About 30 minutes from us, officials have issued an alert for residents of a riverside area to be ready to evacuate at any minute, because of landslide risks, given recent heavy rains. I can’t imagine living in such limbo and going to sleep not knowing. I remember various news stories where homes collapsed in landslides as families slept, killing them all at once.
Given that severe weather and wildfires have become more common over recent years, it’s worth considering whether various sits are iffy. And when buying real estate, checking for such risks. Like I’ve checked flood risk maps, as well as avoided buying waterfront property, because I’d rather not deal with the risks of rising rivers and erosion over years to come. Some properties also are becoming uninsurable as risks increase.
Right! We lived Oceanside here in Santa Cruz and the year after we moved into the mountains, the road eroded and was closed, with construction to rebuild the road taking two years. There was a porta potty in front of our “ocean view” window for those two years, oye! Then, here in the mountains, we were evacuated for two weeks cuz of fires. So. We’re looking to buy now and it’s risky everywhere, it seems… just got to mitigate the risks as possible. Taking sits is also risky, as I love those ocean front/river fro t views and decks…
Agreed about mitigating risks when possible. With sits, maybe consider whether some are better to do outside of rainy / storm season?
When a disaster hits, one of the problems with owning a property is, it can be hard to find good contractors / repair folks, because suddenly loads of other homeowners need them, too.
It’s terrible for communities that lose their roads access — all sorts of complications and repairs and replacements always take too much time. Especially hard on communities that rely on tourism dollars.
My guess is that those temperatures are in Celsius. For Americans and others who are more used to Fahrenheit -16 C = 3.2 Fahrenheit. That’s proper Baltic.
The United States uses the Fahrenheit scale for everyday temperature measurements and the U.S. customary units (including feet, inches, and miles) for length, not the centigrade (Celsius) and metric systems, which are used by most other countries.
While the metric system is the official system of weights and measures for the U.S. in legal terms (due to the Metric Conversion Act of 1975), its use in general commerce and daily life is voluntary.
Just saw an interesting post on Facebook, with the director of the Pacific Tsunami Museum saying to count to 20 when a quake starts — she says that if you reach 20 and it’s still shaking, then it’s roughly a 7.0 magnitude quake. And if you happen to be on the coast, then you need to hurry toward high ground, because a tsunami is likely to follow.
(The forum won’t allow a FB link, because you need to be a member. Otherwise, I’d share the FB post.)
There is no high ground nearby here, and I am just 5 km from the sea. Fortunately, tsunami have not happened here in history. But storms that breached dikes…
The current winter storm in the US is worse. Already over 700 000 homes without electricity, according to https://poweroutage.us/
And when sitting in earthquake prone areas ask HO where their emergency water supplies are, and know where gas, water and electric shutoffs are. If they don’t have emergency provisions (!!!) make sure you get enough jugs of water to cover at least 3-4 days - because that is how long it may take first responders to reach you. Also ask where canned food is for emergencies and make sure you keep a can opener near them (or even better get the pull tab type cans for emergency provisions). Lastly make sure you have or know where a flashlight is (and make sure it’s working) and a solar charger is always helpful for phones (though they may not work for some time - a crank radio is best). Always keep cars filled with at least half a tank of gas to evacuate when roads allow.
I’m American.