gah… always bad news these days.

Our kitties are missing!  :O  fuckin hell… Shinobi and Katinka never came back inside the night before last and we don’t know where they are… I find it strange that two of them would go missing at the same time… so hopefully they’re alive and they’re together.  Chui is still here though and he seems a little weirded out like he doesn’t know where they went.  😛  I’ll definitely post whatever info I get as I get it.  Anyway, the big one is comin.  Hurricane Rita is the only thing anyone cares about right now.  I live in Austin.  Austin is where everyone in Houston is trying to get to, but ever since hurricane Katrina there hasn’t been anywhere for people to stay.  Above and beyond that, there are over 1 million people gridlocked on all the roads from the gulf coast including I-10, I-35 and 45.  people are running out of gas on the highway because they aren’t going anywhere, and lots of people are just pushing thier cars to either save gas or because they already ran out.  We need to seriously rethink the way we deal with disasters I think… I believe that if we could construct a massive storm shelter in every major coastal city in case of a hurricane or something similar, we could be better prepared to deal with situations like this.  It is impossible to evacuate a city the size of Houston in only 2 or 3 days.  Quite impossible.  Massive storm shelters would have to be self sufficient and perfectly capable of withstanding heavy winds, hail, rain, debris, and flooding… I think things like this would be perfect practice for building colonies in outer space.  I hear that most of NASA will be underwater though.  If we can manage to find a way to build sturdy storm-safe, self-sufficient shelters, we can build a moon base and eventually a base on Mars, so it would be good to practice now.  Solar Energy would be a vital component in such a structure.  Parking on lower levels would be necessary to keep the main building high enough off the ground that any amount of flooding could not reach the main living areas.  Plus turbines could pull in air and high velocity winds from the outside to generate power during the storm… what water they pull in could be purified for drinking right inside the facility…the main atrium could be used for concerts and huge events during any time that the city isn’t in the middle of a storm to help pay for it… naturally it could be large enough even to have a sort of runway on the roof so that planes could get in to the center and either relocate people or drop off supplies… something like that would really have to be a massive structure though.  I have also come to the conclusion that the federal government should open up a federal disaster insurance fund.  that might also be expensive to start up but it would be made to where ANYONE can get disaster insurance if they so choose, and however much you pay in is how much money is set aside specificly for you.  People can pay as little per month or as much per month as they like and their name and updated adress would be stored in the fund’s computer and whenever the area they live in is declared a disaster area, they can find a way to call in and they can give instructions on receieving thier insurance check.  Also the fund would be open to donations from individuals or groups such as the Red Cross or the Salvation Army, so that a buffer fund would build up and from that buffer fund, an allotment would be withdrawn for each disaster at the discretion of the national government and divided up evenly among all the people who bought insurance in an additional payment.  If people die in a storm thier insurance money would become part of that buffer fund and go to all of the survivors unless they specificly request that half be saved for their families.  The fund would compensate for ALL natural disasters (volcanos, earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, heat waves, blizzards, ice storms… everything that would be considered a natural disaster)  and can be tapped for man-made disasters as well like refinery explosions, nuclear meltdowns, terrorist attacks, plane crashes, and bombings… of course this isn’t life insurance, this is money that is intended to compensate for property damage and homelessness due to disasters.  I suppose they could also arrange temporary transfer accounts for peoples life savings if they have all their money in a local bank that suddenly gets wiped out.  If they have a chance to they can wire their savings or checking account money into a temporary locked account they they can unlock only after they’ve gotten back into contact with the agency.  If it turns out the’re dead then the money is dealt with as usual when a person dies unexpectedly.  Not that I expect anyone to actually take my ideas seriously, regardless of how good or sci-fi they sound… but that’s what I’d do if I were president.  Plus I’d encourage other nations to try the same system, so eventually we could all pool our funds together in an international disaster insurance fund.  That way money can quickly be transfered to any country where it is needed because it would all be electronic… but in any case, what it all comes down to, is that we are ALL going to have to help eachother.  Everyone around the world needs to realize that though we all live in different countries on different parts of the globe… it’s all the same globe.  The mess any one of us gets in affects all of the rest of us.  Just like we learned from that giant tidal wave back at Christmas.  so many people died… so many people are going to die… I just wish there were a way to reduce that number.  Here’s hoping Texas doesn’t get too badly assraped.