As the heat wave returns  to punish regions, there are several attendent issues to consider. The first is easy: what are you doing to keep your cool out there? Email or comment, and share your know-how with everybody.

Second, the demand for power goes sky-high and power providers warn that various troubles ensue  if people don't consume wisely. This is a topic we've discussed before, and it really comes down to intelligent choices : turn off everything you're not using and try to keep what you are using on an energy savings setting.

Third, the effects of the environment vary with your health. This radical heat might be the spur to start eating better —a healthy diet makes you more durable and less vulnerable.

Finally, there's the preparedness angle —which, we righteously declare, solves all these problems in advance. Well, maybe not totally. But taking action in advance has to help: it puts you in charge of events, makes you feel less vulnerable and more dialed in to events as they begin. When you act you're not stuck REacting.

Posted by Charles at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in At Home, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

A flood in Ohio has forced evacuations , the Associated Press reports. Lake County  is about 20 miles east of Cleveland. I have relatives in the area, and they report two feet of flooding in the basement. Fortunately, they do not face evacuation. Yet.

We invite people from the area to give their account of events. Anyone who knows someone in the affected area is welcome to post info as well.

Mentor, Ohio has become a focal point for national reporting on the flood. Jim Smith is a Credit Manager in our office there. He writes:

"This morning was not as exciting as it may sound on the news. I come to work from Madison, Ohio, about 30 minutes east of where I work at Mentor 479. The Giant Eagle and Marc’s grocery stores in Madison had water about 2 feet high in their parking lot and in the stores themselves. On my way through Perry and Painesville the roads were flooding over and no one could get through. The Grand River was completely overflowing, and from what I hear the boats that were docked in it were washing down river toward Lake Erie.

"I’ve lived in Lake County for 20 years, and I have never seen rain last that long or the post residual waters that high. It was pretty incredible.

"In Painesville, where the river has many turns, you could see how much wider and higher the water was than usual. I would say the Grand River is running about 5 times wider if not more than it usually does. The 2 coast guard choppers and a couple news choppers were doing whatever they could to shed help or light on the situation.

"I even saw a guy canoeing around in someone’s back yard. I would say that the water on a few of the streets was 6 to 12 inches high.

"I feel for the people whose basements and houses were flooded. I can’t imagine the total dollars in damages that will be incurred here. That water has even been so strong that it has eroded and taken out portions of concrete from some of the streets. I saw an 8 foot diameter portion of road right by a creek taken completely out in Painesville.

"This morning I had to park at a Panera Store and walk about a half mile to work because the road into work was flooded out with about 2.5 feet high of water. I think it’s important for us to be here at work for the customers in case we can help them from a financial standpoint. I’m sure a lot of people are going to need some short term funds to fix all the damages.

"I do hope that people don’t try to drive in those flooded zones because cars can be washed away and lives can be lost. The authorities have recommended that people stay in their houses and off the roads.

"We have harsh winters up here in the Snow Belt, and we have all the four seasons, but I don’t think a lot of these people are as prepared as they think they are when natural disasters like floods take place. This is a tough county, with tough towns, and I can say that no one is crying about it, they are just working hard to help out and clean up the mess.

"Thanks and I hope this gives everyone a little insight into what is going on."

James B. Smith IV
Wells Fargo Financial

Posted by Charles at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in At Work, First-hand Accounts, Perspective, Wells Fargo Bank

Another reason—a very strong reason—you have to be prepared . According to USA TODAY, your community is not ready for disaster, so you have to look out for yourself. Make sure you know your area and your neighborhood, what can happen and what the ensuing consequences will be . And what they might be, also.

Do you know exactly what it is you have to prepare for? Preparedness is a skill that anticipates all possibilities, even the most ridiculous notions . For instance, weather, fires and the frenzy of development over the past several years have had real impact on non-human life forms. When people move closer to the wild, the wild shows up  more often in the front yard. We all know about deer , sure—but bears? 

Make sure you have a flashlight , which tells bears you're not something they want to encounter. (Pepper spray is suggested  by some and could be valuable in the preparedness kit for other situations as well.)

Posted by Charles at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in At Home, Perspective, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

Headlines  reflect how widespread  the heat wave is. It has been tormenting us for weeks now, and it's not just North America: It's hot all over .

This kind of heat pushes several attending dangers. Most obvious is the threat of heat illnesses to people . Make sure you have fluids—it's really the bottom line for heat preparedness. The heat prompts people to kick up the air conditioners and fans, and refrigerators are making ice cubes like crazy. The tax on power providers  makes the grid really nervous ; they have 3 stages of alerts before they cut the power. When the power goes out, by choice or by overload, it's hard on everyone .

Then there's St. Louis. Those folks have suffered all these dangers the past couple of weeks—and when they finally get some cooling relief from rain, it's a huge storm that wipes out the power .

Then you have the fire danger. Fire is the chief reason why you use flashlights with batteries in power outages, NOT candles! The fire in San Diego County  is being driven by triple-digit temperatures and is causing anxiety in the community.

Posted by Charles at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in At Home, At Work, Museums, Perspective, Wells Fargo Bank

Allan Peterson has gone out again to the fire line in Southern California to give a first-hand account. Double kudos for his toughness, because it's really hot out there. (CR)

After observing the effect the Sawtooth Fire had on Southern California, it was no surprise that another fire has sprung up about 60 miles east of San Diego . I spent a few minutes talking with a 20-year veteran of the CDF who was monitoring the fire parking off Highway 8 west of Japatul Road. The smoke was pretty thick over the freeway, and winds were picking up and dumping the soot over Viejas Casino. The CDF fireman didn’t want to go on the record, but he did say that the inversion layer was holding the smoke close to the ground, unlike last night, when around dusk you could see a massive plume arch from the east and move west over San Diego.

This fire is burning in an area that hasn’t burned since 1970. A woman stopped and asked what was going on. Clearly the natives get nervous whenever the smoke descends. It's over 100 degrees out here. And the rain that has fallen in the city of San Diego hasn’t gotten beyond El Cajon from what I can tell.

If the inversion layer holds the smoke close to the ground, they won’t be able to bring the air tankers in to coat the tops of the ridges. By doing that, they hope to keep the fire from creeping down the back sides of those ridges it manages to climb up. All along Japatul road there were CDF units and some other emergency vehicles, but I didn’t see a single police cruiser along the road. There were ambulances near the entrance to the road leading to the Barrett Honor Camp. And there’s a Red Cross emergency shelter set up at Joan McQueen Middle school in Alpine. Right now it looks like it's just wait and see.

Posted by Allan at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in At Home, First-hand Accounts, Museums, Perspective, Wells Fargo Bank

Reuters has a story  about the problems with power outages—Blackouts . There are power outages occurring in many places as the heat wave bakes America, notably in Detroit and Cleveland , and in Queens, New York . Only three days ago, the same news service reported the grid's boast  of meeting record demand for juice.

Blackouts happen for a number of reasons, both technical and operational. Technically, overloads trigger shutdowns in order to borrow the energy from other channels. Operationally, the easiest description is a failure of coordinated agencies to pick up each other's troubles. USA TODAY has an archived article that says what I just said , but in a way you can understand!

Posted by Charles at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Events, Perspective, Wells Fargo Bank

Fire crews got the Sawtooth and San Bernardino  fires under control  (check out the intensely cool maps). Crews were helped by rain, but after the fires there's too little vegetation to accept the water—meaning the prospect of mudslides .

I have been looking around for preparedness and prevention tools on the same level with tornadoes, fires and floods, but there is a lot less on "Mudslide Preparedness."

I get this, though: Preparedness  is about understanding warning signs . Please leave a comment or email me with the steps you take to prepare for 'Slides.

As Wikipedia describes, slides can be slow or fast. Prediction is based on several factors, and warnings are issued. The response is evacuation —not like you have time to build a wall  before you go.

Posted by Charles at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in At Home, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

We're having a heat wave . You look at a map and the temperatures are high all over .

There are a number of things you have to do to stay out of danger. The Red Cross  has tips and FEMA  has a truly comprehensive page for you to find out what the conditions and symptoms are  for heat illnesses , as well as how to prepare  and respond .

Drink water,  lots of water. Avoid soda pop  for a few days—you can do it! 

Posted by Charles at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found in At Home, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

As if the disaster of Christmas 2004 wasn't enough, another tsunami hit Indonesia . The wave slammed Java after a 7.7 earthquake (or 7.2—reports differ) rumbled south of the island this morning .

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center  has all the latest scientific info and has the really thick description in "About Tsunamis"—a veritable textbook on the subject. If you want to know about big waves, that's the place to go.

The news is still breaking, but if you are compelled to help in any way, you can start with the Red Cross . They have issued a report  about some volunteers who went to Indonesia to help with ongoing relief for the 2004 events—just in time for events this morning.

Posted by Charles at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Earthquakes, Events, Experts, Wells Fargo Bank

Debbie, Wells Fargo's store manager in Banning, just called back. Good news / bad news.

Because the customer in Pioneertown (northeast of Banning) had cleared brush around his house, it didn't burn. He had no time to evacuate and literally got scorched getting the barn open to let his animals make a run for it. The barn didn't make it.

All he had time to do was grab his dog, jump in the pickup and step on it. He still has missing some animals, but many are OK and housed in a shelter up in Yucca Valley.

His neighbors weren't so lucky: they lost their houses.

Note: The original posting gave an incorrect location for Pioneertown. It has since been corrected.

Posted by Charles at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found in First-hand Accounts, Get Involved, Museums, Perspective, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

Allan Peterson, Curator at Wells Fargo's History Museum in Old Town San Diego, was evacuated from his home during the fires that raged there in 2003. (CR)

After watching my city almost burn to the ground in 2003 , whenever I hear about a huge, threatening Southern California fire I can’t help but focus on it. Right now there is a fierce, huge fire burning largely out of control on the outskirts of the Coachella Valley . Actually it's two fires, which are very close to becoming one, and right now the temperature there is in triple digit territory.

Not good.

Banning, California, calls itself "Stagecoach Town USA."  I didn’t know that until I called the Wells Fargo store manager there and asked her about the situation. Debbie Mason was kind enough to listen to my questions, and she volunteered that she has been trying to get in touch with a customer who lives in Pioneertown. As of this morning she had been unsuccessful, and I could tell she was a bit worried. I took her cell phone number down as she said the power has been going off and on. She’s not near the fire, and from her location she can’t see smoke or flames, but we all know the wind can shift.

Posted by Charles at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Found in Museums, Perspective, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

Right now, fires are raging in Southern California. A blaze in the high desert is close to meeting up with a blaze in the San Bernardino National Forest. The two together will create substantial problems for firefighters and residents of the area.

Allan Peterson, Curator of the Wells Fargo Museum in Old Town San Diego, is our man on the scene. He'll be posting a report soon.

Posted by Charles at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in First-hand Accounts, Get Involved, Museums, Perspective, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

OK, we all know about how we're supposed to be ready for The Big One—tremor, twister, tsunami—those awful events that put a cow on the roof. Blogs like this one wag our fingers and exhort you to buy more creamed corn and cases of bottled water.

So you do, right? Good.

But what about the mess behind the scenes? It's a shambles in what used to be your living room, but the same disaster happened to buildings downtown, too. Banks, insurance offices, the donut shop—as deep in the muck as your place. Here's where it helps to be as prepared financially as you are physically  and emotionally.

Wells Fargo has put together a pamphlet(pdf) that helps outline the things you have to do (and anticipate) to make sure your wallet is as easily replaced as your water heater.

Posted by Charles at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in At Home, Experts, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

While many people love history, no one likes a forced lesson. But I have to push one on you today—it was on this day in 1852 that Wells, Fargo and Company opened for business in San Francisco, California.

Henry Wells and William G. Fargo were express titans in New York. The express business was concerned with getting things from place to place as quickly as possible. Their reputations as expressmen were made by keeping oysters fresh on the journey across New York State, a major accomplishment in the 1840s. Wells and Fargo wanted a piece of the Gold Rush  action: there was no better way to get gold from the mines to the mint than by express. It was a great business idea.

They opened 104 years ago on Montgomery Street, about 6 feet away from where Wells Fargo Bank has its world HQ today. Within a few weeks, the second office opened in Portland, Oregon and then in Sacramento, California. In 1858, the Company helped organize the nation's first transcontinental stagecoach line, traveling from Missouri to LA in a mere three weeks. Stagecoach lore began, and it continued well into the next century. It continues today: the Stagecoach appears every year in hundreds of events, large and small, all over the place.

The Company has prospered over the years by embracing new technology and methods—blogging, for instance. It all began on July 13, 1852, about 50 feet from where I sit.

Cool.

Posted by Charles at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Museums, Perspective, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank

The other night, KTVU 2  in Oakland, Calif., ran a report about a study(pdf) by scientists in California and Arizona about the effects of global warming on wildfires in the West. The finding was big—the fire season has gotten longer since the mid-1980s, and the time needed to contain wildfires has multiplied as much as four times. A double whammy.

According to Wikipedia , the causes of global warming are changes in sea levels and a blanket of greenhouse gases . The gist of this study is that global warming has more of an impact on forest fires than do changes in land use—logging, mining, tourism, etc. The areas of greatest increase in fires, the study found, are those with stable land use conditions. Since use of the land didn’t change, the study attributes that increase in fires to global warming.

You can therefore look at individual preparedness as part of helping the globe prepare, and it can mean big changes in our lives—like getting out of your car or installing those solar panels, as Climate Choices  (a project of the Union of Concerned Scientists) details at its site. Looking at the big picture, individual preparedness is broader than what you may first imagine: your first aid kit and bottled water are a small part of a larger planetary rescue mission!

Posted by Charles at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in Experts, Get Involved, Participate, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

Flooding in Delaware and New Jersey  has damaged the area to the tune of $5 mil, it is reported. FEMA reports  that aid is still available for residents throughout the Northeast after summer's wet beginning last week .

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  reminds us that immediate flood recovery is not so much about buying lumber; it is more about avoiding mosquitoes  and having fresh water in storage .

Your preparedness kit has all that, of course. Any custom items you want to brag about?

Posted by Charles at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Found in At Home, Prepare, Wells Fargo Bank

Last week's post about the key element of blogging—that is, its central place in the communication about big things with a planetary scope—is more and more on my mind. I visited the New Orleans Times-Picayune  website to look over blogs about Hurricane Katrina  and found a healthy list of local blogs  carried by the paper. Many are dedicated to the stories of people whose lives were changed forever by the disaster.

Politics and ads cost a lot of money, but are strongly driven by the word of mouth between friends, relatives, neighbors and workers. This conversational, person-to-person society is not something anyone wants to ignore.

Blogs as conversation  is still in the, well, conversation stage at present. But whether they offer a community or are just another resource on the web, the info is there for all to see. And to comment on.

How about you? Are blogs a part of your day?

Posted by Charles at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Found in First-hand Accounts, Get Involved, Participate, Perspective, Remember, Wells Fargo Bank