The recent events in the Australian state of Victoria have been devistating to both the heart and the health of our nation as a whole. The fires have ravaged whole communities and wiped out entire families in regional towns.
There is a lot of talk about what to do now, should the people rebuild and try to resurrect the lives they once had. Some people are even questioning if the people who call the fire-prone regions of Victoria home should be ALLOWED to rebuild.
Of course they should. They have their lives there. While the old adage says “home is where the heart is” that’s not always so. Sometimes, heck often times, home is actually where the memories are and while those memories are not always good, our experiences have a lot to do with how we are defined as a people.
There is far too much talk about making the homes more hardy, more able to sustain themselves during fire threats, but ultimately the answer is easy.
Do what they do in Kansas and tornado states of America, go into the ground. Build shelters that will provide protection during the threat.
These days they are ready made units, dig the hole, bury them and you’re right to go. Stock it with supplies and keep it stocked and replenished and you will be safe.
Please do this, it will save lives.
Underground shelters are great for protection from tornadoes, but I’d be a little concerned that they’d need reliable ventilation to be useful in a firestorm. CO2 is a heavy gas and tends to sink. Fires release a lot of CO2. Unless properly ventilated I fear people in an underground shelter could be asphyxiated.
So it’s a good idea, with some caveats.
Well I guess you maybe right on that front, I don’t know all the semantics when it comes to fire and the way it works, but surely it would be a simple as having some O2 on hand in the shelter. Also sounds like it may be the way to go. I think I heard something just the other day that the government is looking into this as a possible solution. Given that we lost over 200 people this would have saved quite a few of them.