Calgary flood: Practicing for the apocalypse

A shot of downtown Calgary. source: CTV.ca
A shot of downtown Calgary. Source: ctvnews.ca. Click on image to get to original post.

So yeah, this picture? That’s downtown Calgary. Thankfully, I don’t live in downtown Calgary (or in any of the areas that got evacuated), but I do live in Calgary.

For those not in the loop (or those not in Canada), Southern Alberta has gotten a ridiculous amount of rain over the last week. When Mr. Char asked me if I’d built my ark earlier this week, I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

To put it another way, I’ve seen more rain in Calgary in the last week than I did the entire time I lived in Texas. In a town along the Gulf Coast — one that was decimated by Hurricane Ike back in 2008.

Yeah. It’s a lot of rain.

In fact, as I write this post, it is STILL raining. One of the city’s rivers has already crested (one of the actual rivers, not one of the makeshift street-rivers), and I would imagine the second has as well — or if it hasn’t it will shortly, and the local dam/reservoir has, to my knowledge, overflowed.

Too bad God wasn’t speaking to me earlier this week. (Or, um, ever, actually.) Also, it’s too bad I have no idea what the hell a cubit is.

Starting yesterday, huge swaths of the city were given mandatory flood evacuation orders. Those orders kept coming, and ended (I believe) sometime this morning. As of this point, at least 75,000 people in Calgary alone were booted from their homes. Some of the small towns surrounding the city have ended up under water. Some towns were evacuated in their entirety (for example, the town of Bragg Creek, about 44 km — please don’t ask me what that is in miles — west of Calgary, was completely evacuated and power to the town was shut off). Most of the town of High River is under water; enough water has collected to completely submerge vehicles. Boats are going around to rescue people stranded on rooftops.

There are only a few evacuation centres (only about 4, I think); the rest of the evacuees are being put up by friends, family, and random strangers who have opened up their homes.

It is, in a way, reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina. Only not, because we didn’t have gale force winds and mass destruction or anything like that. But as far as rainfall in a landlocked province goes, this is pretty much classified as “torrential rains.”

The mayor of Calgary is urging everyone to stay home unless it’s absolutely necessary to leave. I have NOT been evacuated. Mr. Char’s office was closed for the day, and everyone was sent home. So, for the time being, my family is at home, taking a movie (and writing) day. (I have never been happier to live at the top of the hill.)

But! For those who were evacuated — and for anyone who could possibly be evacuated for anything in the future — what do you pack? What do you take with you?

There are loads and loads of articles about this online. Any prepper worth their salt will have a Go Bag prepped and ready to go. If, however, you’re not a prepper, and you find yourself being evacuated, what do you do? Here’s a quick list (and note that it is NOT definitive):

  • Don’t panic. (Well, okay, maybe you can, but only a little bit and only in the beginning. Afterward, you’re really going to have to get your ass in gear because you’ve just lost valuable prepping time.)
  • Pack enough clothes for the length of the evacuation, plus a few days extra. For example, Calgary’s evac order is for 72 hours. So, pack clothes for a week, just in case.
  • Bring ALL prescription and necessary medication with you. This is pretty self-explanatory.
  • Take all important documents. Passports, health/immunization records, driver’s license, SIN/SSN, birth certificates, blah blah blah. You never know when you’re going to need them.
  • Bring a first aid kit. Just in case.
  • Pack supplies (ie. food and water). Because you never know when  you’re going to need them. And it’s always good to have supplies on you, especially when you’re evacuating and you don’t know when you’re going to be home.
  • Tell your neighbors you’re evacuating. That way someone knows. Also, officials here in Calgary told people to mark their doors with a giant “X” so that rescue personnel know your house is empty. That’s a good idea, too. (But that might leave your house open to looters/robbers if it gets to that point, so that’s a toss-up.)

Obviously, the above is not a complete list. If you’re being evacuated because of a flood, get important documents, pictures, etc out of the basement, or at least put them in waterproof containers. You never know what you’re going to come home to, and it might very well be a flooded basement.

To everyone in Calgary and Southern Alberta, stay safe!

And now for some pictures! (Note, I obviously didn’t take these pictures — every picture is credit to a source, usually to a news outlet. Click on the images to get to the original posts.)

CAL062113-gya-3.jpg
Stampede Park, Calgary, where the Calgary Stampede is held every year — this year’s starts in under two weeks. Source: nationalpost.com. Click on image to get to original post.
CAL062113-gya-4.jpg
Elbow River, one of the two rivers crossing Calgary. Source: nationalpost.com. Click on image to get to original post.
cougar creek
Cougar Creek in Canmore, a town in the Canadian Rockies about 100km west of Calgary. Source: ctvnews.ca. Click on the image to get to the original post.
bow river3
The Bow River (the second — and bigger — of Calgary’s two rivers) bursts its banks. Source: calgaryherald.com. Click on image to get to original post.

 

 

But it's not going to happen!

Any time you want to discuss anything post-apocalyptic with people, the first thing they do is shout in your face “But it’s not going to happen!”. To be fair, it’s probably not. But that’s not the point.

The fact that something’s probably not going to happen is no reason not to be prepared for it, is it? This book I’m writing probably isn’t going to nab me my dream agent and get me a three book deal with Tor, but I’m sure as hell prepared in case it does. I’d rather be ready and never need it, than need to be ready and not be.

I also think those people miss the point of this website just a tad. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we are not a serious survivalist kind of place. There’s plenty of them on the internet, and you don’t need any more.

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And whiile we hope we sometimes give you good advice that might keep you alive, we’re more about the odder stuff that could happen to you in a post-apocalyptic world. After all, I once discussed the possibility of sentient badgers. We’re more informed by pop-culture than religion, more concerned with how to do our hair and what unrealistic beauty standards we’ll be held to than how many guns we should have. I’m a Brit. I’ve only ever seen a real life gun once.

We don’t think it’ll only be a specific breed of hyper-prepared evangalist who’ll make it. We don’t think ‘traditional gender roles’ will be necessary or desirable.

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We think the new world will be pretty crapsack, but will have some good bits. We think worldwide starvation or economic collapse is more likely than Dragon infestation, but we think Dragon infestation would be cooler.

And most importantly, we know our history. We know that humanity has survived dozens of apocalyptic events, from plagues and wars to country wide, year long floods. We know that no matter how much the media shrieks, this is nothing new. We know that we are descended from people that made it, and that we can make it too.

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We know that we are no more likely than anyone in our ancestry to have our short, dull lives intruded on by a disaster – but we’re no more likely to avoid it, either.

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This is down to luck. We believe in taking risks and going after your dreams, because our research suggests that, based on humanitys history, we have a reasonable chance of not making it.

OK, an example of all these apocalyptic events humanity has made it through. As a European with Irish ancestry, in order for me to exist my ancestors had to: Survive a plague. Survive a year where it never stopped raining. Survive two world wars. Survive the Potato Famine. Survive a Civil War.

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It probably won’t happen. But if it does, we think we can make it, and we think that we can help you make it too.