S/O: prepping for disasters

[Melissa in Australia]

We keep a month of food . We grow all own veggies so we don't worry about that part.

 We at least once a year are flooded in, meaning the main road out is flooded not out place.

We also several times a year lose power due to storms or fires.

We are rural, so need to collect and store rainwater for all domestic uses. We have a header tank so don't need electricity to access it. 

We all have torches by our bed. Not for emergencies but to go to the toilet at night. Why turn on all the lights in the house ? I thought this was something everyone did.

[Melissa in Australia]

We only ever use a Swiss army knife for opening cans

[athena1277]

8 hours ago, Beth S said:

Agreeing that once you've lived through some sort of natural disaster (we had 2 weeks without power during an Ice Storm), you are much more diligent to prepare.    I think we're ready for about a week of disruption.  Camping gear provides lots of easy backup gear.

So true.  I’m not much of a prepper, I just stock up on no perishables when they are on sale.  However, after our week long ice storm in January, I’m rethinking our need for a secondary heat source.  I was so worried about losing power or heating unit going out.  We have a gas fireplace, but since it was the only thing that uses gas, we didn’t bother to have gas turned on when we bought the house.  I told dh that in the fall I was to get it turned on and have the fireplace inspected.  We probably won’t use it much, but the peace of mind in bad winter weather will be worth it.

[Brittany1116]

1 hour ago, Indigo Blue said:

If you find yourself stranded in your house in freezing temps and basically unprepared but you have a sleeping bag and a Nalgene bottle, boil some water and put the bottle in the sleeping bag and zip yourself up with it to keep warm. 

Also, create microclimates. You can pop up your camping tent in the bedroom (more likely living room, with mattresses added) and sleep inside it to trap heat better. 

[Carol in Cal.]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

This isnt super efficient. A Jackery 500 is about 85% efficient, which gives you about 4-4.5 hours of run time with an electric blanket. A Jackery 500 is also about $500. You are better off spending that $500 on a fantastic sleeping bag and wool clothing. 
 

ETA: If I get stuck on the interstate or highway here, odds are I am there for 12+ hours also. 

When I lived in Vermont I carried a sleeping back in my car at all times.  I never had to use it but it was good to know it was there.

Now when I am in the mountains where it gets cold and where it’s easy to get stranded in your car for a while, I always carry silk long underwear from LLBean, a puffy coat, and snow boots, from about November through the end of April or longer.  And a big water bottle.  You just never know.

[Carol in Cal.]

5 hours ago, bolt. said:

I'm quite surprised how many of you have gas generators. For myself, if the power goes out, it would mean that we would have to do without lights, maybe hot water and heat (but I think those have pilot lights and no-power modes) and we'd lose refrigeration eventually. In terms of a few days, or up to a week, other than lost food -- that doesn't seem so hard to deal with. Maybe it's because I haven't done it!

I have been thinking about getting a solar panel as a camping accessory, that might double as something that helps in an emergency.

My husband says he has a battery operated radio somewhere, but I'm thinking of getting one anyways -- so I know for sure that it's real, and where it is.

We do have matches for the gas stove, plus a natural gas bbq and a propane camp stove, and plenty of other ordinary camping gear. We'd have to find it all, if an emergency hit, but it's all around here somewhere.

The thing about refrigeration is that you might be able to keep your food from spoiling but only if you don’t open the fridge.  Which is counterproductive, if, say, you want to fix dinner.

We have a propane generator at our cabin in the mountains.  When I was SIP up there during Covid, and several other times for various power shutdowns of up to three days, I used it, but sparingly.   I would use it for a while in the evening, which would run the furnace to get the house nice and warm, keep the lights on, charge up phones and computers, heat up a tank of hot water, wash clothes if necessary, and cool down the fridge and freezer.  Then I would turn the propane heat stove on and turn the generator off.  (This would be outside in the dark, so it got a lot easier once I had a headlamp to wear to and from.). Basically I would get up in the morning, open all the shades and shutters to use natural light, and drink cold leftover coffee or a bottle of Frappuccino.  I’d take a bath in the leftover hot water from the water heater, with natural and candle light.  And I’d work on the computer and Ipad until I ran out of batteries.  Then I’d go outside and turn the generator on for an hour or two to run the furnace, cool the fridge/freezers, and charge everything up.  I’d also have better internet during that period because the Starlink would have power.  (When it was off I would use my Verizon iPad as a hot spot.). I’d generally go through this in the late morning, and then again in the mid-afternoon.  And then turn the generator back on for a more extended period in the evening.  

So, that’s an option—using it sparingly but intensely.  It really wouldn’t have been possible to stay there without it, or else the pipes would have frozen. That time of the year we take all the water out of them when we leave so that if the power goes out while we are away they don’t freeze.  However, we can’t do that if we are staying there.  The heat stove only heats the living areas of the house, but the furnace has a register in the basement that is essential for the pipes down there.  I’m so glad to have it, but I don’t leave it on automatic or run it round the clock.

One other practice I have up there is I have lots and lots of very stable pillar candles here and there—the bathrooms, the great room, our bedroom, the dining room table—all the time.  And I have 2-3 boxes of matches where I can find them by feel in the dark, including one secret stash that my husband does not know about so he can’t absent mindedly move them.  Like he does.  The candles look like decor but they are so that I can light up the house fast when the power goes out.  And since they are fat pillars, they are not at all tippy.  I count them as I light them so I don’t lose track of the flames, but also I put little plates under them (from Ikea) so that in the unlikely event that I forgot to blow one out and it burned all the way down, chances are it would put itself out rather than starting a fire.  The thing that concerns me about forgetting one is that while they are obvious and visible when lights are off, once the power comes back on it’s possible to miss seeing them as clearly.

[Carol in Cal.]

Our hand cranked can opener is by Oxo and very easy to use.

My next prepper purchase is going to be a hand cranked coffee grinder from Lehman’s.   Because we are SERIOUS about coffee.  

Edited February 9 by Carol in Cal.

[Carol in Cal.]

One thing I have at home (doesn’t help at the cabin) is a Sun Oven.  It’s great.  So I can always warm up food in it safely, or even do a bit of cooking, unless it is actually raining out, which is sometimes the case.  I have yet to use it in a power outage, and it would not have helped this last week in the atmostpheric river storms, but I know what it can do and it’s awesome for summer outages.

[Carol in Cal.]

5 hours ago, MEmama said:

In addition to the many common sense suggestions here, we have a portable shower head. Years ago we lost power for 10+ days, and of course ran out of hot water (our tank holds enough for 3 quick showers for 3 days, I discovered--which is pretty good!). I bought a battery powered (USB charge, so can charge in a car if necessary) shower head that hangs on the shower curtain or over the normal shower head, and the battery part goes into a 5 gallon bucket of water (in the tub). We have a gas stove, so I can heat water on the stove, pour into a clean Home Depot bucket and take a warm shower. It's pretty awesome. It was inexpensive and definitely worth keeping around.

It takes a significantly damaging and widespread disaster to prevent deliveries for more than a couple days, unless one lives very remotely. I keep that in mind when preparing for a storm; even towns nearby are unlikely to be out of power, for example--most damage/inconvenience is pretty contained. Ofc there are exceptions like wildfires, but you're not sticking around at home for those anyway.

I want this!  This is exactly what I need at home!  We have a gas stove that we can light with a match there.  Where do you get them, and do you happen to have a link to a good one?  I have never heard of this before!

[MEmama]

1 hour ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I want this!  This is exactly what I need at home!  We have a gas stove that we can light with a match there.  Where do you get them, and do you happen to have a link to a good one?  I have never heard of this before!

This is a similar model. I bought mine years ago

https://www.amazon.com/Ivation-Portable-Outdoor-Battery-Powered/dp/B00IFHFJXI

A  (quick) hot shower feels amazing when the house is dark and cold! 

[Carrie12345]

4 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I’d generally go through this in the late morning, and then again in the mid-afternoon.  And then turn the generator back on for a more extended period in the evening.  

So, that’s an option—using it sparingly but intensely.

That’s my plan. (The sparingly/intensely, not your entire routine!) I don’t think our sun can keep our solar generators powering everything constantly, but we can run the well pump to fill containers, rotate freezers, flush moderately, etc. We have plenty of candles, battery lights, and solar lights for regular life, so they’re also available for emergencies.

When we built this house, we knew we’d be installing a good wood stove. Just a day and a half with our regular fireplace during Sandy was much worse than I ever anticipated. And I can put pots of anything to heat up on the wood stove! 

My favorite splurge was building a large pavilion so we can cook outside under cover in bad weather. That’s not solely for emergency purposes, but it’s a plus. 

Im trying to think of what other basic things we have as we prepare for a possibly big snow dump next week.  Solid first aid supplies. Buckets for hand washing things. A retractable line in the laundry room for drying. Like others have mentioned, blankets galore.

Extra pet food, of course. And extra “human food” storage with them in mind if they were to somehow run out.

People, for sure. That’s not something one can just run out and grab, but building those relationships is a big deal. 

The car has solar and crank chargers, bivy bags and space blankets plus regular blankets. Water, coats and shoes (I have a habit of dashing out in a hoodie and crocks to chauffeur), cash, flashlights, first aid kit, compass, paper maps, and rain gear. Plus an anchored in clip for the big dog’s harness and carrier for the tiny dog. And a shovel.

[73349]

On 2/9/2024 at 4:37 PM, Melissa in Australia said:

We all have torches by our bed. Not for emergencies but to go to the toilet at night. Why turn on all the lights in the house ? I thought this was something everyone did.

We have motion-detector night lights in the bathroom. I can only imagine how often I would knock over a flashlight beside my bed if I kept it there all the time.

I was raised to keep a flashlight under each sink, right in front, so it's easy to find in the dark.

 

Carrie or anybody who knows, about how much would it cost to buy a small wood stove and get it installed? My house was built with a wood-burning fireplace and it was converted to gas. I'd like to have the gas insert removed and a wood stove put in front with the pipe going up the chimney. I don't know what professional that calls for, even--it's easy to find people who will convert wood to gas, but not the other way around.

[Carrie12345]

27 minutes ago, 73349 said:

Carrie or anybody who knows, about how much would it cost to buy a small wood stove and get it installed? My house was built with a wood-burning fireplace and it was converted to gas. I'd like to have the gas insert removed and a wood stove put in front with the pipe going up the chimney. I don't know what professional that calls for, even--it's easy to find people who will convert wood to gas, but not the other way around.

Everything from scratch came to almost $10k for us. But that was for a soapstone lined stove (around 3k) rated for up to 2,000sf, a very large, raised pad ($1,600), and tons of piping to reach the required height (2-stories plus high peak attic.) Total included installation.

My understanding is that conversion may still require a lot of piping because wood stoves burn differently that wood fireplaces, but fireplace chimney designs vary to begin with.

 

[Wildcat]

Oops. Wrong thread.

Edited February 23 by Wildcat

[Arcadia]

On 2/9/2024 at 1:37 PM, Melissa in Australia said:

We all have torches by our bed. Not for emergencies but to go to the toilet at night. Why turn on all the lights in the house ? I thought this was something everyone did

I have always lived in densely populated areas so the street lights are bright enough to illuminate the walk to the toilet. We do have our cellphones next to us for easy evacuation when our complex fire alarm sounds so if there is a power outage, we can use that as a flashlight as well.