About Me

Richard Stooker

The calendar says I'm older than I feel, and that means I can remember many predictions of disaster.

Overpopulation. Global cooling. Global warming. Massive starvation. Nuclear war -- the biggie. Another Great Depression only worse. Hyperinflation. Terrorism -- did come true, though so far no nukes set off. Y2K. Invasion by the USSR. Attack by China. Take over by extreme right wing coup. Take over by communist revolutionaries. Race warfare. Widespread poisoning of the ecology.

Back in 1990 somebody predicted an earthquake in St Louis region along the New Madrid fault would happen December 5, 1992 -- based on . . . absolutely nothing. Yet the local news media played it up, people got worried that this fault would again be as active as it was from 1811-1812. Didn't happen, but it's also true that it could happen, at any moment. California and Tokyo Japan also "overdue" for major quakes.

You name it, somebody has made a conspiracy out of it.

While the huge, global catastrophes haven't happened yet, many local ones have. Earthquakes in Pakistan, Mexico . . . many places. The December 26, 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The volanic eruption of Mt Pinatubo near Angeles The Philippines.

I for one don't believe these are "signs" -- but I do believe they are signals from the universe that we don't yet control it.

Although we wish to believe nothing bad could happen to us, that life is under control because most days the world functions normally -- that's still an illusion.

I've been fortunate to have nothing bad happen to me or my loved one. The 1973 and 1993 flooding of the Mississippi River didn't touch me. I was in Manila the day Typhoon Ondoy hit. I thought it was just an unusually heavy rainfall. There was no storm in the sense of high winds and thunder and lightning. I just had to wade through knee-high water in the street and had to leave the Robinsons Mall's Internet cafe early. Plus, there were power outages the next morning, but they were soon fixed.

One previous time a typhoon threatened Manila while I was staying there, and then the hotel put up signs warning us to stock up on food, water and flashlights. That typhoon didn't hit.

I've also been without electricity for several days at a time in St Louis, usually following summer storms. But one time it was caused by an ice storm.

I hope I never experience anything truly bad, but there're no guarantees in life. The longer I live, the greater the probability that one day I'll get hit by a massive disaster.

That's why I urge everyone to protect themselves and their families by having emergency preparedness kits on hand.