Here is a fun editorial piece. I wrote this when Hurricane Rita was barreling down on Houston when I was the managing editor of a newspaper down there. It's written in that folksy, chuckle inducing style meant for middle-of-the-road newspaper readers. It was Texas. It's also meant to give you some idea of the chaos and confusion you can expect when the next disaster comes to your home town. Won't it be swell?

The Quest for Fire

By Bradford Cheng

I have to admit this is my first pre-disaster experience. The newspaper are spilling huge warnings in black ink across their front pages and the barrage of television broadcasts are enough to make one consider a monastery. Until recently, I had no idea a meteorologist’s formal education included ‘An Introduction to Method Acting,' but I’m trying not to be perturbed. 

I like to think of myself as a prepared person. I’m certain there are Band-Aids and a stained bottle of Mercurochrome somewhere under the sink. I have at least three half-empty cans of car polish in my Honda at all times, I buy paper towels and Cheetos in bulk and there are at least a half dozen cans of Campbell's soup somewhere my pantry, although their expiration dates are most likely past. At least, I think it’s been a long time since “Cream of Maize” has been produced.

I like to feel I'm a bit self-sufficient, but I’m nowhere near survivalist status. There’s no cache of ammo and salted beef in my spring cellar and my only knife is dwarfed by its toothpick and nail file. But I like to think that in times of sudden deprivation I might be able to grin and bear a few days like a trooper. 

Unfortunately, up until the arrival of Rita, I always assumed the real key to waiting out a disaster meant finally finding the time to finish “Madame Bovary” and, most importantly, maintaining a sufficient collection of DVDs. I assumed there would be nothing like a good movie to lightening one’s spirits as your neighbor’s KIA blew by the window.

But not today.

It wasn’t until today that reports of “power outages” and hundreds of “sold-out electrical generators” finally made me realize disasters are not made any easier by “The Complete Sinatra” on compact disc. And that “Enya’s Greatest Hits” would not soothingly mask wail of warning sirens. It turns out, that during a disaster I would suddenly find myself electrically-challenged. The key to beating a disaster apparently dates back to mankind's earliest efforts to keep itself from being extingished by the cold, hard universe.

The key is fire. 
The secret is light.

This afternoon I set out in Katy to acquire the real tool to survival during catastrophy, that miraculous device known as a flashlight. I pass up the opportunity to own one of these wondrous devices on almost a daily basis. They come small and large, in all colors. You see them printed in camouflage and football team logos at gas stations. They come hand-crankable, pen-sized, waterproof and built in steel casings sturdy enough to give a moose a concussion.

But not today.

As Rita looms down on Katy, these commonplace items have become more coveted than a position behind the camera at Jessica Simpson video shoot.    

Along Fry Road, the shelves of Walmart’s camping department are devoid of flashlights, lamps, lanterns and anything that gives off the faintest glimmer. I briefly consider illuminating my bedroom with a set of glow-in-the-dark Barney stickers, but I persevered and moved on.

Even more frustratingly, there is not a single “D” nor “C” sized battery to be found at any other store along Katy’s main shopping strip. If you want to replace the power supply in Timex wrist watch or a calculator, you’re in luck. Accountants, take heart. Almost teasingly, these tiny, utterly useless batteries litter the empty shelves instead of their larger brethren. But if you actually want to see the can of Spam you’re eating, neither Walgreens or H.E.B. have any flashlight-sized batteries in stock.

I found this doubly annoying as most of the time I’m bothered by having to look past these behemoth-sized beasts. Isn’t this the age of miniaturization? Can we not summon up the world electronically with our dainty fingertips? D and C-sized battery seem to harken back, semi-obsoletely, to the days of 65 pound boom-boxes and be designed mainly to roll and thump noisily every time you  open your child’s toy chest.

But not today.

Today they are gold.

The story was the same at Best Buy: Batteries and flashlights are long gone as the dodo. However, they did offer a handy power converter which would run on still-available AA batteries. Unfortunately they are limited to powering hand-held games. I suppose this should provide some comfort to die-hard gamers. In the time of apocalypse, they will not be deprived. However, when my windows blow in, brown water trickles out of my faucet like an sick airplane sink and the arugula in my refrigerator begins to sprout, I doubt I will feel comforted by beep of my 11-year old playing Mario Kart.

While it might have been the first place most survivalists would have turned to, I saved a trip to Home Depot for last. I’m somewhat embarrassed to go to that bastion of do-it-yourselfers. This is where real men do their shopping. This is where the legendary men of Texas, pioneers out there alone on a limb, would be shoring-up with their weapons of war against wind and tide. Walking into the store hoping to turn up a single D-sized battery or discount flashlight would be somewhat humbling. And I was right. 

There were SUV owners toting out massive coils of rope, inch-thick sheets of plywood, complex devices which may have been the artificial hearts of mobile homes for all I knew, and enough timber to have given the boys at the Alamo time to have sung “Utah Carl’s Last Ride” one last time. And here I was, pitifully hoping for enough light to finish “Madame Bovary."

And I shall.

Even though Home Depot has no flashlights nor batteries to power them, laying atop one depleted shelf, stickered with tantalizing signs like “Coleman lanterns” and “Eveready Emergency Lights,” I did find the single source of fire which shall tide my family through the coming disaster.  No doubt a clearance item which quickly surfaced to see Katy through it’s impending cataclysm, I snatched up and purchased my touchstone to survival. A key chain Disney "The Incredibles” Squeeze Light. Unfortunately, it’s only illuminated by a single red LED and barely provides enough rays to suntan a gnat. But, in the immortal words of Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive."