Butte Falls bulletin., January 01, 2006, Page 3, Image 3

Home And Personal Security
According to the Oregon State Fire
Marshal, in the year 2000, there were
3455 residential fires in the State of
Oregon in which 27 civilians were
killed. In the same year, according to
U.S. crime statistics, there were 170,000
felony crimes in Oregon. Of these,
12,285 were violent attacks (aggravated
assault, robbery, rape, murder) and
26,215 burglaries for a total of 38,500
occasions during which people or their
homes were attacked.
There are some things that may be
very unlikely to happen to any one of us
but if they do it is so devastating that it
is wise to do all you can to prevent
them. So it makes sense to buy fire
insurance, but there are people who pay
$ 1000.00 or more every year for fire
insurance but who won't spend a dime
on defending their home from criminal
attack. Let's see, we are nearly three
times more likely to be murdered in
Oregon than to die in a house fire and
more than 10 times more likely to have
to defend against a criminal than to
have our home involved in a fire. But,
some people spend nothing on
protecting their home, themselves, or
their families against crime?
To make things a little more
concrete, let's presume that the Butte
Falls area is average for the state of
Oregon. Now, there are about 1200
people in the Butte Falls School District
and about 400 residences. So, we might
expect one house fire about every couple
of years. But every year we would
expect about 10 violent attacks and
burglaries in the school district. While
the lights and the gates and the locks
we have been talking about improve the
value of your home the insurance, as
necessary as it is, is still a dead loss
until you actually have to use it. Looked
at another way, nobody wants a house
fire whether they are insured or not and
an insurance policy does nothing at all
to prevent the fire. Nobody wants to be
criminally attacked either, but lights
and gates and dogs and locks and guns
have all been shown to prevent criminal
attack! This is a no-brainer.
By the way, we have been talking
mostly about home protection. If you
happen to own a few acres out of town,
here's something for you to think
about. This spring a Jackson County
sheriffs deputy informed me
that Mexican drug gangs have been
operating in Northern California for a
few years. What they do is to plant very
large pot farms and set some Mexican
nationals to raise and protect the
plants. These guys are handed a couple
thousand dollars to live on and told that
if they bring the crop in, they will get a
new car and several thousand dollars.
They are also handed an SKS or an AK-
47 and told that if, for any reason, the
crop fails, their families back home will
all be killed. Everybody knows these
guys will actually go through with killing
the families and so you figure what can
happen. The deputy indicated that the
Mexican drug gangs were starting to
operate in southern Oregon too.
Well, on November 1, 2005 the
Jackson County sheriffs office busted a
very large pot growing operation out in
the sticks near Ruch. It was being
guarded by about a dozen armed men,
reportedly Mexican nationals. Now
typically what these guys do is to find a
water source like a creek or spring and
then secretly bury a black plastic pipe to
bring water from high ground as far as
a mile or more down to the plantation.
So, even if they aren't planting pot on
your property, they might be taking
water from or across it. If this kind of
thing continues, it is just a matter of
time before we see some real trouble.
Next month, lets' talk about guns and
gun safes.
Lowell Nicolaus SRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
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B u tte F alls S erv ice S ta tio n
W ish e s y o u a n d y o u r fam ily
a h a p p y a n d safe 2 0 0 6 !
W e a re h e re fo r y o u ..
Butte Falls Assembly of God
R a y & M a ry a n d F a m ily
" Is n 't it tim e to m e e t J e s u s ? "
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