FREEZING

The Quebec ice storm of 1998 is a good example of the sort of disaster that can have severe consequences for individuals, businesses, and the economy. Six days of freezing rain coated large areas of Canada with ice, breaking power lines, making roads impassable, and causing power outages that lasted for more than a month. Even in some major cities the power was out for so long that water pipes froze, and cracked, later releasing their water and damaging buildings throughout the area. People froze in their homes, and emergency systems were stretched to the limit rescuing those lacking heat who could no longer survive in the extreme cold. 28 people died, many from hypothermia, nearly 1000 were injured, 4 million lost power, and the cost of the storm was estimated in the trillions of dollars.

And that was the result of just one little ice storm.

What would happen if, due to global warming the gulf stream were to stop? This seems to have happened previously in geologic history, perhaps frequently and rapidly. If the cessation of the gulf stream were to create such a freeze over an entire continent, would your investment strategies handle this without undo loss? Would anyones?

Many areas of the world suffer from serious winter storms. A blizzard can cut off a home or a company for many days or even weeks. Plan ahead for such problems. Consider what you will need in your home if you are without electricity and unable to get out for an extended period. Plan ahead.

That people are so foolish as to build in these places is hardly surprising. Memories are short. But that they are allowed build in these unstable places is more due to the prevalence in government of sleazy politicians rather than honest statesman combined with the fact that insurance companies are always available to take the risk from them and more often dump it on the rest of us in the form of higher premiums. But as too often happens it is the rest of the citizens who pay the most as so much of the infrastructure is not covered privately and there are always voters to demand help because they were not properly insured. And so the politicians step in, and agree to pay for those fools were not insured at all, and pay for the infrastructure to be rebuilt, and in the end the cost is dumped back on us, the taxpayer.