Prepping

Bankers And Tech Executives Know The Collapse Of Society Is Coming And Are Feverishly Prepping For It

While most of the general population has been lulled into a false sense of security, bankers and tech executives are spending millions upon millions of dollars to prepare for the collapse of society.  Do they know something that the rest of us do not?  Apparently talk of doomsday scenarios has become very popular at Silicon Valley dinner parties, and as you will see below, having a plan to escape to New Zealand appears to be a very popular “Plan B” among the tech elite.  Of course this is not just a west coast phenomenon.  Many bankers on the east coast have similar concerns and have also been developing contingency plans.  Ladies and gentlemen, they know what is coming and they are feverishly getting prepared for it.  In fact, J.P. Morgan Chase’s head quant just publicly declared that the next financial crisis is going to result in “social unrest not seen in the U.S. in half a century”.  The following comes from CNBC…

Sudden, severe stock sell-offs sparked by lightning-fast machines. Unprecedented actions by central banks to shore up asset prices. Social unrest not seen in the U.S. in half a century.

That’s how J.P. Morgan Chase‘s head quant, Marko Kolanovic, envisions the next financial crisis. The forces that have transformed markets in the last decade, namely the rise of computerized trading and passive investing, are setting up conditions for potentially violent moves once the current bull market ends, according to a report from Kolanovic sent to the bank’s clients on Tuesday. His note is part of a 168-page mega-report, written for the 10th anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, with perspectives from 48 of the bank’s analysts and economists.

If you visit my website on a regular basis, you already know that I have been warning that rising levels of anger and frustration are rapidly eroding the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis.

Back in 1968, the Vietnam war was in full swing, a presidential election was approaching and two of the most prominent leaders in America had just been assassinated.  Chaos erupted in the streets as a result, and Kolanovic is absolutely convinced that we will see a similar eruption soon…

Kolanovic closes his report on an ominous note: “The next crisis is also likely to result in social tensions similar to those witnessed 50 years ago in 1968.”

That year saw the peak of both the Vietnam War and anti-war movement and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Today, the internet and social media are helping to polarize groups, and events including the U.S. election and Brexit show tensions that will probably worsen in the next crisis, he said.

When society begins to come apart at the seams, many among the elite do not plan to stick around for the day of reckoning.

A Bloomberg article that was just published entitled “The Super Rich of Silicon Valley Have a Doomsday Escape Plan” has some amazing revelations.  According to the article, over the past two years seven “Silicon Valley entrepreneurs” have purchased survival bunkers from a company in Texas and shipped them to locations in New Zealand…

In recent months, two 150-ton survival bunkers journeyed by land and sea from a Texas warehouse to the shores of New Zealand, where they’re buried 11 feet underground.

Seven Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have purchased bunkers from Rising S Co. and planted them in New Zealand in the past two years, said Gary Lynch, the manufacturer’s general manager. At the first sign of an apocalypse — nuclear war, a killer germ, a French Revolution-style uprising targeting the 1 percent — the Californians plan to hop on a private jet and hunker down, he said.

It would be weird enough if one wealthy individual did this, but the count is now up to seven.

So why have they chosen New Zealand?

Well, it is because New Zealand doesn’t have any enemies, English is spoken there, it is very stable, and it is very far away from everything else.

Plus, the country allows wealthy individuals “to essentially buy residency”…

The nation allows emigres to essentially buy residency through investor visas, and rich Americans have poured a fortune into the country, often by acquiring palatial estates.

Billionaire hedge-fund honcho Julian Robertson owns a lodge overlooking Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, the South Island’s luxury resort destination. Fidelity National Financial Inc. Chairman Bill Foley has a homestead in the Wairarapa region, north of Wellington, and Titanic director James Cameron bought a mansion nearby at Lake Pounui.

There has been a significant exodus of wealthy Americans to New Zealand in recent years, and once things start getting really bad there will be a steady stream of private jets taking off from locations in the U.S. and landing in that beautiful nation.

Of course not everyone plans to leave.  Luxury survival bunkers are also being constructed all over the heartland of America, but they aren’t cheap.

For example, it was being reported that a “penthouse” inside the Survival Condo in Kansas was selling for more than four million dollars…

Another shelter for the ultra-wealthy is the Survival Condo in Kansas.

It was designed to withstand a nuclear blast or nature’s worst, but is far cry from what you might expect an underground shelter to look like.

There is a cinema, a swimming pool with a water slide, a spa, a lounge, a gym and an indoor shooting range to keep occupants entertained.

But survival comes at a price.

Last year, it was reported that plush 3,600sq ft penthouses within the shelter – a former missile silo – were selling for $4.5m (£3.6m).

Needless to say, anyone outside of the top 1 percent is not going to make it into the Survival Condo.

And in order to keep the rest of us out, it has an armory that is “stocked with guns and ammo”…

Additionally, an armory stocked with guns and ammo is in place in case of an attack by non-members, and is also available for owners to practice.

The bunker is able to sustain its owners for up to five years, by raising tilapia in fish tanks and growing hydroponic vegetables under lamps.

The elite can see what so many of the rest of us can also see.

Our future looks very troubling, and it appears to be wise to get prepared for what is coming in advance.

Unfortunately, the rest of us don’t have the money to buy a luxury survival bunker or to fly to New Zealand on a private jet.  Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy a pretty good escape plan.

This article originally appeared on The Economic Collapse Blog.  About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

5 Signs That Global Financial Markets Are Entering A Bear Market, And 11 Ways That You Can Get Prepared For The Chaos That Is Coming…

We haven’t seen carnage like this in the global financial marketplace in quite some time.  On Wednesday, U.S. stocks were down some, but things were much, much worse around the rest of the world.  Global banking stocks are plunging, emerging market stocks are cratering, and emerging market currencies continue their stunning decline.  This represents a dramatic change from the relative stability that we have seen throughout most of 2018.  It is almost as if someone flipped a switch once the month of August began, and the shakiness of global financial markets has many investors wondering what trouble fall will bring.  What we are witnessing right now is not a full-blown panic yet, but it definitely has the potential to turn into one.

The term “bear market” is being thrown around a lot lately, but a lot of people don’t understand what a “bear market” actually is.

A bear market is generally considered to be when we see a decline of 20 percent or more from the 52-week high, and after the carnage of this past week a lot of those thresholds are now being crossed.

It would probably be too early to call this a “global stock market crash”, but we are well on the way to getting there.  The following are 5 signs that global financial markets are entering a bear market…

#1 Global stocks have now fallen beneath all key moving averages.  Those key moving averages are important psychological thresholds for investors, and if we have a few more days like Wednesday we could see global financial markets go into full panic mode.

#2 European banking stocks have now officially entered a bear market, and all major European stock indexes are now red for the year.

#3 Global banking stocks are down a whopping 23 percent from the peak established earlier this year, and that means that they have officially entered a bear market.

#4 Emerging market stocks have fallen 20 percent from the peak, and that means that they are also now in a bear market.

#5 When demand for industrial metals falls, that indicates that an economic slowdown is coming.  On Wednesday, prices for industrial metals fell to their lowest level in almost a year, and “Dr. Copper officially entered a bear market.

If the financial carnage continues (and that is a big “if”), this could be the beginning of another financial crisis like we experienced in 2008, and that would almost certainly mean a crippling global recession.

And of course once the next global recession begins, it is likely to be more painful than we have ever seen before in modern history, because the global debt bubble is far larger than it has ever been before.

We live at a time of great global instability, and there are so many ominous warnings about our future.  A lot of people reach out to me for advice on how to get prepared for what is coming, and I hope to share quite a few tips in future articles.

Today, I would like to share with you 11 tips that my good friend Ray Gano shared with his readers in his most recent article…

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1 – Get Out of Debt: The old saying, “the borrower is the servant of the lender”, is so incredibly true.  The key to insulating yourself from an economic meltdown is to become as independent as possible, and as long as you are in debt, you simply are not independent.  You don’t want a horde of creditors chasing after you when things really start to get bad out there.

2 – Find New Sources of Income: With the birth of The IRA, there simply is no such thing as job security anymore.  If you are dependent on a job (“just over broke”) for 100% of your income, you are in a very bad position.  There are thousands of different ways to make extra money.  What you don’t want to do is to have all of your eggs in one basket.  One day when the economy melts down and you are out of a job are you going to be destitute or are you going to be okay?

IF you need some ideas on what you can do, contact me and I can help.

3 – Reduce Your Expenses: Many Americans have left the rat race and have found ways to live on half or even on a quarter of what they were making previously.  It is possible – if you are willing to reduce your expenses.  In the future times are going to be tougher, so learn to start living with less today.

4 – Learn To Grow Your Own / Supplement Your Food: Today the vast majority of Americans are completely dependent on being able to run down to the supermarket or to the local Wal-Mart to buy food.  But what happens when the U.S. dollar declines dramatically in value and it costs ten bucks to buy a loaf of bread?  If you learn to grow your own food (even if is just a small garden) you will be insulating yourself against rising food prices. Another thing is to learn to hunt and fish. There is “low cost” food out there for the taking, you just need to assert yourself. (Low Cost = you still need to pay for hunting and fishing licenses.)

5 – Make Sure You Have A Reliable Water Supply: Water shortages are popping up all over the globe.  Water is quickly becoming one of the “hottest” commodities out there.  Even in the United States, water shortages have been making headline news recently.  As we move into the future, it will be imperative for you and your family to have a reliable source of water.  Some Americans have learned to collect rainwater and many others are using advanced technology such as atmospheric water generators to provide water for their families.  But whatever you do, make sure that you are not caught without a decent source of water in the years ahead.

6 – Buy Land: This is a tough one, because prices are high depending on where you are looking. If you are able to buy land when prices are low, that is going to insulate you a great deal from the rising housing costs that will occur when the U.S dollar does totally go into the tank.

7 – Buy Precious Metals: this is a no brainer, but it still amazes me how many people are not doing this. Right now silver is sitting at $14.41. That is a very affordable price and a price that everyone can afford.  We must start “paying ourselves first” and start pulling in these sort of assets.

The best place that I recommend is Renaissance Precious Metals. It is who I purchase from.

8 – Get Partially Off The Grid: An increasing number of Americans are going “off the grid”.  Essentially what that means is that they are attempting to operate independently of the utility companies.  In particular, going “off the grid” will enable you to insulate yourself from the rapidly rising energy prices that we are going to see in the future.  If you are able to produce energy for your own home, you won’t be freaking out like your neighbors are when electricity prices triple someday.

9 – Store Non-Perishable Supplies: Non-perishable supplies are one investment that is sure to go up in value.  Not that you would resell them.  You store up non-perishable supplies because you are going to need them someday.  So why not stock up on the things that you are going to need now before they double or triple in price in the future?  Your money is not ever going to stretch any farther than it does right now.

EXAMPLE – Toilet Paper

10 – Develop Stronger Relationships: Americans have become very insular creatures.  We act like we don’t need anyone or anything.  But the truth is that as the we see a socio-economic melt down we are going to need each other.  It is those that are developing strong relationships with family and friends right now that will be able to depend on them when times get hard.

11 – Get Educated And Stay Flexible: When times are stable, it is not that important to be informed because things pretty much stay the same.  However, when things are rapidly changing it is imperative to get educated and to stay informed so that you will know what to do.  The times ahead are going to require us all to be very flexible, and it is those who are willing to adapt that will do the best when things get tough.

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Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

When They Shall Say “Peace And Safety”: Polls Show Americans Are The Most Optimistic They Have Been In A Very Long Time

By a very wide margin, this is the most optimistic that Americans have been about the future since I started The Economic Collapse Blog in late 2009.  Even though the middle class is shrinking, 102 million working age Americans do not have a job, and we are now 21 trillion dollars in debt, most people are feeling really good about things right now.  Especially among Republicans, there is an overwhelming consensus that the United States is starting to head in the right direction and that better times are ahead.  As a result, so many of the exact same people that were “prepping” while Barack Obama was in the White House are now partying now that Donald Trump is president.  But none of the long-term trends that are systematically destroying our nation have been significantly altered, and none of our long-term problems have been solved.  We are still steamrolling down a path toward national suicide, but most Americans simply do not care.

What Americans do care about is that it seems to be easier to find a job at the moment than it has in a very long time.  In fact, the percentage of Americans that believe that it is “a good time to find a quality job” is at the highest level that Gallup has ever recorded…

Sixty-seven percent of Americans believe that now is a good time to find a quality job in the U.S., the highest percentage in 17 years of Gallup polling. Optimism about the availability of good jobs has grown by 25 percentage points since Donald Trump was elected president.

Gallup has asked Americans to say whether it is a good time or bad time to find a quality job monthly since August 2001. Prior to 2017, the percentage saying “good time” never reached 50%, but since Trump took office in January that year, the percentage has stayed at or above 50% and has been higher than 60% in eight of the past nine months.

A Rasmussen survey that asked a similar question came up with very similar results.

Of course the reality of the matter is that 66 percent of all jobs in the United States pay less than 20 dollars an hour, and 78 million Americans are participating in the “gig economy” because they need to supplement their normal incomes in order to make ends meet.

But perception is sometimes more powerful than reality, and right now the perception is that the U.S. economy is doing well…

“Nothing is better for the issues about trade wars or issues about G-7 than a good economy,” Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer for equities at Charles Schwab Investment Management, said by phone. “The jobs report on Friday gave a lot of people confidence that the U.S. economy is still pretty solid.”

Small businesses in the United States are also feeling extremely optimistic right now.

In fact, one survey found that small business optimism has surged to record highs…

The Q2 MetLife & U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index (Index) released today recorded an overall score of 68.7, up 2.4 points from the Q1 score of 66.3, driven in part by the strongest local economic outlook on record, a firmer hiring environment, and a stronger backdrop for investing. Two out of every three small business owners are optimistic about their company and the small business environment in the United States.

That is definitely a good sign, because we desperately need small businesses to do well, but is all of this optimism really warranted?

The financial markets continue to be filled with optimism as well.  Despite the outbreak of an international trade war and tremendous turmoil over in Europe, the Nasdaq closed at a brand new record high on Tuesday.

In recent years stock prices have just continued to go up and up and up no matter what news breaks, and now we are facing the greatest stock market bubble in our history.

How long do we have until it finally bursts?

There is a lot of optimism in the housing market as well.  At this point, a staggering 64 percent of all adults in this country believe that housing prices will continue to go up over the next year.  The following comes from Marketwatch…

A majority of U.S. adults (64%) continue to believe home prices in their local area will increase over the next year, a recent survey released by polling firm Gallup concluded. That’s up nine percentage points over the past two years and is the highest percentage since before the housing market crash and Great Recession in the mid-2000s.

The level of optimism is edging closer to the 70% of adults in 2005 who said prices would continue rising. That, of course, was less than one year before the peak of the housing market bubble in early 2006, which was largely fueled by a wave of subprime lending.

Moving beyond short-term concerns, Americans are also becoming increasingly optimistic about the long-term future too.  A recent Gallup survey discovered that approximately 60 percent of all Americans believe that our young people “will have a better life than their parents did”…

About six in 10 Americans say it is very or somewhat likely that today’s young people will have a better life than their parents did. The latest reading marks continued improvement since the low of 44% in 2011 but is still not back to the level of 66% measured in February 2008.

Hopefully the optimists will be correct, but I do not believe they will be.  If we keep doing the same things that we have been doing as a nation, it is simply not possible that there will be any sort of a bright future for America.

And I will tell you one area where Americans are quite pessimistic.  One recent survey found that 77 percent of all Americans believe that morality is in decline in this country.  Our national character continues to deteriorate at a frightening pace, and most Americans appear to be quite aware that this is happening.

But instead of changing our ways, we proudly believe that our “greatness” will allow us to continue to enjoy a massively inflated debt-fueled standard of living for a very long time to come.

Unfortunately for us, it simply does not work that way, and as a nation we are way overdue for a very serious wake up call.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

 

Apocalyptic September? Here Is A List Of 27 Major Disasters That Have Already Happened So Far This Month

Two major hurricanes, unprecedented earthquake swarms and wildfires roaring out of control all over the northwest United States – what else will go wrong next?  When I originally pointed to the month of September as a critical time, I had no idea that we would see so many catastrophic natural disasters during this time frame as well.  Hurricane Harvey just broke the all-time record for rainfall in the continental United States, Hurricane Irma is so immensely powerful that it has been called “a lawnmower from the sky”, vast stretches of our country out west are literally being consumed by fire, and the magnitude-8.2 earthquake that just hit Mexico was completely unexpected.  As I have stated so many times before, our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, but most people simply do not understand what is happening.

My good friend Zach Drew is getting married next month, and I would encourage everyone to go wish him well on Facebook.  On Friday, he posted the best summary of the major disasters that we have been experiencing so far this month that I have seen anywhere…

California is on fire.
Oregon is on fire.
Washington is on fire.
British Columbia is on fire.
Alberta is on fire
Montana is on fire.
Nova Scotia is on fire.
Greece is on fire.
Brazil is on fire.
Portugal is on fire.
Algeria is on fire.
Tunisia is on fire.
Greenland is on fire.
The Sakha Republic of Russia is on fire.
Siberia is on fire.

Texas is under water
India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, experience record monsoons and massive death toll.
Sierra Leone and Niger experience massive floods, mudslides, and deaths in the thousands.

Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia are crushed in the death grip of a triple digit heat wave, dubbed Lucifer.
Southern California continues to swelter under triple digit heat that shows no sign of letting up.
In usually chilly August, the city of San Francisco shatters all-time record at 106 degrees, while it reaches 115 degrees south of the city. Northern California continues to bake in the triple digits.

(()) Yellowstone volcano is hit with earthquake swarm of over 2,300 tremors since June, recording a 4.4 quake on June 15, 20017 and 3.3 shaker on August 21, 2017.
(()) 5.3 earthquake rumbles through Idaho
(()) Japan earthquake 6.1 possible tsunami..
(()) Mexico earthquake 8.2 imminent tsunami. Beach lines are receded atleast 50+ meters

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma (biggest ever recorded), Jose and Katia are barreling around the Atlantic with 8 more potentials forming

And last but not least an X10 C.M.E solar flare two nights ago. The highest recorded solar flare ever!

*****

For much more from Zach, you can follow his work regularly at TruNews.com.

Some are describing what is happening to us as a “perfect storm”, and they are wondering if even more major disasters are coming in the very near future.

Let us hope not, because there is a tremendous amount of concern that we may not be able to pay for the disasters that have happened already.  The following comes from Politico…

 

Harvey and Irma could be a breaking point. At $556 billion, the Houston metropolitan area’s economy is bigger than Sweden’s. New Jersey could easily fit inside the region’s sprawling footprint, where Harvey dumped 34 trillion gallons of water, as much as the three costliest floods in Texas history combined. The Harvey response alone eventually could double the $136 billion in government aid spent after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans.

And as of Friday, an estimated $1.73 trillion worth of real estate was in the path of Irma’s hurricane-force winds, according to the University of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies.

We won’t know the true extent of the damage that has been caused down in Florida for many days, but we do know that much of the state is already without power…

More than 3.3 million homes and businesses and counting have lost power in Florida as Hurricane Irma moves up the peninsula. The widespread outages stretch from the Florida Keys all the way into central Florida. Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest electric utility, said there were nearly 1 million customers without power in Miami-Dade County alone. The power outages are expected to increase as the storm edges further north. There are roughly 7 million residential customers in the state.

In the end, the federal government will likely step in and spend a lot of money that it does not have to rebuild and restore the communities that Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma have destroyed.

But we are already 20 trillion dollars in debt, and it is being projected that we will continue to add another trillion dollars to that total every year for the foreseeable future.

At some point all of this debt will simply become completely unsustainable.

Of course the major disasters will just inevitably keep on coming.  As Politico has pointed out, major natural disasters seem to just keep on getting bigger, and they seem to be hitting us more frequently than in the past…

The disasters are arriving with greater frequency. Counting Harvey, the U.S. this year has experienced 10 weather-related events each costing $1 billion or more. The country averaged fewer than six big-dollar storms, flood, fires and freezes a year between 1980 and 2016, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Between 2012 and 2016, however, weather catastrophes occurred almost twice as often.

I know that I have been writing about these hurricanes a lot in recent weeks, and I promise to get back to focusing on the economy in the days to come.

But it is absolutely imperative that we all begin to understand that something has fundamentally changed.  Our world has become much less stable, and “apocalyptic events” are starting to hit us one after another.

So will things start to calm down in the months ahead?  Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Hurricane Irma Is Being Called ‘A Lawnmower From The Sky’ And FEMA Warns It Will ‘Devastate’ The Southeast

It looks like Hurricane Irma is going to make landfall in south Florida on Sunday morning.  Of course that could still change, but this is what the meteorologists are telling us at this point.  But of course the exact spot where Irma makes landfall is not so important because of the absolutely immense size of this storm.  Irma is going to cause chaos and devastation over a very large area, and just like Hurricane Harvey the recovery from this storm is literally going to be measured in years.

Down in the Caribbean, the destruction that Irma has caused has been absolutely unprecedented.  The president of the island of Saint Martin “estimated that 95 percent of his country had been obliterated”, and one resident of the island described the storm as “a lawnmower from the sky”…

Witnesses described similar scenes on the island’s Dutch half. “It’s like someone with a lawnmower from the sky has gone over the island,” said Mairlou Rohan, a European tourist visiting Sint Maarten, part of the Netherlands.

That is not the sort of terminology that I would use, but without a doubt the devastation caused by this storm has been off the charts.

On Barbuda, at least 90 percent of the buildings have been destroyed…

Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said Barbuda was “totally demolished,” with 90% of its buildings destroyed. Communication with the island was cut off because of the destruction. As Hurricane Jose approaches the island, Barbuda officials are trying to evacuate the entire population of 1,800.

Now the storm is heading straight for south Florida, and FEMA is using apocalyptic language to describe what might happen…

FEMA Director Brock Long, in a Friday morning update, told a news conference there’s no question that Hurricane Irma will devastate parts of the souheastern United States:

“Obviously, Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states,” Long told a 7:30 a.m. news conference.

Some are comparing Hurricane Irma to Hurricane Andrew, but the truth is that Irma is much, much larger.  You can see a comparison of the two storms right here.

At this point, scientists are running out of superlatives to describe this storm.  At the National Hurricane Center, one expert is already labeling Irma as “the most infamous in Atlantic hurricane history”…

“Irma has me sick to my stomach,” said Eric Blake, a scientist with the National Hurricane Center, on his personal Twitter account on Thursday evening. “This hurricane is as serious as any I have seen. No hype, just the hard facts. Take every lifesaving precaution you can.”

“I have little doubt Irma will go down as one of the most infamous in Atlantic hurricane history,” he added.

We shall see what happens over the next few days.

Hopefully things will not be quite as bad as the experts are projecting.

At this hour, thousands upon thousands of Florida residents are desperately trying to flee north on the highways.  Unfortunately, a lot of gas stations are already completely out of gasoline, and it is getting worse by the hour.  Just check out these numbers…

In Gainesville, it was the worst: At least 58% of stations were out of gasoline as of Friday morning, according to GasBuddy’s fuel tracker.

More than 40% of stations in West Palm Beach and Miami had no fuel, while 38% of Fort Myers-Naples stations, nearly 35% of Tampa-St. Petersburg locations and more than 32% of Orlando stations were offline.

At the stations where gasoline is still available, some people are having to wait up to 90 mins for fuel.

Of course there are others that are not planning to leave Florida at all.  In fact, 82-year-old Joseph “Tony” Vincent told the Washington Post that he is quite content to ride the storm out at a local hotel…

“Hell, you’d be safer here than taking a car on those roads. You might be killed before you get to Atlanta,” he scoffed.

If Irma fizzles, Vincent said he’ll just ride his three wheeler back to his trailer. “I’ll come on home and get drinker than hell,” he said.

Hopefully he will be okay.

The warnings have been issued, and I don’t think that they could have been much stronger.  People have made their decisions about what they are going to do, and now we will see how things play out.

On another note, I had to smile today when I came across a Think Progress article entitled “The case for a Category 6 rating for super-hurricanes like Irma”.  I have been heavily criticized for saying the exact same thing that the liberal media is now talking very heavily about, but of course those outlets will not receive the same sort of criticism that I did.

In the end, the main thing is keeping people safe, and if anyone in the direct path of this storm still feels like they want to “ride it out”, I would very much encourage you to flee while you still can.

This is an exceedingly dangerous storm, and you do not want to be there when it hits.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Irma Is Being Described As A ‘Nuclear Hurricane’ That Has Left One Island ‘Practically Uninhabitable’

Irma is not just another hurricane – it is a history making storm that is going to cause up to a quarter of a trillion dollars in damage once it makes landfall in the United States.  In fact, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine used the term “nuclear hurricane” to describe this storm to the media.  I would never use that term personally, but I am in agreement that it would be exceedingly difficult to overstate the danger that this storm represents.  According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma has been a category 5 storm for more than 50 hours, and that is already one of the longest stretches on record.

Of course if you were to extrapolate the Saffir-Simpson scale, Irma would have been considered a category 6 storm when it had sustained winds of 185 miles per hour.  This is a point that I made in my article entitled “Hurricane Irma: If There Was Such A Thing As A Category 6 Hurricane, This Would Be It”.

And just a day later, MSNBC published an article with a suspiciously similar headline: “If there were a category 6 hurricane, Irma would be it”.

So will the rest of the mainstream media attack MSNBC for saying the exact same thing that I did?

Of course not.

And will the mainstream media attack Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine for calling Irma “a nuclear hurricane”?…

“We have talked to people in your city who say, ‘We ain’t going,’” CBS4’s Hank Tester told Levine.

“I hate to hear that. I’ll do anything in my power to convince them this is a very serious storm. This is a nuclear hurricane. They should leave the beach, they must leave the beach,” he said.

Of course not.

I am certainly not criticizing Levine.  Once again, it is not terminology that I would have used, but if it helps get more people to safety that is a good thing.

Just look at what has happened to Barbuda.  According to Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne, 95 percent of the buildings on Barbuda have been damaged or destroyed…

“As it stands, Barbuda is practically uninhabitable,” Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne told Antigua/Barbuda Broadcasting Services. He added that the destruction on the island, which is home to about 1,800 people was “heart-wrenching” and most of it is now completely underwater.

“A significant number of the houses have been totally destroyed,” his chief of staff Lionel Hurst said. At least one of the eight deaths caused by Irma was confirmed on the island of Barbuda.  Originally, Browne’s optimistic Facebook post claimed that Barbuda and Antigua had both stood up to Irma’s wrath.  Antigua, which is home to around 80,000 people was not hit nearly as hard as Barbuda.

“It is clear that Antigua and Barbuda has stood up to a mighty test,” he wrote in the statement posted to Facebook. But he revised his opinion after taking a helicopter ride to survey the damage to Barbuda, which is just 30 miles north of Antigua. “I never contemplated any possibility that you could have such a contrast,” he said of the relative destruction. Browne also said that 95% of the buildings on Barbuda were damaged and 30% percent of the buildings on the island completely demolished when the core of the Category 5 hurricane crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday. “Barbuda now is literally rubble,” Browne said.

And Browne put an exclamation point on things when he told Anderson Cooper the following…

“I have never seen any such destruction on a per capita basis compared to what I saw in Barbuda this afternoon,” Browne told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Could we see similar devastation in our country?

We shall see.  Right now, millions are holding their breath as they wait to see where Irma will go.  According to the Washington Post there are a couple of key factors that meteorologists are watching…

The first is a ridge of high pressure over the Atlantic, dubbed the “Bermuda High.” This system, around which winds flow clockwise, acts as a guardrail to Irma, shunting it farther south and west like a pinball, and preventing it from heading out to sea. The stronger the ridge, the greater the probability that its westward movement will continue.

The second is what’s known as an upper-level shortwave trough. This is a zone of low pressure spinning away over the southern Tennessee Valley within a dip in the jet stream, that spins counterclockwise. This will eventually capture Irma into its overall circulation, but the strength and forward speed of that feature will determine Irma’s propensity to move inland.

But of course authorities can’t wait until the last minute, and coastal communities are already being evacuated.  And we are not just talking about Florida.  Earlier today, we learned that an evacuation order had been issued for Savannah, Georgia…

Georgia’s governor has ordered a mandatory evacuation starting on Saturday from the state’s Atlantic coast ahead of Hurricane Irma. That includes the city of Savannah, home to nearly 150,000 people.

Gov. Nathan Deal issued the evacuation Thursday for all areas east of Interstate 95, all of Chatham County and some areas west of the interstate. He also expanded a state of emergency to 30 counties.

Down in Florida, the clock is ticking for those that would still like to get out.  There is extremely heavy traffic on the major highways, and many gas stations down in Florida have already completely run out of gasoline…

Several gas stations in Florida ran out of gas Thursday as Hurricane Irma approached the state.

Supplies fell as people heeded evacuation orders for some southern parts of the state. Last week, Hurricane Harvey crippled oil refineries in Texas, creating shortages even before Irma made landfall in the Caribbean.

As I have been saying all along, you don’t want to be there when this storm makes landfall.

There are going to be some people that figure that since they were able to “ride out” other hurricanes that they will be able to do the same thing with Irma.

Those that choose to do that will be making a tragic mistake, and it may cost some of them their lives.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Mainstream Media Viciously Attacks Republican Candidate For Congress For Suggesting ‘Category 6’ Should Be Created For Storms Like Irma

Somebody really needs to be fact checking the so-called “fact checkers”.  A few days ago, I published an article in which I stated that “some have suggested that we need to add a ‘category 6’ to describe the kind of ‘super storms’ that are now developing in the Atlantic”.  That article ended up going megaviral on Facebook, and there has been a tremendous backlash from the mainstream media.  By their reaction, you would have thought that I just committed some very serious form of blasphemy, but the truth is that scientists have been talking about adding a “category 6” for more than a decade.  Nothing that I said should have been controversial.  In fact, if this had come from a liberal source the mainstream media would probably be gushing about how this is more evidence for their “global warming” narrative.  But because I am a Republican and I am running for Congress, they had to attack me.

Over the past 24 hours, the Washington Post and dozens of other mainstream news sources have all run similar articles specifically attacking me for suggesting that a “category 6” should be created for storms such as Hurricane Irma.  Of course I never said that Hurricane Irma is a category 6 storm or that such a category was about to be established.  But what I did say is that the establishment of a “category 6” has been discussed for a long time, and that if you were to extrapolate the Saffir-Simpson scale, Hurricane Irma would potentially qualify as a category 6 storm.

The source that the Washington Post and other mainstream media sources are quoting in their hit pieces is Snopes.  Of course Snopes is well known to be a mouthpiece for the left, and just about everything on their site lines up with the progressive agenda of the radical left.  So it is no surprise that they would attack a Republican candidate for Congress…

The idea that Irma is a Category 6 storm seems to have originated with a a blog post that implied that a new category, Category 6, would be created for Irma. While the post does not state this directly, its headline reads “Category 6? If Hurricane Irma Becomes The Strongest Hurricane In History, It Could Wipe Entire Cities Off The Map.” That story, written by end-time enthusiast and Republican candidate for Idaho’s first congressional district Michael Snyder, was first published on his blog “The Economic Collapse” before being aggregated by other clickbait websites.

As I noted above, the idea that we need to start looking at adding a “category 6” to the Saffir-Simpson scale is not controversial at all.  It has been discussed very widely for well over a decade, and if you do a search on Google you will find many, many articles.  The following are just three examples…

ABC News – May 21, 2006: There is no official Category 6 for hurricanes, but scientists say they’re pondering whether there should be as evidence mounts that hurricanes around the world have sharply worsened over the past 30 years — and all but a handful of hurricane experts now agree this worsening bears the fingerprints of man-made global warming.

In fact, say scientists, there have already been hurricanes strong enough to qualify as Category 6s. They’d define those as having sustained winds over 175 or 180 mph. A couple told me they’d measured close to 200 mph on a few occasions.

Weather.com – July 28, 2016: The results showed that three vulnerable areas of the world are at risk for a “high-end” Category 5 tropical cyclone by the end of the 21st century due to the Earth’s changing climate: Tampa, Florida; Cairns, Australia; and the Persian Gulf.

These potential Category 6 hurricanes may be up to 14 times more likely by 2100, according to the study.

Scientific American – August 23, 2011: Atmospheric researchers tend to agree that tropical cyclones of unusual ferocity are coming this century, but the strange fact is that there is no consensus to date on the five-point scale used to classify the power of these anticipated storms. In what may sound like a page from the script of the rock-band spoof Spinal Tap with its reference to a beyond-loud electric guitar amplifier volume 11, there is actually talk of adding a sixth level to the current Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, on which category 5 intensity means sustained winds higher than 155 miles per hour (250 kilometers per hour) for at least one minute, with no speed cap.

Without a doubt, after this storm is over the academic community will again start having these sorts of debates, and the mainstream media will once again report on them.

And if a “category 6” is ever created, it is very likely that Hurricane Irma will fit that classification.  The following is from the article that I posted yesterday…

I was criticized for suggesting that Irma could become so powerful that it could potentially be labeled a “category 6” storm if such a thing existed.  Well, now it has actually happened.  If you extrapolate the Saffir-Simpson scale, “category 6” would begin at 158 knots, which would be 181.8 miles per hour.  Since Irma has surpassed that mark, I believe that it is entirely reasonable if people want to refer to it as a “category 6” storm.

Hurricane Irma is not just another storm, and it would be useful to have a special designation for a storm that is so extraordinarily dangerous.  Wherever it makes landfall, it is going to wipe out virtually everything in its path…

Irma strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane Tuesday with winds up to 185 mph. The storm is most powerful ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s so strong it is even showing up on scales for measuring earthquakes.

“No way to sugarcoat it. Irma is the type of tropical cyclone that wipes everything, including all vegetation, clean from small islands,” wrote Anthony Sagliani, the Meteorological Operations Manager at weather data firm Earth Networks.

And the National Hurricane Center is specifically warning that “a high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed” by a storm of this magnitude.

The National Hurricane Center reports dryly that when a Category 5 hurricane hits land, “a high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed,” adding power could be lost in some areas for “weeks and possibly months.”

So I stand by everything that I have written, and I demand a retraction and an apology from every mainstream news outlet that has slandered me.

Just because I am a Republican candidate for Congress does not mean that you can write things that are untrue.  At one time the mainstream media at least attempted to be objective, and there is a reason so many are now referring to them as “the fake news”.

It amazes me what passes for “journalism” these days.  These jackals jump on anything that even smells like it could be a “scandal” for a Republican, and they seem to have no regard for the truth whatsoever.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Hurricane Irma: If There Was Such A Thing As A Category 6 Hurricane, This Would Be It

Hurricane Irma has become even stronger than the most extreme forecasts were projecting.  According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma had sustained winds of 185 miles per hour at one point on Tuesday.  That makes it the strongest Atlantic hurricane in history “outside the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean”.  I was criticized for suggesting that Irma could become so powerful that it could potentially be labeled a “category 6” storm if such a thing existed.  Well, now it has actually happened.  If you extrapolate the Saffir-Simpson scale, “category 6” would begin at 158 knots, which would be 181.8 miles per hour.  Since Irma has surpassed that mark, I believe that it is entirely reasonable if people want to refer to it as a “category 6” storm.

Of course some meteorologists will get very heated with you when you use the term “category 6” because no such category exists at this point.

But we need some way to describe an Atlantic hurricane with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour.  “Category 5” simply does not do such a storm justice, and yes, Hurricane Irma is the type of storm that could wipe entire cities off the map if it came ashore at this power.

We don’t know where this immensely powerful storm will make landfall in the U.S. yet, but you don’t want to be there when it does.  I don’t want to freak people out, but the truth is that the best thing you can do is to get as far away from this storm as you can.

Just remember what happened in Houston.  The people were told not to evacuate, and that turned out to be an absolutely disastrous decision.

This is not just another storm.  This is a history making event, and if Irma slams directly into one of our major cities as a category 5 storm, it could potentially make Hurricane Harvey look like a Sunday picnic.  The following are some of the key things that you need to know about Hurricane Irma…

#1 According to the Miami Herald, Hurricane Irma had sustained winds of 185 miles per hour on Tuesday afternoon…

Irma continued to explode into a powerful storm Tuesday afternoon, with winds increasing to 185 mph, National Hurricane Center forecasters said in a 2 p.m. advisory.

As the storm continued to track westward, islands in its path raced to complete last minute preparations. The Leeward Islands are expected to get hit with “catastrophic” winds tonight, forecasters said, with the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico slammed tomorrow. In Puerto Rico, the governor asked President Donald Trump to declare a state of emergency, while the electric company warned Irma’s fierce winds could leave the island without power for four to six months.

#2 The NOAA is saying that Irma is “the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic — outside the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico.”

#3 As mentioned above, if you extrapolate the Saffir-Simpson scale, Irma could be considered a category 6 storm…

While few are willing to admit it yet, according to meteorologist Ryan Maye, Hurricane Irma is still intensifying, with winds up to 155-knots (180 mph) and that extrapolating Saffir-Simpson scale, 158-knots would be Category 6.

Yes, I know that a “category 6” does not exist yet, but perhaps it is about time that scientists got together and updated the scale in light of the dangerous new realities that we are now facing.

#4 Hurricane Irma is so enormously powerful that it is even “showing up on seismometers”…

Hurricane Irma is so strong it’s showing up on seismometers — equipment designed to measure earthquakes.

“What we’re seeing in the seismogram are low-pitched hums that gradually become stronger as the hurricane gets closer to the seismometer on the island of Guadeloupe,” said Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.

#5 In all of U.S. history, only three category 5 hurricanes have ever hit the United States – an unnamed storm in 1935, Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

#6 A state of emergency has already been declared for every single county in the state of Florida.

#7 If you are in the “danger zone” and you have not already stockpiled food, water and supplies, it is probably already too late.  Reports of “panic prepping” are coming in from all over Florida, and down in Puerto Rico many stores are already out of all the most important supplies…

On Tuesday, the lines for fast-dwindling gas, food, water and hardware were interminable and anxiety mounted. One hardware store in San Juan had been nearly picked clean by afternoon.

“This has been like this for the last three days,” said Juan Carlos Ramirez, the store manager. “We’ve sold all of the most necessary items — flashlight, batteries, plywood.”

One of my readers made the point the other day that this isn’t the kind of storm that you can “prepare” for.

And my reader was precisely correct.  You can’t “get prepared” for a hurricane with sustained winds of 185 miles per hour.  Such a storm will snap homes like toothpicks.

If I was in Florida, I would be heading north immediately.  Those that wait could find themselves in absolutely nightmarish traffic jams.

And if I lived on the Gulf coast, I would be watching this storm very, very carefully.

Because the waters in the Gulf of Mexico are so warm, there is the possibility that Irma could get even stronger if it slides to the south of Florida.

Let us hope that it does not happen, but a scenario in which Irma makes landfall along the Gulf coast as a category 5 storm would probably be the worst of all potential possibilities.

If such a scenario plays out, please get out of the path of this storm.  Trying to “ride this storm out” would do you no good whatsoever.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

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