I drove over this afternoon to pick up my son from his mom’s house. 

He started asking me this question that is my entry’s title.  ????  The way he said it, I thought maybe he was referring to the Tempe Lake dam - it’s an inflatable thing that can be deflated to allow water to run through it.  That’s because that lake is actually built in a dry riverbed.  The dry riverbed is not always dry, in cases like now, when there has been extreme, and I do mean EXTREME, amounts of rainfall, they have to open up the dam up the river and turn the dry river into a - real river. 

Instead, I was curious why he was asking about this particular thing, so I asked what was going on?

Some thing in school - no, that’s not it - some program  or educational thing that teaches you what to do in extreme emergencies - including if a dam breaks.  Well, if a dam breaks and you’re in it’s way, it’s one of those put-your-head-between-your-legs-and-kiss-your-@$$-goodbye deals. 

Well, he says, they say that if some dam around here breaks, you have 1 hour and 30 minutes to get out of the way of the onslaught.  Well, that’s the Roosevelt dam and if it breaks - I don’t know if we are in trouble or not.  I live on the base of a mountain - it’s above the valley floor.  I simply said that we are on the base of a mountain, if you happened to be here if it happened, you would probably be okay, but to be safe, we would grab the dogs and run up the side of South Mountain and get to the top.  Only another Noah’s Flood would cover THAT high. 

The discussion has progressed, as I brought up my concerns about a potential, horrific emergency:  the meltdown of the Palo Verde Nuclear generating plant.  If THAT were to happen, we would be in serious trouble.  My escape route is I-10 south.  I-10 is 2 miles from me, south would be the only way to go and it would have to be immediate, get whoever you can, get in the car and get out of town and don’t plan on coming back for a while.  I don’t know what my mother’s plan is - if she even has one.  In a disaster like that, you have to find an escape route that is close and won’t be stopped by massive panic of everyone else also trying to get out.  She would be in trouble, I think, being in Sun City.  NO - I take that back - she could head north up to Wickenburg towards Las Vegas.  Well, not a great route since it would take you in the wrong direction - you would be passing by the plant even if 30 plus miles to the south - but - what choice do you have.  Going any other direction would never work - the roadways would be filled with cars and there would be no getting out.

The key in such a situation would be to get out immediately - waste no time, don’t worry about personal things, worry about saving your life and as many of those with you that you can.  Unfortunately, the dogs would have to be left behind to fill the car with humans.  It would suck, and I would be greatly affected by it, but - obviously - human life is worth far more than canine life. 

It was an interesting conversation.  I used to be of the “survivalist” mind - get everything you need stockpiled in advance in case you have to go live off the land.  I’m not quite so motivated now, but I am stockpiling food stuffs - just in case.  Seeds and guns too.  I’m one of those people that believes everyone (normal people that is) should own a gun.  Protection is my mindset there, not necessarily hunting capabilities.  But I digress and that’s a whole different subject with numerous paragraphs of my thoughts on it, so I won’t go there on this posting (though I will throw in here that I am very glad my mother changed her tune on guns and now owns 3 of them). 

As for today - I have felt like junk all day long.  I have a “low-key” sore throat that has plagued me for 3 days and I have not felt good.  I have awakened 3 times this week feeling VERY nasty and today was one of those days - I am only NOW, within the last hour, feeling a LITTLE better than this morning.   Great, go to bed and wake up tomorrow morning - yucky?  NO, I will not have to get up in the middle of a very deep sleep since tomorrow is Saturday and nothing pressing, so I hope that I can get a very good night’s sleep, indeed.  The 5th wheel trailer deal seems to be going through.  Looking for tomorrow afternoon possibly to get it over here.  Umm, nothing else, really, and I don’t want to write anything else, anyway.

G’nite.

ben