As the date grew closer, I became less and less enamored of the whole plan. Do NOT put a person with anxiety disorder anywhere near Armageddon! To heed the considerable caution the media started to broadcast would cause any rational person to have some concern. An anxiety-prone person would want to get as far away from the path of totality as possible! Here are some of the dire warnings that started to keep me up at night:
1. Traffic woes: Fifty mile back-ups on the interstates and state highways as people make their way to their preferred viewing destination (a 70-mile wide swath of the United States, arcing from the Pacific coast of Oregon to the Atlantic coast of South Carolina). Cranky drivers all hoping to get a hotel room or a campsite, possibly devolving into the worst road rage riot in history.
2. About those campsites and hotel rooms: FULL. People who pay attention to such things had booked their accommodations years ago! And enterprising capitalists would recall something about "supply and demand" from their Econ. classes and skyrocket rates into the cosmic stratosphere: camp sites reputedly going for $300/night; Motel 6 charging more like $600; farmers harvesting their crops to clear the way to opening their fields to RV-ers, charging who knows what fee for a side-by-side parking space under open skies. Love your neighbor.
3. Gas shortages: Many millions of people descending, on rural communities especially, would put a strain on resources. Warnings were issued to be sure to top off your tank every time it started to dip much below full. Motorists were sure to be stranded, running on empty.
4. Food and water shortages: Those highway back-ups would mean being stuck in your car for hours, not daring to leave the roadway (and in rural American, or in mountain passes, where would you go anyway?) Pack plenty of extra water and food for the road.
5. No ambulance: Be in good health and take care not to break a leg or have a heart attack. Those clogged roadways would also mean emergency vehicles would not be able to get to you.
6. Fire: Speaking of emergencies, here in the great and very dry eastern regions of Washington and Oregon, August is wildfire season. Forest fire danger would increase exponentially with the millions more heading to national forests and big open high desert grasslands.
7. No cell service: Some places in the path are off the grid on a normal day; others would be so overloaded that cell reception would be compromised and partitioned to use by emergency first responders only. (Apparently this is a thing...who knew?)
8. Also, not on the news, but I wondered...if I'm stuck in our truck for hours on end, where would I pee? Just askin'.
9. Blindness: Reports of Amazon having to refund mega dollars to folks who bought from a rip-off vendor on their site had people terrified of having obtained ineffective eclipse glasses the would not offer the requisite protection needed to avoid permanent eye damage. Everyone was warned DO NOT TO LOOK AT THE SUN EXCEPT AT TOTALITY! Duly noted, but still...pretty scary. I checked and double-checked our vendor's reputation and ISO registration number.
10. Just stay home: Some heeded all warnings and rolled their eyes and shook their heads when I said I was going. The event in Seattle would be 92% complete, which most said was fine for them.
It all had the makings of a Lord of the Flies experience and being averse to chaos, conflict, and confrontation, I started to wonder if it was worth it.
Hub, for his part, began to tire of my constant warnings and forwarding of dire prediction articles on the internet and finally told me to just stay home...but that he was going. Non-Anxious people make these kinds of adventure decisions with an optimistic outlook that all will be well. I don't get it. But I did decide to go along.
Let the adventure begin....©
Headline Credit: BuzzFeed online story 8/3/17
FROM AN EMAIL: Thanks for sharing! So funny that I began to relive all the worrying I always did. I do hope I did not openly wring my hands!
ReplyDeleteI do appreciate that you write!