Own a garage?

[butlersrangers]

.... your homeowner's and car insurance are both going up in cost!

[FredC]

Funny you mention a garage. Had clear skies till an hour ago. Now we are in an enhanced risk area for baseball sized hail and 70 mile an hour winds. Thinking about the vehicles parked outside. I need to put them all under cover tonight.

There have been several vehicle recalls where the owners are advised to park them outside till repaired. So what do you do on the night of enhanced risk?

[waterman]

Check your insurance & park it outside. Even an expensive car is cheaper than replacing the garage or even carport. For many of us, that's next to our house.

[FredC]

Yep, the house catching on fire at night in the garage could kill you. Weighing the odds in life-or-death situations is tricky. One in 100,000 of the car catching fire or 1 in 2 of baseball sized hail. Probably could disconnect the battery for 1 night in the car and make the odds zero.

I will be backing the firetruck up a little further to get the front windshield further back. I might park a vehicle in the covered cattle pens. The local time of risk is only supposed to be 2 hours.

[butlersrangers]

I don't think 'disconnecting' the battery on an EV will reduce the hazard.

[FredC]

Br,
You are correct on an EV. Disconnecting the battery will not protect a defective or crash damaged battery.
Some regular gas powered vehicles have had fuel and electrical defects where the owners were advised not to park them inside. A gas powered vehicle with an electrical defect probably could be made safe temporarily by disconnecting the battery.
Maybe I should set the pens so the cows can get cover instead of parking vehicles in there. I copied this off the government weather website:

Day 1 Convective Outlook
NWS Storm Prediction Center Norman OK
0300 PM CDT Fri Apr 28 2023

Valid 282000Z - 291200Z

...THERE IS AN ENHANCED RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ACROSS PARTS OF
CENTRAL TO SOUTH-CENTRAL TEXAS...

...SUMMARY...
Destructive hail (some at least as large as baseballs), thunderstorm
gusts potentially exceeding 75 mph, and a couple tornadoes remain
possible this afternoon and evening from north Texas southwestward
into south-central Texas.

[FredC]

Looks like I derailed the thread for nothing. Storm has passed with no hail. I saw an interview with a rancher with cattle during a storm. It is so noisy under a metal roof with hail that cattle cannot stand it and will leave. So it is not inhumane to park the vehicles in there.

An open spot between to storms approached us then they welded together overhead. The area was rather weak with awesome lightning displays in the distance. Tried to catch some but only got the double rainbow on the detached garage. When the thunder gets quiet, I will walk to the shop and drive the car back to the house. Better safe than sorry.

I just heard on the emergency radio a house caught fire probably from a lightning strike about 4 miles away. Sure glad we are not certified for structure fires. Usually one structure fire each lightning storm in this county, that is why the lightning rods on my house and garage.

I saw more than a dozen deer and one skunk walking to get the Jeep.

DoubleRainbowAtSunset.jpg (781.5 KiB) Viewed 670 times

[butlersrangers]

I saw more than a dozen deer and one skunk walking to get the Jeep.
[/quote][/quote]

You have some smart animals in Texas!
Fred, who drove and who rode shotgun?

[FredC]

I am not sure how smart the deer are, I keep advising them to practice birth control but so far they have not listened. They usually do not snort at me anymore when I walk by them at night. I guess they have gotten used to my voice. I have sold the major portion of the ranch to a neighbor, since I will not be so busy I may shoot a couple if they relax the doe restrictions. The neighbor has said he will hunt them as heavily as legally possible. Killing one buck a season does nothing to limit the numbers when the does outnumber the bucks 10 to 1.

I saw that cartoon in another thread and did not get it. Is there a local road named 16 mile or maybe the giant beaver does not know how far 16 miles is? In Tucson there was a road named Miricle Mile Road, but I think it was really longer than a mile. I have never been north of Amarillo except on a plane bound for the UK once, so I am unfamiliar with your northern roads.

I have since thought of another car/garage safety issue. I was looking at new for me used cars recently and passed on one I might have bought because of the keyless ignition. Just cannot wrap my head around why I would want that. Years ago I heard of a safety issue with those systems. People would get out of their vehicles carrying stuff and forget to kill the engine. Close the garage door behind you without hearing the engine running and you can kill everyone in the house with carbon monoxide poisoning. Be careful.

[butlersrangers]

Detroit has a rather unique system of roads and streets.
Some of the Downtown and water-front streets follow the property lines of 18th Century 'ribbon farms'. (That allowed all the original French settlers to have some river frontage & access).

In 1805, Detroit had a devastating fire and was rebuilt.
The new 1807 plan copied cities (like Washington D.C.) with a wheel and spoke arrangement, centered on Grand Circus Park.
Since Detroit was bordered on a river, a sort of 'half-wheel' arrangement was used.

The surveying reference was a large, exposed rock in the city's parade ground, Campus Martius.
The Main Street passes over this 'point of origin', leaving the river via an old Buffalo trial, (christened Woodward Avenue).
Woodward crosses through the 'hub' at Grand Circus and goes NNW through what was once hardwood forests and swamps.

Every mile from Detroit's 'Point of Origin', there is a major east-west road that may have a name like "5 Mile" or numerous other names, depending on the local jurisdiction.

Eight Mile Road is the northern boundary of Detroit and is also the Northwest Territory E-W survey line, (Base Line). If extended to the west, it is the boundary between Illinois and Wisconsin.

16 Mile Road is 16 miles from the 'Point of Origin'. It has at least five different names, one of which is "Big Beaver Road'.

Don't you love this kind of shit!