Some of you know I live in this area, and I was supposed to go watch the eclipse with some friends. I had been concerned about how crowded it would be, and that there could be some issues with having that many people descending on Oregon. So, I ran across this blog post, and while some of may be a little exaggerated, I think the author has some really good points. I had already planned to go down as early as possible to the coast, and stay past the traffic mess after the eclipse, but now I have decided not to go.
I know some of you here are "realists". I won't call us "preppers" because the media has given it such a bad connotation. So, after reading this post, what do you think? Do you think I am right to decide to stay home, or is the article blown way out of proportion? It's a little long, but worth the read, I think.
By: Glen Tate
Watching the headlines coming out of Venezuela, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to experience a collapse close-up.
An opportunity to watch the human behaviors that come out of a collapse is fast approaching us here in the US – Oregon to be exact. Yes, just Oregon but we can learn a lot from it and apply those lessons to the big Collapse that’s coming to the whole country.
Let me lay out for you those who will participate, willingly or not, in the impending temporary collapse in Oregon next month. Then let me tell you what I see will happen during this time.
Unlike most collapses, we actually have known the date of the Oregon temporary collapse for several decades—ever since nerds with slide rules have been calculating the movements of the moon and sun. Long ago, these nerds marked down August 21, 2017 on their calendars. So this is no surprise.
August 21st. Sound familiar? It is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence of a full solar eclipse that will be occurring in the United States. One of the best places to watch it will be in Oregon. Specifically, Salem (more on that later).
How can an eclipse—which is just the sun getting dark for a couple of minutes—mess things up in Oregon? The eclipse isn’t the problem. As with all collapses, especially the big full-on Collapse coming soon to the entire US, it’s not the actual event that causes the problems; it’s the unprepared people who react to it like chickens with their heads cut off.
Here is the key fact that turns this harmless eclipse into a temporary collapse: up to a million people are expected to travel to central Oregon to watch the eclipse. A million people. All in the same general place at once. What could go wrong?
Is this a big deal? I dunno, but the Governor of Oregon has called up the National Guard to assist with the influx of the million or so people.
The three categories of people in Oregon that understand what this eclipse are as follows:
First, those who say, “What is a solar eclipse? What does it have to do with me?” To those folks, I implore you to please keep reading. This will become crystal clear. Excuse me while I smack my palm to my head as you read.
The second category are those Oregonians who know what it is, know that it’s coming and simply plan to go about their day. They believe they will be able to simply get into their Prius, stop at Starbucks and head to work. There might be the normal congestion that only Oregonians know painfully well, but it’s not that bad.
They might have seen a newscast that hotels might be full around town, and that campgrounds are all reserved to capacity in Oregon—they have been for over a year as budding astronomers snatched up reservations quickly. But for folks in this category, they will say, “Campgrounds are always full in the summer in Oregon. No big deal.” A perfect example of normalcy bias.
Those in the third category, of which I belong, know what is about to happen for about a week. You can look at this as an opportunity to do a “dry run” (a term you’ll hear a lot in my upcoming book—I’m a big believer in them) on what the full-on Collapse could look like in Oregon and the rest of the country.
For those outside of Oregon, here’s what you need to know. Much of the population of Oregon resides in the upper left quadrant of a mostly rectangular shaped state. Of that quadrant, the largest population with the most density (that isn’t a pun, but ok) is Portland. South of Portland on the Interstate 5 freeway by about forty miles or so is Salem, OR—where the eclipse is.
Yes, you can be in Portland and watch the eclipse. But only in Salem can viewers see it and have the luxury of not having to wear protective eye wear. Viewers get to see the molten lava spewing off the sun as the moon passes perfectly over the sun, at 10 AM in the morning, on a lovely summer weekday morning. Why not get in your car and head to Salem from Portland? How hard can it be to drive forty miles to see a perfect solar eclipse?
Let’s talk about I-5, that relatively short stretch of freeway between Portland and Salem. It is jammed at 5 PM on a regular rush hour day between Portland and Salem. Locals paying attention cannot imagine putting, conservatively, 100,000 more people and vehicles on that stretch of road. A million is unthinkable. Imagine when the full-on Collapse hits and residents of Portland needed to evacuate. The eclipse will be just like a Portland collapse on the I-5. A great preview for the rest of us.
It’s going to be incredibly difficult. Let me give you some of the stats I am hearing in the media and from friends in strategic places:
Projections are indicating that there will be an influx of over 200,000 people into Salem alone. (This does not include the many other counties on the eclipse’s path.) The county surrounding Salem has a population of roughly 300,000. Think of the population in your county almost doubling at once.
There are no hotel spaces left in the Salem area, and I would be surprised if there were any in Oregon at all for that week and weekend of August 21st.
Did you know that Salem, Oregon has a river that runs through it? Yes. It’s the Willamette River. The Willamette River runs north/south and runs through Portland as well. It’s a big river. Lots of commerce on it. Did you know that in Salem there are only two bridges that can take traffic from west Salem to east Salem? That makes them traffic choke points. There is a third bridge that can handle pedestrian traffic.
Two bridges for hundreds of thousands of people? Did you know that emergency responders are planning to shut down the pedestrian bridge and designate it solely for emergency vehicles because they know the other two bridges will be impassable from the traffic? Ask an honest first responder if they are prepared for the eclipse and they will say will full confidence, “Pfft! Of course.” Ask them if they are nervous. Dare ya. They get serious very quickly and say (if they are honest), “Very.”
Porta potties. Not a big deal right? They are at every event where there are large crowds, like a Bernie Sanders rally in Portland. Right? Porta potties just show up. Oregon is out of them, however. There are no vendors that have any left to rent. Just like in a collapse. People who have never crapped in the woods will be losing their minds looking for a porta potty. You know they don’t have any toilet paper in their cars—only weirdo preppers have that. As pampered people without toilet paper are waddling around looking for porta potties things will get weird. Very weird.
(Continued in Part 2)
Biography
Glen Tate has led an amazing life - and one that took a surprising turn. He grew up poor in the rural logging town of Forks, Washington. He worked hard to become a successful professional with a job in the political arena. Thinking he'd finally made it and everything was great, he was stunned to see how corrupt government is. From his observations at his job, he realized that America is collapsing and bad things are coming. Very soon. He began to prepare for him and his family to make it through the civil unrest of the coming collapse. That meant he had to return to his rural roots - quite a shock to his family and friends. Even more amazing was that he wrote down what he foresees happening during the collapse and it became a ten-book novel series published by Prepper Press.
I know some of you here are "realists". I won't call us "preppers" because the media has given it such a bad connotation. So, after reading this post, what do you think? Do you think I am right to decide to stay home, or is the article blown way out of proportion? It's a little long, but worth the read, I think.
By: Glen Tate
Watching the headlines coming out of Venezuela, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to experience a collapse close-up.
An opportunity to watch the human behaviors that come out of a collapse is fast approaching us here in the US – Oregon to be exact. Yes, just Oregon but we can learn a lot from it and apply those lessons to the big Collapse that’s coming to the whole country.
Let me lay out for you those who will participate, willingly or not, in the impending temporary collapse in Oregon next month. Then let me tell you what I see will happen during this time.
Unlike most collapses, we actually have known the date of the Oregon temporary collapse for several decades—ever since nerds with slide rules have been calculating the movements of the moon and sun. Long ago, these nerds marked down August 21, 2017 on their calendars. So this is no surprise.
August 21st. Sound familiar? It is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence of a full solar eclipse that will be occurring in the United States. One of the best places to watch it will be in Oregon. Specifically, Salem (more on that later).
How can an eclipse—which is just the sun getting dark for a couple of minutes—mess things up in Oregon? The eclipse isn’t the problem. As with all collapses, especially the big full-on Collapse coming soon to the entire US, it’s not the actual event that causes the problems; it’s the unprepared people who react to it like chickens with their heads cut off.
Here is the key fact that turns this harmless eclipse into a temporary collapse: up to a million people are expected to travel to central Oregon to watch the eclipse. A million people. All in the same general place at once. What could go wrong?
Is this a big deal? I dunno, but the Governor of Oregon has called up the National Guard to assist with the influx of the million or so people.
The three categories of people in Oregon that understand what this eclipse are as follows:
First, those who say, “What is a solar eclipse? What does it have to do with me?” To those folks, I implore you to please keep reading. This will become crystal clear. Excuse me while I smack my palm to my head as you read.
The second category are those Oregonians who know what it is, know that it’s coming and simply plan to go about their day. They believe they will be able to simply get into their Prius, stop at Starbucks and head to work. There might be the normal congestion that only Oregonians know painfully well, but it’s not that bad.
They might have seen a newscast that hotels might be full around town, and that campgrounds are all reserved to capacity in Oregon—they have been for over a year as budding astronomers snatched up reservations quickly. But for folks in this category, they will say, “Campgrounds are always full in the summer in Oregon. No big deal.” A perfect example of normalcy bias.
Those in the third category, of which I belong, know what is about to happen for about a week. You can look at this as an opportunity to do a “dry run” (a term you’ll hear a lot in my upcoming book—I’m a big believer in them) on what the full-on Collapse could look like in Oregon and the rest of the country.
For those outside of Oregon, here’s what you need to know. Much of the population of Oregon resides in the upper left quadrant of a mostly rectangular shaped state. Of that quadrant, the largest population with the most density (that isn’t a pun, but ok) is Portland. South of Portland on the Interstate 5 freeway by about forty miles or so is Salem, OR—where the eclipse is.
Yes, you can be in Portland and watch the eclipse. But only in Salem can viewers see it and have the luxury of not having to wear protective eye wear. Viewers get to see the molten lava spewing off the sun as the moon passes perfectly over the sun, at 10 AM in the morning, on a lovely summer weekday morning. Why not get in your car and head to Salem from Portland? How hard can it be to drive forty miles to see a perfect solar eclipse?
Let’s talk about I-5, that relatively short stretch of freeway between Portland and Salem. It is jammed at 5 PM on a regular rush hour day between Portland and Salem. Locals paying attention cannot imagine putting, conservatively, 100,000 more people and vehicles on that stretch of road. A million is unthinkable. Imagine when the full-on Collapse hits and residents of Portland needed to evacuate. The eclipse will be just like a Portland collapse on the I-5. A great preview for the rest of us.
It’s going to be incredibly difficult. Let me give you some of the stats I am hearing in the media and from friends in strategic places:
Projections are indicating that there will be an influx of over 200,000 people into Salem alone. (This does not include the many other counties on the eclipse’s path.) The county surrounding Salem has a population of roughly 300,000. Think of the population in your county almost doubling at once.
There are no hotel spaces left in the Salem area, and I would be surprised if there were any in Oregon at all for that week and weekend of August 21st.
Did you know that Salem, Oregon has a river that runs through it? Yes. It’s the Willamette River. The Willamette River runs north/south and runs through Portland as well. It’s a big river. Lots of commerce on it. Did you know that in Salem there are only two bridges that can take traffic from west Salem to east Salem? That makes them traffic choke points. There is a third bridge that can handle pedestrian traffic.
Two bridges for hundreds of thousands of people? Did you know that emergency responders are planning to shut down the pedestrian bridge and designate it solely for emergency vehicles because they know the other two bridges will be impassable from the traffic? Ask an honest first responder if they are prepared for the eclipse and they will say will full confidence, “Pfft! Of course.” Ask them if they are nervous. Dare ya. They get serious very quickly and say (if they are honest), “Very.”
Porta potties. Not a big deal right? They are at every event where there are large crowds, like a Bernie Sanders rally in Portland. Right? Porta potties just show up. Oregon is out of them, however. There are no vendors that have any left to rent. Just like in a collapse. People who have never crapped in the woods will be losing their minds looking for a porta potty. You know they don’t have any toilet paper in their cars—only weirdo preppers have that. As pampered people without toilet paper are waddling around looking for porta potties things will get weird. Very weird.
(Continued in Part 2)
Biography
Glen Tate has led an amazing life - and one that took a surprising turn. He grew up poor in the rural logging town of Forks, Washington. He worked hard to become a successful professional with a job in the political arena. Thinking he'd finally made it and everything was great, he was stunned to see how corrupt government is. From his observations at his job, he realized that America is collapsing and bad things are coming. Very soon. He began to prepare for him and his family to make it through the civil unrest of the coming collapse. That meant he had to return to his rural roots - quite a shock to his family and friends. Even more amazing was that he wrote down what he foresees happening during the collapse and it became a ten-book novel series published by Prepper Press.
