Two Letters Re: Solar Storms

Dear Jim,
Regarding the Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that occurred this week that everyone is concerned about. I advise some caution in over-reacting to these types of events. While the CME itself was of a very high magnitude and is spectacular in images, it was never anticipated that it would cause us any problems. Predictions for auroral activity were only in the high latitudes, and auroral activity is a dead-giveaway as to how strong the impact on the ground will be.

The spectacular images we have all seen over the last week immediately told me we had nothing to be concerned about. The CME was silhouetted against dark space; meaning the majority of the CME was pointed away from earth out into space. It’s the less spectacular images we should be concerned about, when the CME occurs directly facing the earth with only the sun’s surface in the background.

The fact that we are still climbing out of solar minimum also saved us. 1. The normal background solar wind was low to begin with. 2. Flares around minimum occur at high latitudes on the sun, meaning there is a much greater change the bulk of the CME will miss us. As solar maximum increases sunspots and CMEs begin to concentrate around the sun’s equator, giving them a much high chance of being directed towards us.

If this particular CME had been pointing towards us we would have been in big trouble, there’s no doubt about that. But there has certainly been a big beat-up by the media over this event which has scared a lot of people. As we all know, you can’t rely on the media for accurate scientific or emergency information, and in this case they were mostly concerned about how good this event looked in print.

The next time there is a large CME most people are going to be saying “look at the last one, it was a flop”, however each event needs to be judged according to the facts. While it looked pretty, this was just a space storm in a teacup.

I advise anyone concerned about these issues to register for Space Weather Alerts with spaceweather.com. You can even have the alerts sent to your mobile, although there is usually a few day’s warning until the CME reaches Earth (could help if you are camping or overseas at the time). At the very least it will give you a heads-up when to watch for aurora. Where I come from (near Sydney, Australia) aurora are an extremely rare treat that you will only see if you have advanced warning and the CME was large enough and pointed directly at us. It’s those “low latitude” aurora events we need to be concerned about.

This event should be used as a warning to the unprepared. Space happens, do get ready for it. Regards, David R.

 

Hi Jim,
Thanks for your note on solar storms on Tuesday. I definitely did an “oh shibitsk” and instead of spending the next 2 hours reading the Internet like I always do I stopped and jumped into action. I immediately took the opportunity to run a “what if” scenario in my head and realized I was no longer where I had been in my prepping. I spent the rest of the day running around town and getting my “stuff” back to where it should be.

In the last couple of months as I’ve read your blog I’ve taken notes of various people writing in with a story regarding running disaster scenarios or being put in brief situations where all of the sudden they are in a mini TEOTWAWKI. The writers would note that part of their discovery was that various elements in their GOOD bag or BOB bag were no longer there because they had dipped into them for whatever reason and found themselves having to run around and look for the item. This is exactly what happened to me yesterday, just in a larger scale than I had realized. It was a little alarming and drove home the need to get more serious with my discipline about my prep work and not dip into stuff. I had managed to unprep my prepping.

Although in my head it is a little understandable how I had gotten into this situation but it was still so not OK. I don’t know how many time yesterday I muttered at myself dumb dumb, stupid. If I had to go with where I was at yesterday morning I would have been in some serious trouble. The stupid part was that I had been in a good place with all the prep work but because I had become lax in my discipline I had wound up putting myself in danger. Fortunately your “heads up” yesterday woke me up and spurred me into action and I had the time to rectify the situation.

I got lax in my discipline because my life took a major turn in May. I was laid off from work after 12 years with the company (I got replaced by a $3 million computer system). Although I received almost a year’s worth of severance and pay outs and had savings to keep me “good” for almost 2 years it changed my daily routine and spending habits. This change then resulted in me dipping into my prep “stuff” and not keeping it as organized as it had been. I will take ya through my day yesterday so hopefully others can realize how easy it is to unprep yourself and how incredibly important it is to maintain our disciplines.

My first stop was the gas station. I had less than 1/4 tank in my truck and had been dipping into my stored gas for the last three months for various yard chores and projects. I had three more new gas cans still sitting empty since I had purchased them. I had shuffled them around for months always noting I need to fill them up but just hadn’t gotten around to it. Dumb! If this had been the real thing I would have been in a bad way. A lot of good it does to have a generator but no gas.

Next stop was the bank. I had less than a thousand dollars on hand. For months instead of going and getting more cash from the bank I just kept dipping into my “prep cash” until it had dwindled down to a lower level than I would have been comfortable with. Of note; the bank seemed “fussy” about withdrawing more than a thousand bucks. I wound up having to go inside instead of just going to the drive through. Seemed to take a while. Fortunately, since I am into Numismatics I have a lot of pre-1964 silver coins around the house.

Next was the hardware store. Again I had become really lax in my disciplines. My propane tanks were dangerously low because I just kept using them without getting them refilled in a timely manner. I had kept telling myself I would deal with it tomorrow. My white gas situation was the same. I picked up the lumber, wire and other tools I had been meaning to do for months.

Then I headed to Costco. This was one of my biggest dumb dumb of all. I had gotten into the bad habit of just “borrowing” a couple of the stored can goods and supplies with the intention that I would replace them “tomorrow”. Because I no longer had an income coming in and needed to change my spending habits I had made a point to stay away from the stores and get used to getting by on a lot less. Only partially successful, I got used to spending less but got dumb with the “borrowing” from my stores. Over three months I found I had “borrowed” myself almost to the state of being unprepped. This also helped me realize the items I had not stored enough of because if I had borrowed my way through them in 3 months where would I be at if TEOTWAWKI lasted for 6-12 months. I have a lot of freeze dried and MREs I had not touched and assumed with these I was in good shape. I reevaluated. Many carts and dollars latter I filled the back of my truck and headed to the next stop.

The sporting goods store. Although I had spent the summer off doing more training at the gun range and getting comfortable with my firearms I had not replaced the spent ammo. This wound up taking quite a few trips to various stores because its not like you can just walk in and buy the kind and quantities you want. Low inventories or no inventory of certain calibers. I had acquired my stores over a period of time and had not really taken note of the available inventory. I picked up mantles, fishing bait and more line, little propane bottles, and various other odds and ends I had used up.

Yesterday wound up being an expensive day but I was not done yet. When I got back to the house I continued running the “what if” scenario and found that I would not be ready to go if I need to. Too many things had gotten out of their original place. The GOOD bag was on the floor of the spare bed room with the items scattered here and there from the last time I dug into it to “borrow” whatever. Same with the medical kit. My truck was no longer packed and ready to go as it had been. As I wandered around the house and out buildings I found the same to be true in too many cases. I spent the rest of the day and am still repacking, inventorying, and resetting all my previous prep work, as well as, finishing doing all the little things I had meant to do but never quite got around to.

It was and is an awesome valuable lesson. Thanks for the heads up! On a good note…I have not spent the summer just sitting around using up stuff but have taken the opportunity to expand other forms of prepping. I finally had the time to explore and practice basic skills that some would take for granted but that I was lacking in. I’ve also spent the time simplifying my life and getting back to the “old ways” of doing things. It also gave me the time to spend in the garden and expand my self-reliance. I also spent the time exploring the area I live in on foot to take note of available resources such as all the wild plants that could be used for food or medicinal purposes. I live by a river and there is an abundance of naturally growing vegetation and I have been devouring books on identification and practical uses.

One of the areas I realized I had taken for granted was water. I have lived by a river for 22 years and have a well with the ground water just being 12 ft. down. I had in my previous prep work stored water for drinking because I’ve spent a lot of time in the back country and filtering pints of water day after day is not that fun. One of serious dumb dumb I discovered yesterday was that I had used a lot of my stored distilled drinking water for the aquarium because it was easier than having to deal with all the chemicals and expensive test strips needed to make tap water safe for aquarium fish. I’ll actually be semi-glad when the fish finally die on their own and I can shut down the aquariums. So, although I did spend the last 3 months seriously advancing some parts of my preparations I got a little too lax in other areas. It is so easy to just borrow or dip into, just this once, into our stores of goods while telling ourselves I’ll replace it tomorrow or the next time I go to town. I chose to take your “heads up” as a “what if” it were now–right this second. It seriously opened my eyes.

Thanks & Take care, – Skylar