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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Storm of the Century
  • Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:55:25 -0700


From: Lars Olofsson <larso@olofzone.se>
Subject: Storm of the Century

STORM OF THE CENTURY
or
FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCY IN DISASTER RELIEF
or
HOW TO GET BY ON 1.32 kWh OF ELECTRICITY FOR 72 HOURS
or
A CAUTIONARY TALE OF GLOBAL WARMING AND THE DANGERS OF MONOCULTURE
or
BLACKOUT

INTRODUCTION

On Saturday the 8th of January, the storm of the century hit the south
of
Sweden, after building momentum over the North Sea and the flatlands of
Denmark. Inital warnings had mention a class-1 storm hazard warning,
meaning the least dangerous warning there could be.

Normally it is quite cold in the south of Sweden, -10 - 0 C, and the
ground is frozen. Alas, this winter had been the warmest since 1999, and
the ground wasn't frozen anywhere. Sweden is mostly covered by forest,
and
for the most part it is planted Norwegian spruce, in monocultural
forests,
with some mix-in of fir and hardwood leaf, such as birch or oak.

Norwegian spruce is supposed to grow further north, but to maximize
forest
productivity, spruce has been the tree of choice for the last 100 years,
even in the south of Sweden.

Can you see where this is going?

DAY 1, SATURDAY

The wind started to build up during the afternoon, but as we live 25 km
from the ocean, in the forest, we didn't think much of it. It had been
blowing quite a lot this winter, so at first it wasn't much. During the
afternoon we visited some friends close to the ocean, and as we were
going
home around 17:00 it had started to pick up, but we had a calm enough
drive home.

As we reached our "village" and our private road society road, we noted
that the power was out. Not unusual for a storm in wintertime, as most
electric cables in the countryside are suspended in the air, and not
dug.

So as we reached home, I installed our 110 Ah (110*1.2=1.32 kWh)
emergency
battery and inverter, and hooked it up to some of the more necessary
lighting and the computers (ah the power of the Internet). In all a load
of about 35 W, unless the fridge kicked in.

After another 3 hours the phone went dead, so I shut down the computers.

Naturally we had a fire going in our fireplace inset, which is our
primary
heating source anyway, but the lack of 3-phase 400 Volt electricity left
us without any tap-water to speak of.

I went outside sometime in the midst of the storm to check the house
(which sounded quite a bit), and noted in the dark that the skyline at
the
edges of our garden had changed. A few trees in the nearby swamp had
fell
down onto our garden, not causing much more damage than a dent in one of
our cat-runs (yup, we do something as unsustainable as breed pedigree
cats
as a hobby).

Our good old FM-radio told us that the storm was a big one, so we went
into survival mode, brought out the entire kit of emergency stuff and
measures, besides the battery and inverter:

A bunch of chargeable NiMh batteries with charger (either for the 12V
battery or the car), for use in flashlights and radio
Candles, stearin (?) (fossil fuel)
Brought in a few more days of firewood, while twigs and leaf were flying
around me
Brought out our emergency 30 litre plastic water tank, not too fresh
water, plastic = fossil fuel
Brought out a bucket (plastic=fossil fuel), for fetching water from the
commons manual pump across the road
Closed ventilation to reduce heating loss, relying only on leaks for
ventilation, which is enough. Also reduced draft from the storm quite a
bit.
Brought out our ethanol storm kitchen and fetched some ethanol from the
garage
The remaining tap-water is rationed for drinking purposes only, the
manual
well water is good enough for hygiene and the WC (yeah, you can step
outside too if you want)
All food in the fridge went outside, as it was around 5 C, which is what
we have in the fridge anyway. Things in the freezer were left alone, as
the freezer can keep things frozen for at least 24 hours

Naturally, this all happened as all our clothes were supposed to be
washed, and we were supposed to clean the house on Sunday.

DAY 2 SUNDAY

We woke up, our daughter were kinda freaked-out as she expects us to
turn
on the lighting in the morning. Sort of difficult to explain to a
19-months old. A clue: It is dark in Sweden this time of year, we might
have something like 6 hours of daylight, and anyway it was overcast.

Made breakfast, not too difficult, cheese and butter were outside, bread
is bread, and we made tea on the storm kitchen. But it is really
difficult
to keep things clean and wash up afterwards without much water, and no
hot-water (falling pressure made us not want to waste pressure on
hot-water).

Also, everything takes a whole lot of more time when you have to rely on
candles and flashlights. We only used the battery for lighting in the
kitchen, which is a central room in our house, and where we probably
spent
most of the time. In our living room, we have ample light from a
overhead
lamp with candles, and from the fireplace.

But for everything else, besides living room and kitchen, you had to
carry
a flashlight or candles around.

Going outside, we surveyed some of the damage. There were fallen trees,
mostly spruce, all over the place. Some of our own pictures are
available
at http://www.restless.se/hurricane2005.html

We went on a trip to our own forest, and surveyed the damage. Only four
trees had gone down, out of 30 000, at least as far as I know. We were
undamaged. But we were lucky.

Something like 50 trees had fallen across the road between our house and
the main road, but the land-owners had cleared it by the time we went on
our trip, with some exceptions, see pictures above.

As it turned out 75 000 000 cubic meters timber had been brought down by
the storm, or up to 200 000 000 individual trees. The Småland highlands
of
southern Sweden were the hardest hit, the major culprits being
monoculture
spruce forests. Parts were totally isolated, entire towns were cut off
by
a barrage of trees across roads and phone- and electricity lines.

300 000 households were out of electricity, and about as many without
telephone, including us. 17 people had died, which is high by Swedish
standards.

On a personal level, as this seemed to become a continuing affair, we
collected all our laundry and all of our frozen stuff (including a lot
of
self-hunted moose-meat) and visited some friends in the city, where we
showered, washed the laundry and stored all the frozen food.

We went home, and went to bed.

DAY THREE MONDAY

Still no electricity, no telephone.

Our battery ran out. Apparantly it had degraded, or it should have
lasted
a bit longer. Fortuneately, a neghbour had gotten hold of a petrol
generator, so we started charging the battery, although it would take
2-3
days for it to be restored again.

I had to go to a job interview not feeling particulary clean. But I got
the job, so that's OK I guess. Reported the lack of telephone to the
big-ass telephone monopoly.

DAY FOUR TUESDAY

Things started to settle down into a routine, but not having electricity
means work, work, work. Any task is a major one. Had we not had our
daughter, things would have been easier, but a child has it's needs. So
we
still had to cook meals etc.

The municipality put up a freshwater tank down by the main road, where
we
could get fresh water, and also opened up school gymnasiums for
showering.
But how did they tell people about it? By posting on their website.
Kinda
difficult for people without both electricity and phone.

Going outside for a walk is a real relief. Outdoors, things are as they
always been, except for all the fallen trees. Indoors, things are a
dirty,
dark mess.

Visited my mother-in-law for a meal and a shower. As we returned, the
electricity had come back. But not the phone. Our local municipality
utility company had managed to restore electricity, but big-ass
telephone
monopoly didn't fix the phone for 10 days. And we were the lucky ones.

AFTERMATH

As I write this, 30 000 households still don't have telephone after
almost
three weeks, and about as many has been without electricity since the
storm. In the worst parts, it is expected that it will take months to
restore electricity and phones, and that includes entire towns. In
places
entire 40 km streches of electricity lines are down, and have to be
rebuilt.

As I wrote above 75 000 000 cubic meters of timber, at a value of
something like 17 billion SEK (2 000 000 000 USD or something) had
fallen
over. This is as much forest as is cut down in the entire of Sweden for
more than a whole year, but concentrated to the souther 1/4 of the
country. The area is something like 300 000 football fields.

Come summer, any trees not brought out of the forest (and there will be
a
lot of those), will be a breeding chamber for many insects, including
some
very damaging ones which then will attack the remaining trees. We could
lose as many trees to insects in the next few years.

The price of timber has fallen 40%, leaving almost no profit after costs
for getting it out of the forest has been paid, and that cost rises due
to
demand. The price on biofuels such as wood pellets or firewood will by
all
chances fall.

LESSONS LEARNED

Fossil fuel dependency is huge in emergencies and disasters.

On a personal level, we drove twice into the city for some relief, and
also relied on plastic water containers and stearin (?) candles made out
of fossil fuel. We also charged our battery at a neighbours emergency
petrol generator. And I'm a peaknik. At least we could heat our house.
But
the water will have to be fixed, we will change our three-phase 400 V
pump
to a single-phased 230 V pump which we can hook up to our battery. Also
get some means to charge the battery without the mains, be it solar or
wind. I'm investigating getting a petrol generator and converting it to
generator wood gas or 100% ethanol, but I doubt my technical expertise.
Anyone that has done so?

What's worst is that things take such a long time without electricity,
just fetching water in a bucket takes 5 minutes, as opposed to 5 seconds
to wash your hands under a tap.

Also, check your emergency facilities now and again. The commons manual
pump across were broken, and had to be screwed tight. Not too difficult
I
guess. We always have at least one week's worth of food in the house,
probably more, not reliant on electricity (ie cans, potatoes, dry pasta,
rice etc), but not enough fresh water.

As for our own forest - I will definetly reduce the amount of spruce and
increase the amount of fir and birch. I've been doing so already, but I
will really focus on this. I still have to clean most of the forest, as
it
is too dense, and I will primarily clean away spruce, although some
birch
will have to go in places.

At a higher level chainsaws and forestry vehicles all rely on fossil
fuels
for cleaning roads and removing trees from electricity and telephone
lines.

Diesel and petrol generators sold out all across Sweden, and many people
evacuated by car elsewhere. But using petrol for electricity costs a
lot,
and oil is still cheap. People simply won't afford running household
electricity on petrol (if the can get it) in the future. Also, some
towns
are running on big-ass diesel generators now. If not, the figure of 30
000
households without electricity would be a lot higher. Some 250 phone
switching stations are run on diesel or petrol, awaiting restored
electricity, otherwise up to 100 000 people would be without phone.

Sweden no longer have any strategic oil reserve, it was sold off once
the
cold war ended, and the military has been downsized to a fraction of
what
it used to be, and so their stock of diesel and petrol is probably less
than it used to be.

There is already some discussions of trying to plant fir, oak and birch
instead of spruce, but there simply isn't enough plants available. Much
of
the fallen spruce forest will be spruce forest again, and the cycle will
repeat.

If this hurricane had hit a decade after peak oil, with fuel shortages
and
rationing, we would have very little chance of restoring society and
forests to pre-hurricane status. And hit again it will. The effects were
about three times as bad as the storm of 69, and that one hit in early
autumn. The conditions were the same this time, but the damage immensly
greater. Blame it on monoculture, blame it on global warming. And blame
it
on our increasing reliance on electricity. Also, back in 69, there were
more forestry workers of the old school, and both the phone lines and
electricity lines were kept clear as the landowners got payed to do it.

Global warming will prevent the ground from freezing, and will lead to
more severe storms. Perhaps this wasn't the storm of the century, but
just
a teaser of what's to come. Let's hope we still have enough fossil fuels
for that.

It just takes a hurricane to bring society to an end if we don't have
fossil fuels.

And one day we won't.

Some links:

Information in English from the Swedish Forest Administration
http://www.svo.se/minskog/templates/Page.asp?id=15014

Some maps (in Swedish)
http://www.svo.se/minskog/templates/Page.asp?id=14893

Some pictures (in Swedish), click on them to enlarge
http://www.stormfallning.se/page.cfm?page=20


Lars Olofsson, Härryda, Sweden


Lars Olofsson, larso@olofzone.se, Härryda, Sweden
GPS: 57d43.58' N, 12d16.08'E / 57d30.75' N, 12d22.5' E
Phone: +46-301-311 60 / +46-708-99 64 39
GPG / PGP key available at http://www.keyserver.net





  • [Livingontheland] Storm of the Century, Tradingpost, 01/28/2005

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