always use the 333 rule do you know what the 333 rule is or have you heard me say it before no okay so have three destinations in three different locations you know in three directions i guess three destinations and three in three directions and have three routes of getting to that destination and have three rest stops along each route where if you get split up from somebody, you can find them at the next rest stop. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. Present your vaccine passport. Enter your social credit score and be sure you have enough remaining carbon credits to enjoy today's show

your garden is the resistance today i am honored to have james yeager back on the show it's funny the this is the topic. Literally here, two days ago, we had flash floods, like really, really bad flash floods. And so, I mean, I live in the southeast. We get a lot of rain, and flash flooding is a very common thing here. And last year, about two years ago, there was some bad flooding and some people actually drowned on the interstates around Nashville, Tennessee. And none of those people were from the South. And I'm not trying to make fun of them, but I know I have a lot of friends that are desert dwellers and they don't understand the concept of flash flooding and raining like we

do in the South. And those people that got caught flat-footed, so to speak, and died in drowning, they weren't Southerners. And so there's almost a, you know, a, I don't know, localization for some of these disasters that happened, but it's something we're very used to here. I don't know. I don't remember what your question was, but I talked for a long time.

Yeah. I was talking about how long, you know, how fast can these situations actually help? You know, it goes from nothing to just these flash flood situations. Yeah. I mean, instantly, I mean, within, within minutes, I won't even say hours within minutes and at the at the same time, can also recede within minutes. A road that was covered a half hour ago is not now or vice versa. It's a very fast acting. Yeah, a lot of people think, you know, oh, it hasn't been raining that long. It's not going to be a dangerous situation. It's just wrong.

Yeah. It doesn't even have to be raining hard in your area. It could be up river that's sending all the water your way yep absolutely yep so what type of vehicle is best suited if you got you know cars trucks oh a boat listen don't drop don't drive through flowing water i don't care what vehicle you have if there's water flowing across the highway, do not drive your vehicle through that water. It's that simple. Yeah, alternate route. That's why I always tell people, you know, you got to have so many routes mapped out of your place.

Because you never know what's going to be cut off, what's going to be available to you. And so, you know, you need those multiple routes. When you're rolling down the road, your tires have what's called a contact patch that touches the road. And it's about as big as a palm of your hand. So even this is why I like racing cars have really wide tires and things like that to have a bigger contact patch but a regular car going down the road about about the size of your hand and so if you imagine two four hands on the road and swift water rushing across the road how much and now they're wet how much friction could it possibly be be having on that roadway as that water pushes it? Not much.

Yeah, people are like, oh, my tires are, you know, made for it or whatever. No. So how about like weight? You know, people are like, oh, put sandbags in the back of my truck, you know, weight that thing down and I'll be able to do better that way. There's a certain amount of physics involved with it. The heavier the vehicle is, you know, the harder it is, you know, the more energy it takes to push.

But if you're emboldened because of that, you're going to go through even deeper water. So I think it probably negates the effect of the putting the weight in the vehicle. Yeah. The overconfidence is a killer, right? Oh yeah. of the putting the weight in the vehicle yeah the overconfidence is a killer right no oh yeah so if you're forced to drive through this like how fast how fast not giving up on i'm not i'm not because you gotta go through it right now i would recommend uh uh slow uh instead of fast you drive fast you

start splashing water under your hood of your car and you you you might uh you might kill your car not not from you know the actual water pushing it aside but you might actually literally flood the engine with water and uh that's why these these vehicles that are made to ford rivers and stuff have the big snorkels that come out of the top of them so they can breathe if they get doused with water, but I guess slow. History does a cool show on Truck Night in America, and they have like, you got to go through these huge waterways and stuff. And yeah, it's funny to watch the race car drivers think they can just ramp it through there.

Yeah, a slow, slow tall heavy vehicle i guess yeah yeah um so are there steps that we can take like uh obviously you don't want to wrap your exhaust fan and or your exhaust pipe and cellophane or something but is there anything that you'd recommend to protect your vehicle in that type of situation? Yeah. Don't drive through flood water. I mean, it's like if you said, if you said, uh, James, Hey, so I come home from work and I find my door's been kicked in. How should I clear my house? I'm going to tell you to call the police. You're going to hear, but what if, and I'm going to tell you to call the police you're gonna yeah but but what if and i'm gonna say you could but you should call the police i mean the the right answer here is not to drive through flood water yeah don't do it yeah um what about uh hazards you know because there could be

hazards up river right coming down your way so even if you think you can take it yeah yeah there's all kinds of stuff when it when it floods here you know especially uh trees that have fallen and stuff like that big trees and chunks of stuff and uh no thanks so even if you have the snorkel you're like man i'm gonna do this i got this like you should be aware there's like yeah things you can't control there's plenty of those videos you can watch those guys trying to cross those rivers and their vehicle floating down the river you know so yeah i don't think i don't even think that's good enough not for me especially i might do something stupid if i'm by myself

but if my wife or grandkids are in the vehicle there's no way i would do that yeah absolutely that would really change the game what about all your windows so so you're you're the ding dong that's all by yourself going through it what if what should you do with your window up or down uh your window should always be all the way up or all the way down they should never be halfway in between they should either be fully up or fully down and for this case they should be fully up. Because I was thinking like, okay, if you left it cracked at least, like you know you're not going to get like the suction,

you know how your door like won't open if you're in the water. So I was like, okay, well, at least if you had your window open a little bit, you're not going to get wet inside, but you might. It's like having a screen door in a submarine, though. I don't want the water coming in. Right. That's true. That's true.

How about a tool? Like what kind of tool? Do you keep a tool in your truck for something if you had to bust the window or something like that? Yeah. There's a little tool called a Rescue Me that I keep in all my vehicles, and it's a little bitty thing about the size of a big lighter that'll cut a seatbelt and pop a window. But the key to it is you can pop a window with a rock or with a pistol. I don't even mean shooting it, but people, when they try to break a window, they try to hit the middle of it, and then the window flexes. of it and then the window flexes uh if you need to break a window break the corner hit the corner of the window there's the least amount of flex and it's most likely to break if you hit the harder

part of the window believe it or not uh than than the center yeah that makes sense and i would go center mass right yep everybody would and i have people do it in class all the time with rifles when do a vehicle attack so just say hit that hit that window. They go, boom, with a rifle, and it just skids right off the window. They're going to hit the corner. Pow, it breaks. Wow. You think that was the – have you seen the new Tesla truck? Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think that was the problem there? Yeah, the ball test where they threw it. Oh, it's unbreakable. I think they had a model up there, and nobody told them not to do anything stupid. I'm sure there was somebody on a walkie-talkie somewhere going, don't do that! Right, talk about looking like a jack-er. Yeah, but here we are talking about Tesla for free.

Yeah, true. Fair enough. There's no such thing as bad advertisement. Yep. So the tool that you use can, you know, elderly people, young people, people with no muscle structure, can it still be done, you know, fairly easily for them if they're in that emergency situation? Yeah, yeah. It's R-E-S, big's a res big q me rescue me and uh it's a they're they're 10 bucks or something on amazon about as big as a lighter i hang them on my i got them i have vehicle made kits they're in all the made kits in case i go to a car i need to break a

window but they're hanging off the visors and things like that some people hang them off their key chains but uh it's it's really easy to use as a little spring loaded thing it doesn't require any no real muscle power other than be able to push it about a half inch go click okay yeah because i always worry about that you know uh with tools and and just self-defense and everything for the elderly because they you know they get you get older they start feeling vulnerable and it's like nah you can still do this really easily so i watched my mom turn from a little mighty mouse and uh you know as she gets older she's like i can't do this i can't do that like come on you know you can still do it you can still do it so um so basically don't drive in the flood water and then make sure that water stays off your engine um i did drive through an area where i shouldn't because it's like the corner we've all done stuff we should never do

again yep i was like that was probably a little deep bet my license plate out forward and everything but you know i was getting home so um the exhaust pipes yeah no hold a second but i was getting home. So the exhaust pipes. Yeah. Now, hold on a second. But I was getting home. I'm telling you, like, you got to watch that. What was so pressing? What was so pressing? That's the thing. Everybody acts like their life can't be interrupted.

I'm just kind of messing around with you. But everybody acts like their life was a cop. I'm telling you, there's any number of horrible things that have happened to people because they couldn't wait 15 more minutes. Yeah, that's true. I could have just gone into town, had a subway or something, let the rain recede a little bit. Fair enough. Yeah. I was going home.

So, all right. Yeah. I live in South Carolina, and we have the hurricanes and floods and everything. And we had prison guards evacuating prisoners in a van and they got into floodwater, thought they could get through, couldn't get through. They ditched. The prisoners died because they drowned in the flood. And now they're going to jail. Yeah. That just happened. Yeah. This last hurricane season. That's crazy. I didn't even hear that story. That's nuts.

That's nuts. That kind of stuff happens all the time. Yeah. So any good flood stories from anything in your past that you've seen that you're like, no, you're just a moron. Just, you know, just when I was a a cop just going to help people that thought they could make it they had to get home you know they had to add something they had something better i don't have time to wait you know yeah and uh and and i'm and i'm i'm sure in any natural disaster that there are those people that just exacerbate the problem because they are so self-important that

they can't be troubled with waiting in line for gas or something like that i'm sure i'm sure it's it's in in a in a you know a more long-term disaster uh it that that kind of stuff uh ruins a lot of people yeah be smart don't do it all righty so that pretty much wraps up our flood driving episode because don't do it yeah it doesn't matter so my book i have the guy they're like they come to this big river and they like build a bridge you know to get across it they're like throwing stuff into the water so that they can drive across it. And I'm like, I don't know how that would really work out. I don't think that really would work out because now you just got more debris

building more water. I've seen four wheel drive people throw stuff, rocks and stuff into, into things and drive across it. I've seen that work like maybe not great, but it worked. But they got across. Yeah. How about checking the depth? Just have your walking stick with you or what?

Here's the thing. Still water, water that's not moving, is not very dangerous other than you might just kill your car. It's the flowing water that's the problem and so that so the depth would only matter is if you're trying to cross a a patch of of still water well fair enough yeah and if it's flowing you don't want to walk out there and check it you're just as vulnerable as your vehicle is yeah yeah that's that's what the snorkels are for. Right. The still water. Yeah, I've seen them even rerouted. So I wrote that into my book that they rerouted the exhaust into the cab.

And that way you can go through water, volcano. They shouldn't do that. Well, not the exhaust, the intake. No, the intake. They all got a little tired on that trip. The old banana in the tailpipe trick. Yep. The banana in the tailpipe.

That's old school. So let me just go ahead and give you a chance to give me your spiel on where to find you. If they are too stupid to find me, they don't deserve to train with me. Alrighty, sir. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Anytime. You're listening to PBN. Your path back to stability.

Today's show, we had erica she's navigating the flood waters that was a scenario i wrote about um the damn system above sacramento failing damn system yeah that damn system up above and then the the scarier thing though that's that I want you to think about, that I've been studying a lot about lately, the Mississippi is controlled by a series of dams. I think it's five to nine dams. I can't remember the exact number. Because the Mississippi flows off the Missouri River. And many of these dam structures are very old.

And they were built for a forecasted 100-year flood back when they were built, right? And they never even imagined the amount of rain that we would be picking up just instantaneously. And if the top one breaks, you have catastrophic failure down the line. We are looking at a flooding of the whole central United States. and if the top one breaks, you have catastrophic failure down the line. We are looking at a flooding of the whole central United States.

This would be definitely a worst-case scenario, obviously, but the potential is there. If we don't really start looking into investing back into some of our infrastructure, not just collecting money with a bill called that and then not really doing it. I don't know when that's happened recently, but, you know, for example. Just saying. Just saying. These things are happening more and more. These catastrophic flooding scenarios are not really 100-a-year events anymore.

It's a reality we need to start really thinking about. a year events anymore. It's a reality we need to start really thinking about. But in light of that, we were going to talk today about preparing for flooding, what you can do to kind of be ready for it, and how you can clean up once the devastation happens and the floodwaters recede. So let's get into it. First thing that I would do is look at a geographical analysis of your area. Is your house sitting in an area that has the potential to get flooded? You know, if that big rain comes in, are you in danger? If that's the case, then you need to have an even faster evacuation plan. I mean, you can't just sit back and be like oh you know it

won't happen to me because i guarantee everybody thinks that and think about you know water runs downhill right so if there's heavy rains a couple towns above you that might be coming your way in a day or so right right and watching even the weather forecast on, you know, where those heavy storms are moving through, things like that. And how the water is going to run off of that area where it's going to go. So if this is coming your way, how much time do you really have? You know, again, like you said, Chin, when the hurricane's approaching, you need to have a line in your brain. So you're not making an emotional decision on the fly. You got to have some kind of a preset standard so that you can go, oh, it hit my line. We're gone.

Even though, you know, better to be safe than sorry. Yep. Will water compromise your home stability? I've been seeing this a lot where walls, exterior walls are actually coming down, where things are slipping off their foundations. You know, is that going to happen to your house? You don't want to be in it when it does. Better to save your family's life than your home. You're not going to be able to do anything anyway.

One of the things that happened up in Canada also is that the sewage treatment plant was compromised. Nice. Yeah. Let's go play in the road yeah yeah so we're going to talk a little bit more about the quality of that water but are there chemical production facilities around you is that a potential hazard is there a dam up above you if there is you need to be ready to go like quickly um especially you know, look at the Missouri system and how long that would take to hit you, you know, that Mississippi system,

if you're in that danger area. When the floods happen, I talk a lot about, in my book, about the toxic waters. And people are like, well, how, Sarah, how did the waters become toxic you know what what kind of happened there well this is based off a research that I did of if the dam system did fail in Sacramento what would happen and because of all the fertilizers pesticides the city chemicals the gas the oils all of that stuff all the city waste the garbage the grime you mix that all together in this big slurry and then it soaks into the ground it would be equal to like a nuclear

disaster in terms of making that land unusable for farming in the future and it's definitely not something i'd want to be swimming around in right Right? Every time there's a flood, you always see people in their kayaks and bicycles and stuff just goofing off in the water. Yeah. And it's disgusting. And yeah, you really helped add that to even just the normal kind of flooding. Like people that, you know, after hours, maybe they just take a leak on the street there's all that garbage there's all that nasty yeah yeah not you're not even like chemical contaminant i mean even there's like i'll run off from cars and trucks and you know spills and stuff that accumulates over the

time but yeah it's nasty it's not like lake water, guys. It's not like a river. It's not like a pool. It's like disgusting slurry of slop. So that really can present a danger to you. So another thing that I started pondering was when we talk about food storage and we talk about water storage and we talk about having our preps

most of the time our preps are stored low to keep them cool right um we can't have basements here in texas but in the midwest i'm sure in canada they have basements cellars things like that where you keep your your products to keep them cool, keep the light away, that kind of stuff. It's an ideal storage setup. However, that's like flood zone, right? How much of your preps are you going to lose? How much water storage are you going to lose because of that? So the only thing that i could really think of is if you're in you know kind of the the threat is imminent maybe you want to start moving all that stuff to higher ground move it up to your attic that kind of thing um make sure your stuff's in watertight containers however even if you

salvage that you want to clean that off because now it's had all that yucky water all over it you don't want to just open that up you could contaminate the whole thing um having multiple stash sites so instead of just having all your preps at your house you know maybe you have some at you know a relative's house that's not too far kind of like your bug out location, that kind of thing, right? And then firearms and ammunition and water are also a bad mix. You know, you're going to rust out your firearms, that kind of stuff. So if these things are happening, you need to have a plan to start moving product, moving your storage items someplace higher. Get that stuff to safety. I was like, man, even if you have something buried, right?

I mean, now you just had it all contaminated. It could be saturated in water. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So big risk because that's kind of the standard for storing your stuff. Evacuation. If you wait too long, it's probably

not going to be possible or safe. Right? Because why? Because you have to go through all that water that just surrounded your house or your town. Right, because we never drive through the floodwaters.

That's right, James. Yep. We never drive through the floodwaters. There, I just posted a solution to flooding. Yeah, I see that. Your own private dam. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. All right. So for those of you who are really, really rich and you're looking at the live chat, you can just buy this blow-up ring that goes around your whole house. Is it a blow-up ring? It's probably full of water, honestly. Yeah, there you go. Yep.

Fair enough to keep it. Hey, it looks like it worked to me. There was a guy who made the tornado berm around his house and saved it. Everybody laughed at him, but it saved it. If you're in a major risk zone, guys, you got to research this. And you have to know this. And you got to leave earlier. And plan your routes.

Like you said in your notes, multiple routes. Yeah, routes upon routes. Because you never know like what road's gonna wash out which one's gonna be unstable it depends on you know how much rain hit that area there's so many variables so yeah traffic you know is this like a primary route so you know everybody's gonna be going that way do you know of a different way yeah for sure so special prepping ideas for flooding flotation devices i mean the more you can keep out of flooding water the better yeah well i was thinking life jackets even you know better to have a life jacket on than not if you were to get swept away kind of thing you know

i don't know if i'd want to be walking around my life jacket but you know whatever i definitely have my kid in one you know uh but you can you can take preps away you can take that stuff away if you have like a blow-up raft that you could use something like that yeah uh waders you know if you're a hunter or something like that you know exactly what i'm talking about but they have like bib overalls that come all the way up so if you have to walk through the water to do something you know to take care of your house whatever at least you would be you know have that protective barrier between you and the floodwaters. A walking stick. So walking... Yeah.

I mean, I love my walking stick. It's just my... It's my baby. I love it. I got my paracord on there. Helps me stretch my shoulder. But it allows you to judge the depth of the water before you step into it.

Also, it turns you from a bipod to a tripod, so you have more stability when you're in an unstable situation. Again, if you're evacuating some special things you want to think about, you want to have a water or a window breaking tool. You need it. The pressure of the water on the window can make them hard to roll down, so you can't escape. Most of the drownings in flood type situations happens when people are still in their vehicle, so you need a window breaking tool. The electronics might fail, so you can't roll down your window anymore. When you're breaking a window you don't want to hit it in the center it's easiest to if you hit it on the edge to break it oh that was an interesting thing i picked up

so i have a like a pointy baton that i carry on my key ring all the time it is technically a window breaker but it's a great self-defense tool as well dual purpose it's on my key ring all the time and i never have to worry about it um i used to also help market a product called um gosh it was the owl window breaker yeah it's like a credit card size and you don't need strength for it anybody can do it you just hook it to the window and then flick it and it'll break that window just like that. It's really neat. So if you're elderly or you have really bad arthritis

or something like that, that is an option for you for sure. Okay, we're already, oh, the emergency car kit. So your food, water, med kit, you guys should have this anyway. We've been talking about these a lot lately. Emergency car kit. So your food, water, med kit. You know, you guys should have this anyway. We've been talking about these a lot lately. It's definitely something that should be in your vehicle. And then have your flotation device or your life jackets with you in the car. Like don't take off and leave that behind because, you know, that could really help you out.

All right. After the flood. After the flood is just as dangerous, I would say, as during the flood. There's a lot of potential threats that you need to think about. Things could have shifted as far as homes, trees, all of that stuff. Water can just take everything out. stuff water can just take everything out so after the flood as well if that infrastructure like in bc has been destroyed now you're looking at food shortages water shortages gas shortages essential supplies are all being delayed because of shipping because of trucks can't get in there

the roads might be impassable bridges are down critical infrastructure is destroyed and your utility systems are destroyed so this is when your preps are going to come in key so you do not want them wrecked by the flood water so you have nothing then water causes a ton of damage and you can throw those a couple of videos up in the chat there chin those are great ones yes ma'am so you want to begin drying out your home as soon as possible and honestly until i watch these videos because i work insurance i know a lot of this stuff and I deal with it all the time, but I didn't realize how intensive it is until I watched these videos that Chin shared with me so we could get a little bit more educated. And, you know, you have to cut away the drywall. It's not just ripping the carpet out and the

padding out and stuff like that. You have to cut away the drywall above that water line. You have to cut away that insulation. I mean, we're down to studs in the whole bottom of the house. It's just... Yeah, from the water line down, yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, mold is like major concern.

And what do you say, two it starts yeah and that was some mega mold going on so of course anytime you're doing the clean out efforts uh and 95 masks you got to protect your lungs from all these mold spores and bacteria just nastiness in the air look out for any kind of structural concerns i've seen it where like water was coming through the roof it comes out around ceiling fans and things like that a lot so those are have potentials to fall down that kind of thing oh so watch out for you know don't just look down. Look up, too, and see what's going on. You never know what could be ready to fall on your head, basically. The waterline stripped down is even more than you think.

Like, even behind the tubs. Right? Yeah. That was crazy. When you said that, I was like, of course. I didn't think about that. Yeah. Yeah. All that drywall, all was crazy. When you said that, I was like, of course. I didn't think about that. Yeah. All that drywall, all that insulation.

Behind the cabinetry, right? You have to strip that all out and start to dry it. There was a little bit, in each video, there's a different recipe. So one guy makes it a little bit stronger than the other one. But I thought the one cup to bleach to five gallons of water was just easier to kind of remember that's the three core he had a different one like quarter to a gallon or something like that so um it's a little bit more diluted so you can go a little bit over a cup and you're going to be fine but one cup to five gallons of water you need to bleach everything kill that bacteria kill that mold

bleach the first guy said be careful metal and like electrical waters oh yeah fair enough yeah and shut that all down shut down your gas line if you smell it if you think anything's weird shut that down shut down all your power before you even enter the house i mean why take the risk right so you know it's safe um and he was saying like even metal flashings things like that around the electrical outlets might need to come out because they can get rusty after they've been wet that kind of thing man so much to it and i wish i could sit here and tell you, hey, don't worry because you have home insurance and it's going to be all taken care of, but that is actually not the case at all.

Sorry to tell you. Depends on what your policy is, right? No, it actually doesn't. This is a nationwide thing. No groundwater movement is covered on homeowners insurance on a traditional homeowners insurance plan no groundwater movement is covered so if you have a hole in your roof or the wind makes a hole in your roof and it's raining and water comes in yes that's covered right but if you have a flooding situation where the floodwaters just get so high

they enter your home and do all that damage no that's groundwater movement and it's not covered so if you need if you're in an area where you think that um if you think that you're in an area where that's going to be a problem for you the only way to get coverage for that is through the national flood insurance program that the federal government does uh it's expensive in flood area but they have flood maps that kind of thing so it's something to look into also um lloyds of london has started selling flood insurance to americans so i think that's when we lived closer to the coast i think that's who we had to get it through was lloyds of london yes ma'am yeah yeah yeah and honestly like lloyds of london they're they're like a private company they really don't have to pay out kind of thing obviously it does them better reputationally

if they do but um they're not like held to it through the laws of the insurance governing laws here anything that happens because of uh the storm situation like say the water you know screwed up your gas line your gas line started leaking, there was an explosion that burnt your house down. Now that's covered. Because explosion and fire are both covered, right? But the groundwater movement, that damage wouldn't be covered. Yeah, like down here by the coast, there was always a definition between falling water and rising water.

And we had to have policies to cover both. Yes. That's exactly, that's why I say it's a nationwide thing. Mm-hmm. No policy is going to cover it unless you have special flood insurance. Yep. From one of those two sources. They're the only ones available.

Unplanned power outages. So, for example, in Californiaia when they announce that we're gonna have a power shortage and you don't take actions to do anything about it now that's not covered you lose your food supply and your fridge whatever that's not covered wow really yeah yeah because they announced it to you ahead of time, right? They gave you time to take precautions. Yeah, right. I know. But, I know, it's the legal jargon, right?

Yeah, it's definitely false. But if the storm causes the power outage, then that is covered. You'll have to check with your state on that one, because I'm licensed in three different states, and California is pretty much the most restrictive with insurance, so it covers most of the country. But definitely check with your own plan. However, say you had freezers that were full of meat, your preps, that kind of thing, and you had power outage and you lost those because of it, it would be covered subject to your deductible. So it depends on what your deductible is. If you have like a $2,000 deductible and you had,

you know, $4,000 worth of food go, well then it would be covered. But usually that amount of food that you lose doesn't go past your deductible. So you're kind of screwed either way. past your deductible so you're kind of screwed either way all right so that's kind of the insurance i mean if you guys have any questions in the chat about the insurance you have any specific questions i i definitely would field them out for you um but man this situation with the flooding is just it's going to get more and more interesting. And interesting theory from suspicious observers is how much water we have stored beneath the ground. And then when you start exciting the top, the air on top of it with electrical, more electrical charges, basically, which can happen from the sun's going into a more active field, hits our planet it charges up the atmosphere kind of thing it actually starts pulling that

water up and so we could see a lot more flooding situations even without the any kind of ocean level rise so all right guys well can't wait to have next to see you next week like i said if you want to help me out head on over to my website changing our series.com become a paid member lots of goodies for you there um go leave a review do something like that always appreciate the boost and the help and i'd love to hear from you and um thanks for thank you all for supporting the show and i mean number two on the the top five is pretty darn good in my book. So thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.

Until next time, remember, dream. Survive. Thrive. Thank you for joining Sarah and Chen for this episode of the Changing Earth Podcast. episode of the Changing Earth Podcast. Don't forget to pick up your copy of Day After Disaster at www.authorSaraFHathaway.com. If you love the Changing Earth series and podcast, become a supporter while you're there.