Hmm, Monday, what shall I do this week?
ARCAM is somewhere I plan on visiting if I’m feeling up to it this coming week (it’s just across the river from us at the Osterdok) in the light of the horrendous rain and the awful disaster-movie-in-slow-motion flooding of swathes of western and central Britain. Now there’s no water or power in some areas too, with 3650,000 affected.
A floating house begins to appeal…
The summer months at Arcam will be given over to the theme of acquatic building in Amsterdam. ARCAM is devoting its attention, in exhibition and book form, to the history of life on boats and barges, and to future prospects for floating construction.
Besides floating homes, the topics include a theatre on the IJ waterway, motorways on pontoons, a church ship, a public library and waterborne gardens. Among Amsterdam examples are the floating housing on Ijburg, plans for floating neighbourhoods on the Ijmeer lake and a floating hostel in the Houthavens area.
There are ecoboots moored on the Noordercanal not too far from us too and they do look pretty incredible (I’ll take some pics and post them later) but they’re not cheap at around 325,000 euro plus associated costs. It’s not a poor person’s answer unless they start building floating rental apartment blocks. It’s unsurprising that most of the current work on them is being done in trendy Ijburg.
Even though NL iis probably the most well-prepared country in the world to resist a sudden indundation, this weather is something new, though we can hardly call it unexpected. Over the past month or so I’ve been looking at the satellite maps and radar every day and you can see clearly that the jet-stream has moved south and moist air is continually being sucked into a deepening weather pattern over NW Europe. There’s a good animation of the past 12 hours of Western European weather at Freie Universität Berlin here and you can see it quite clearly even if like me you’re just an amateur.
It just squats there like a great ominous toad, sucking in arctic moisture, dropping it over NW Europe, drenching us and holding a stationary purgatorial heatwave over the Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Greece, who are suffering mightily. Now they’re on fire and you can see the smoke from space:
I don’t know about you but I’m torn beteen being scared shitless at the way the climate is going, or alternatively just turning my brain off, sticking to keeping my health stable, looking after my family, growing tomatoes and feeding the cats.
The latter seems the sensible course, especially since the climate has reached the point of no return and there’s really nothing we as individuals can do to reverse it: I refuse to feel guilt about this any more, especially not when those silly, blind, venal buggers in China are seeding the clouds to stop it raining on the Olympics – even as their fellow citizens alternately drown and burn.
In light of this, all this carbon-neutral bollocks and exhorting us all to change our lighttbulbs is like sticking a bloody smiley bandaid on a multiple organ failure.
I’m trying hard to be resigned and philosophical about it all, but it gets a bit difficult when the water and the flames are lapping at your neighbours’ doorsteps.
The least I can do is make sure we’re prepared should it happen to us: if nothing else the UK floods have shown that despite the heroic efforts of the emergency services, when it comes down to it, we have only ourselves to rely on. So put your own emergency kit together as much as possible, as recommended by the Red Cross:
Heat and lights:
— Candles
— Extra batteries
— Fireplace logs
— Flash lights
— Matches
Health and safety (including food safety):
— Anti-bacterial hand gel and baby wipes
— Appliance thermometer and food thermometer
— First aid kit
— Paper towels
— Re-sealable baggies and garbage bags
— Vitamins, minerals and protein supplements
Food and food preparation:
— Bottled water (estimate 1 gallon per day per person, plus extra for food prep and hygiene)
— Fresh fruits and vegetables
— Nonperishable foods
— Canned meats, chicken and fish
— Canned chili, spaghetti, stew and vegetables
— Granola bars, trail mix and nuts
— Canned fruits and juices
— Evaporated or dry milk
— Instant soups
— Cereals and crackers (low-salt variety, so you don’t crave extra water)
— Baby food and formula
— Pet foods and supplies
— Special dietary items
— Peanut butter and jelly (look for serving-size packages that don’t require refrigeration)
— Hard candy, chocolate bars
— Disposable plates and utensils
— Manual can opener
Other necessary supplies include:
Communications:
— A battery-powered AM-FM radio, weather radio and batteries
— A land-line or corded phone
— A list of emergency phone numbers, including numbers for the power, gas and water companies.
— Backup plans in case family members are separated during an emergency. Designate a contact person who is not a member of your immediate family and with whom everyone can check in.
Odds and Ends:
— A list of dry ice suppliers (about 15 to 20 pounds of dry ice will keep temperatures in most freezers or refrigerators low for up to 24 hours)
— Frequently used medicines
— Blankets
— Prescriptions
— Eyeglasses
— Battery-operated lantern and batteries
— A wind-up or battery-powered clock
— Warm blankets
— Fuel for space heaters. Be certain to store this safely.
— Blankets
I was gobsmacked at the number of people on Friday who just went about their business commuting, or going on holiday, even though there were flood alerts and severe weather warnings and travel guidance given out – and who did so totally unprepared. I’ve every sympathy with those caught for hours on a motorway with no food or drink or toilets, but bloody hell, wake up people, are you living in a fog? You can’t say you weren’t warned not to travel.
Many of the afflicted seemed to think that a magic hand would come down from the sky and save them and in some cases, it did. But mostly not – it’s been down the flooded and their neighbours to cope. The emergency services have been at full stretch and the armed forces are fucked and can’t back them up; cheers Mr Gordon Briown.
Hillary Benn, who you’d think was in charge, has been worse than useless, clucking and fluttering around like a particularly ineffectual wet hen. It’s taken Gordon Brown 3 days to convene an emergency cabinet committee. Heaven forbid ministers’ family holidays should be delayed…
I hesitate to compare what’s happened in Britain this weekend to Hurricane Katrina, (the two are on entirely different scales) but there are things in common if you ignore those differences in scale: both climate-change-fuelled events have highlighted just how fast and how quickly the infrastructure of civil society can fail and both also have shown the complacency and lack of preparation of everyone, residents included.
Katrina and it’s aftermath showed US citizens that it’s folly to rely on a central government that has been hollowed out by ideology, privatisation, cuts, political corruption and plain inertia. When called to do their job, FEMA just weren’t there.
Ditto New Labour.
But even given their culpability, even if officialdom had been there, sometimes it seems as though people expect the impossible from the frontline respoinders in the emergency services.
I don’t know what it is – we seem to have a collective delusion that should there be a natural disaster somehow it’s all going to turn out all right and the good guys will come riding to the rescue. Er, no. That’s Hollywood. Life is not like that.
The thing about the emergency services is they have to be paid and equipped and housed even when not needed, and we don’t seem to want to pay to do that. In any case, they’re not superhuman – they can’t stop disasters, they can only help ameliorate their effects and if these types of disasters occur more frequently, as is predicted, what few emergency services we have will soon become exhausted.
So I’m going to make sure we have emergency supplies, clean water and flashlights and the rest; because if I were to get a stomach bug or not have anything to drink my kidneys’d give out in a day or so and I’d die. It’s down to me, as it is to everyone, to ensure my own survival in a crisis.
So make like a boy scout or girl guide or brownie (I’ll go for brownie, the uniform’s my colour) – and be prepared.
