This is a guest post and entry in our non-fiction writing contest by Michele
In December 2008, I got 2 feet of snow. OK, so some of you are laughing – 2’ – so what? But this area usually only gets 6-8 inches a couple of times a year, which is mostly gone the next day, and some of the trees here are not designed to handle that much snow. The result was trees and branches down everywhere and major power outages all over the area. My house was plunged into darkness for five days because my particular electric line only has 97 customers on it, so we were not a money-making priority for PG&E.
I live alone and for me, this would only have been an inconvenience, however, at that time, I had living with me; my 34-year-old daughter, her 14-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter, my 32-year-old son, and 2 grandsons, one 4 years old and one 18 months old for whom I was ‘foster mom’ for about 5 months.
There was even 12 inches of snow at my mom’s who is only at about 1100 feet elevation (I’m at 2500 ft). She almost never gets snow at all, so she lost 15 big oak trees, but the power outages were not a problem for mom because she lives off grid. Fortunately, I too have lived off grid on several occasions, so was probably a little more prepared to handle the situation than many of you might be.
My home is 100% electric. No electricity means no refrigerator, no freezer, no lights and no TV to help keep the 3 kids, 5 and under occupied.
My car, at the time, (I now have an older 4×4 truck that is relatively EMP proof) had only 6 inches of ground clearance, and did not consider itself a snow plow, so I did not have the option of running off to the store.
I have a good wood stove, but even that doesn’t work if there is nothing to burn in it. Fortunately, my son was staying with me to help me with the little boys when this happened. I do own a chainsaw, but I have never been taught to safely use it. I had only about one day’s worth of wood outside, so my son cut and I brought the wood in with the sled and stacked it on the deck to use each day for the wood stove. We used a lot more than I would have expected because we had to keep the fire going 24 hours a day to keep us warm, cook our food and melt snow for washing the dishes (and us). Fortunately, I had gas and 2-stroke oil, but would not have had enough for more than a week or two.
My water comes from a well on my property (as it does for all my neighbors). Another fun fact of no electricity is no power to the well pump, so no water when you turn on the faucet, no showers and no flushing toilets. I gotta tell you, the house smells pretty ripe after a day and a half of 7 people using toilets that don’t flush. I was fortunate there too in that I own a Jacuzzi, which I remembered only after the house became amazingly aromatic. I went out to the breaker box, flipped off the switch to the Jacuzzi (in case the power came back on), grabbed 5 gallon buckets and used Jacuzzi water to flush the toilets.
No matter how many times you tell people not to open the refrigerator door, old habits die-hard. And, someone, please, please, tell me why people just stand there staring into the refrigerator for several minutes? Do they think if they stare into it for long enough, Butterfinger bars (or whatever it is they are hoping for) will magically appear? As a result, the food in the refrigerator and freezer quickly needed to be cooked and eaten. Even with eating some strange combination meals, and placing some of the food out into the snow on the deck, we didn’t get everything cooked/consumed in time, and a bunch of the food had to be thrown out.
Lessons I learned or thought about as a result of this experience:
- Store water. Water to drink, water to prepare food, water to wash with and water to flush toilets. My well is too deep for a hand pump to work, even if I had the money to have one installed.
- Always keep enough wood on hand to keep me going for at least a few weeks.
- More cast iron cookware.
- Hand tools, saws (and extra blades) and the like. I have garden tools but could use back ups.
- Learn to use the chain saw safely.
- Keep more gas (and gas preservative), 2-stroke oil and chain oil around the house.
- Cards, dice (and Yatzee score pads), board games, paper, crayons, pens and pencils, etc.
- Keep empty 5 gallon buckets around, they come in handy for so many things.
- Lots of extra blankets, sweats (and warm jammies for the kids).
- Buy another ice chest (for the frozen food).
- Print out all my survival information and place in binders.
Some of the things I had to deal with could have been anticipated. Others, I learned only by this experience.
My suggestion to all is to simulate an experience like the one I had to live through, to see if you find gaps in your own preps.
Pick a long weekend. Turn off all power to your house (except to the refrigerator – no reason to lose all your food since this is a simulation, however duct tape the door shut – no cheating!) Figure out what you will do for water, even in the city in a serious grid down situation like an EMP or a major pandemic where people don’t want to leave their houses to go to work, basic services could be lost. Consider it camping in place.
If your plan is to go to someone else’s house, or a retreat location, what if the situation is nation wide? What if there is rioting or other dangers that prevent you from leaving right away?
What will you do to keep warm or cool? How will you handle sanitation if the toilets don’t flush and the faucets don’t work?
Use only your preps. Grind your own wheat, make your own bread and pasta by hand. No blenders, no food processors, no mixers (unless they are hand powered). All meals need to be made from your long-term preps only and no fair using your computer to search for recipes. This might be a good reminder to print out recipes or go to used bookstores or the used books section of Amazon or the like and find books with recipes for your storage. Find out if the recipes are something you could live on day after day – if not, find lots of new recipes. Do you have the spices you need to make your food palatable?
No TV to relieve the boredom or keep the kids out of your hair. No radio (even emergency radio might not be available). Spend time playing games with your kids, and reconnect with your spouse. Make lists of the things you hadn’t considered before.
Even if you have a generator and stored gas, propane, diesel or whatever, assume these will somehow not be available to make electricity (an EMP blew it out or some part broke) and do it all without power. This might be a real eye-opener for you, and may help you to survive if something happens to your back up plan.
I doubt many of you will actually simulate a grid down situation, which is too bad, it may save your life. My five days with no power taught me a lot (the silver lining to my clouds) and gave me even more food for thought.
It made me decide to prepare for more than 1 year. What if TSHTF in early autumn (you can plant in the spring, but don’t normally harvest until mid to late summer)? What if there was a drought that summer and my garden died or failed to produce much? Would me and my family (you and your family) be OK (even thrive) if a grid down situation lasted more than a week, month, year, or, God forbid, permanent?
This is an entry in our non-fiction writing contest where you could win:
First Prize) Winner will receive a Nomad – 1 Person Standard Survival Package courtesy of Shepherd Survival Supply, a One Month Food Pack courtesy of Augason Farms, a $150 gift certificate for Remington Ammo courtesy of LuckyGunner.com and a EcoZoom’s Versa Stove courtesy of EcoZoom stoves. A total prize value of over $875.
Second Prize) Winner will receive two (2) Rothco Sure Paks With Heater courtesy of Camping Survival, a Wise Food Vegetable bucket courtesy of LPC Survival and a Wonder Junior hand grain mill courtesy of Kitchen Kneads. A total prize value of over $509.
Third Prize) Winner will receive 3 – 27 Variety of Non Hybrid, Heirloom Non GMO Survival Seeds, 2 – Fruit Pack of Non Hybrid, Heirloom Non GMO Survival Seeds and 2- First Aid Kit with Sutures in a Waterproof Resealable Bag courtesy of Be Prepared Now. A total prize value of over $215.
Contest ends on March 30 2012.
{ 74 comments }
Try it with ICE instead of snow. 4×4 dont help, stuff falling and crashing all the time. cant realy play in it. In 93/94 we had a major ice storm and were withug power for almost te days. We cooked o the wood stve and had it not been for the wood stove we would have frozen to death. Some of my neighbors went out and cut big pieces of ice and put them in the freezer to kep thier frozen foods frozen. We heated water on the wood stoveto bathe in and the one thing that was a real bonus was that our water never froze up so we didnt have to boil etc. to have drinking water. Now added to the list of things Iwill never be without again is a home with a wood stove. We dont use it all the time, we ave a heat pump, but when the temps get below about 27, the heat pump doesnt produce and if we want to stay warm, we build a fire and supplement.
In about 1960 or so when I was 10 or so we had a bad ice storm
and had no power for a week or so. At the time we had a fuel oil space heater in the middle of the house. Everything else in the house was electric. We were on well water that was powered by an electric motor so I know we had no running water, light or power too cook. To be honest, other than it being cold out and hard to get around I can’t remember it being a problem at all.
I guess my parents had enough food in the pantry to get by. I don’t know where we got water, maybe from a neighbors hand pump. We got along just fine and the fact that I barely remember the inconvenience means that my parents did a good job of making it a non event rather than scaring my sister and I half to death.
A school mate of mine lived a few miles away and on a different power system. His family didn’t have power for 3 weeks. They got by just fine as well.
There is no real point to my post other than to say a power loss event can be handled and without a lot of stress if the adults are prepared for it. In my case, my parents grew up with little or no electric power using wood for heat and hand pumps for water so It guess it was no big deal to them.
You won’t get any argument from me – I lived in No. VA for 6-1/2 years and lived through some ice storms. I’m still tramatized.
Michele,
This is a great article. I love hearing about other peoples’ experiences. Back in 1991, as I recall, we had an inch and a half of snow. That was enough to shut down North Florida and South Georgia. The airport at Jax shut down. We just aren’t used to that kind of weather.
I did loose power twice for four days at a time back in 2006 when we had Charlie and Fran come through. I lost everything in my refrigerator. That experience prompted me to buy a generator and to store gasoline during hurricane season. I also went with a gas stove and a gas water heater. So I was the only one in the neighborhood who had a working stove and hot water. I have a fishpond and so was able to flush the toilets.
Experience is the best teacher. Thanks again for the great article.
Michele
Thank you for reminding us to practice what we preach. A few years ago we had a major ice storm hit and our house was without power for 3 nights and 4 days, some individuals were without power for 3-5 weeks. The trees in areas hit the worse looked like pealed bananas; not a limb left.
Like you we are on a well and have no way to pump water when the power is out. Since the weather reports accurately predicted the storm I was able to prepare for the water outage by filling two bath tubs and every jug/picture and spare ice chest we had. Since we are on septic we able to use all three toilets until the sewer pipes began to freeze. The one closest to the den and the fireplace stayed clear thank the lord. We have gas heat but no power to run the blower. Lesson learned….get a bigger generator. The stove is electric but I was able to cook in the fireplace, and with my camping equipment. I learned a gas grill makes a pretty good oven to bake in.
We slept in the den near the fireplace and would normally run a kerosene heater and a small propane heater at night. The fireplace ran 24-7 since we had several ricks of wood. But it just was not efficient enough to heat the whole house at night. I recall the night time temp inside was normally about 60 degrees which was fine for sleeping. The first night we slept too hard and the fire went out. We woke up about 4 am to 30 degrees inside the house. For entertainment we would run the small generator for an hour or two at a time to run the tv and dvd player, cable was out. During that time we would run the inside refrigerator to maintain proper temps.
Since we had some advance notice and we were somewhat prepared we fared well overall. We knew what our weaknesses were; we did not panic when the weakness materialized. Lessons learned from our experiences and from the mistakes of others were many. What have I not corrected??? Still no large generator and I know better, as I type this I realize I don’t have enough propane, wood or gas on hand for a week of power outages. Time to get busy.
We faced a similair situation as yours. We had an ice storm that left us without power for three days. It was a Huge eye opener. We had to rely on a friend to loan us a generator to run the furnace (and frig.) for a few hours, just so we could warm up. Plus, we had very little food stored up. I swore from then on we wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else but ourselves. We now have a wood stove that heats our house nicely all winter and I can cook on it with the many cast iron skillets my husband has acquired. We have over a years worth of firewood stored. I have learned to can anything I can get my hands on, and cook with it. Sometimes it takes one event to change our way of thinking, and I am glad mine happened a long time ago, so I am much better prepared for anything that comes our way.
Just4Rselves,
It is said that many conservatives used to be liberals until they were mugged. I think it is often the same concept when it comes to self reliance. It warms my heart to see folks like you who not only survived an ordeal, but made changes in their lives to become more self reliant because of it. I think there are still far too many folks who will complain about the problem when it occurs, and then go right back to their old lives, having realized and learned nothing.
It really helps to have a better half who encourages you to make the changes. He grew up living this way and I have learned more from my MIL then I did from my parents. I feel sorry for anyone who has a spouse who doesn’t want to live this way, but glad to read that they are doing it anyway! I love this blog and everyone on it. I have been lurking for while now and have learned SOOOOO much! I have a ways to go, but work on it whenever finances allow. (Which won’t be long, two more payments and this house is ours!)
We payed our place off more than 10 years ago and there is no feeling like it. Congrats.
Michele….this is an excellent article, and your suggestion to simulate a grid-down situation is very good. At the very least, I will walk around and imagine what I would be dealing with.
I recently did a water inventory, and decided that I don’t have near enough. A water outage could be a real issue here this coming Summer; if the water table drops, the wells will dry up and have to be re-drilled…a costly and time-consuming project. There is the river a little ways away, but it could become really low, which makes the water worse than usual for consuming, as the river runs through many ranches with horses and cows. and all their excretions flow into the river. I will be looking for inexpensive long-term water storage.
There’s just Dad & I, so we don’t have the freezers full of food (as much as I’d like to, can’t afford it), so we keep milk cartons of water frozen in there….to help the cold stay cold enough and for later consumption. Just a suggestion for others.
Really good, thought-provoking article! Thanks.
December 2008? You must live in the Pacific Northwest! Nasty Winter!
You make excellent points, especially about the keeping the kids entertained. I have a 5 year old and both of us are movie addicts…time to start curbing that now!
Yes, I do live in the Pacific Northwest – just outside of Placerville, CA
Nice ‘wake-up’ article for us all.
I also am all electric. I need a new generator and you just lit a fire under me to get on that right away, thanks.
I have propane and wood/charcoal burning grills out back (desert – no snow), in the garage are several fuel camp stoves, two small portable propanes and 2 butane stoves for back up. I like the butane stoves as they are easy for Mrs. SD or my granddaughter to use (screw-in fuel cylinder) and can be set up in a minute. I have two such stoves at my folks house with 3 weeks worth of fuel cylinders. I’m certain there will be many other suggestions about what you can do to improve on dealing with the next crisis, but I’m sure you are working diligently on that issue.
Well…. you had a few hiccups Michelle but you overcame the problems. Heck, overall the kids probably thought it was a neat adventure! Except perhaps the teenager. They can be ornery when deprived of movies, music, games and Facebook!
Seriously, you held it all together and you did well. And you turned that difficult situation into a lesson for us all.
Actually, I think the teenager did better than anyone other than me. He is and always has been an avid reader, and has a pretty easygoing personality. I think my daughter had the worst time of it, the little ones drove her crazy.
My learning experience was the opposite weather wise back in 1970. Hurricane Celia. Deep South Texas. In August. I drove home home from work as the storm preparing to make landfall. That was a fun ride…lol. Blew the wipers off my VW van. No electricity for two weeks no running water for a week, we had natural gas to cook with but had to boil any water (after it came back online) as the water purification plant got hit pretty hard. Food spoilage was a serious problem in the heat. Took days to get ice into the city to put in your cooler. My dad had filled the tub and every container we had before Celia hit (He remembered his lesson from Carla in the 60′s) so we had water for the toilets and to drink sparingly. I learned how to run a gas pump with an edger. Worked great. My dad and I rigged a sheet of masonite to the ceiling of our living room to make a big fan. Everybody took a turn being the motor. We still had trouble sleeping in the heat at night, I spent as many nights as I could sleeping on the roof where it was cooler.
Made a lot of money before school started on a fence crew my friends and I put together though. We rebuilt miles and miles of fences for folks.
If you have a day or two of warning you can put all frozen food in 2 gallon ziplock bags or small garbage bags and 1 small bag of ice cubes. If you end up Bugging out the bag of Ice cubes melt will tell you if things thawed and refroze. It will also make cleaning the freezer a lot easier and contain odors and fluid. I read about folks doing this before the bugout during Katrina.
Jamie,
I like the ice cube idea. Not only to help preserve the food, but as a melt & refreeze indicator. Simple, low tech, & ingenius.
love the ice cube bag for melt/refreeze indicator – good job! Thanks for sharing. (It’s good to see SOMEONE learned something from Katrina!)
Great article, Michele. Very timely as well. The wife and I have been discussing backup power options over the past week.
We live in the snowiest city in the US. Average snowfall is 10 feet per year, with areas north of us receiving more than twice that regularly. Last year we received about 15 feet of snow. While the local governments are well-equipped to handle heavy snowfall, it’s not uncommon for a blizzard to close everything down for a day or two. Back in ’98 an ice storm an hour north of us knocked out electricity for three weeks. I’m not ignorant of the fact that a similar event or combination of events could happen here.
We’ve got a gas furnace with an electric blower, meaning that if either gas or electricity goes out, it won’t work. We do have a gas stove in the living room, which will run without electricity, but that’s still dependent on gas being pumped to our home and it only puts out so much heat.
To prepare, we’ve installed a wood stove in our basement that’s capable of putting out quite a bit of heat. We’ve also got three face cords of seasoned wood out back and 1/2 fc in the garage where it can be accessed without having to venture outside. That’ll keep us warm for at least a few days. The wood outside should provide heat for a few weeks. If that’s not enough, we’re surrounded by forest and can find plenty of dead wood without having to venture too far from home. We have saws and axes if needed, but currently no chain saw.
We can heat water and food on the wood stove or cook on our charcoal grill, propane stove or white gas stove. I’ve only used the propane stove a few times, but the white gas stove will last for a week-long backpacking trip on less than two quarts of fuel. I’ve got a gallon and a half stored. It will also run on gasoline, of which I have about ten gallons stored.
Electricity is our biggest problem. We’ve got an all-in-one car charger/power inverter that will output 400 W AC if needed, at least for a short while. That’s plenty to charge phones and laptops and run the blowers on the wood and gas stoves (not necessary, but they distribute the heat further when used), but it may not be enough to run the fridge or freezer. I’ve measured the peak power draw at startup at 660 and 780 W respectively.
My short-term solution is to get a more powerful inverter (at least 1800 W) and the hardware to connect it to my car battery. The plan is that if the power goes out, we can run the car for short periods of time (outside of the garage) with the inverter attached to the battery. The inverter will provide enough power to run the fridge, freezer and any other essential appliances (including charging phones and laptops). As more money becomes available we can add a bank of deep cycle batteries, solar panels to charge the batteries, and a backup generator.
Electricity wouldn’t be my biggest problem in an area that gets 15′ of snow. How do you survive???
I don’t like the stuff at all, and when people say it’s going to snow I call them a potty mouth and threaten to wash their mouths out with soap .
Michele,
Good article. We have been thru 4 Hurricanes, quite a few close calls, and numerous Tropical Depressions and have been without power three times.
I cannot emphasize the need for planning and having that plan in writing and have a series of checklists. For exmple, we keep a copy of the Hurricane Plan and all checklists in the garage, shed, and a file cabinet. Once a hurricane is on the way things can get hectic. A plan and checklists will keep you on course and ensure you do what needs to be done. Everytime we do the “Hurricane Hop” we learn something new to incorporate or delete.
Every June we go through all our hurricane plans and equipment. When a system is coming into or has formed in the Gulf of Mexico, we have a window of 2 -3 days to board up and get ready and then either hunker down or bug out. We , also have plans for other contingencies, for events we hope never happen.
I have a “Tornado/fire” plan, with lists like you mention, eagle. I read them every few weeks and double check that everything is where it needs to be. It took me 3+ close calls here to get on that. What is it they say….something about being a fool when you don’t pay attention to what needs to be done? I’d rather be thought of a as a fool for prepping than be a dead fool in a tornado/storm/fire from not.
Eagle, your hurricane plan and checklist sound very helpful. Seems like being ready for a hurricane would mean being ready for most contingencies, and well on your way for the others.
If you ever decided to do an article on how you developed it/test it, I for one would love to read it!
I have a prepper group I work with here and we don’t have a group checklist. I will remedy that. I need to know that everyone is on track. We have individual checklists for different emergencies but I have never insisted that we go through each member’s list on a regular basis. Good comment eagle. Thanks for the heads-up. S.D.
Our main power out weaknesses are water and 4 freezers.
Over the summer months I fill the freezers with produce to be cooked and stored when the weather cools down a bit, last time I had a power problem it took me 3 full days working pretty much around the clock to cook/preserve everything. Vegies and fruits are pickled, canned or made into jams. Meat is canned, salted and/or smoked and/or sun dried. I also keep a supply of milk and bread in the freezers, milk could be processed into something else, but i may not have time, bread would probably become pig feed.
Water would be a problem over the summer months, we have large gardens and orchards, with little or no rain from October until April, a week or so without water would be terrible. Our main garden storage tank holds 20,000 gallons, we can only use half of this without adjusting outlet valves, so keep 10,000 gallon in reserve in case of pump failure or power problems, this could last a week if we are being very careful. We have a solar well pump that can help top the tank up a little and we can pump from a dam using a petrol firefighting pump.
Household water works fine with gravity feed, fed from rainwater tanks.
Other glitches for us include not being able to grind pig feed and electic stock fences not working, over a few days we can put alternative power sources in place, but it would be a very busy few days, lol. We have numerous alternative lighting systems, can run essential power tools with a generator, I’ve lived without a fridge and really didn’t find it a hassle even in summer, although I do have a small gas camping fridge that could be used if wanted.
A few days without power would be a nuisance, more than a week would mean a lot of reorganising and long term……..well I’ve done it before ( 7 years NO power at all, everything hand, wood or kerosene operated when we could afford the kerosene).
Good article, I know people that would walk past the pool water and never think about using it to flush with. I have had to go without power for long periods after hurricanes, no fun at all in hot weather. Even with stocking up on gas before the storms we ran out of gas for generators. It’s been a long time since we lost power in the winter but I do remember going a week without once in a snow/ice combination that our power crews could not handle back then. We stayed warm and could cook fine but had to get water out of the well with a bucket and rope. Easy with a large shallow well like we had then but most of that type well are gone today. I have a hand pump and plumbing for it stored for backup now. The place I’m in here is on county water but I’m not counting on that crew to keep it going in any event over a couple days long. If anybody moves to hurricane country that has not lived through one the one thing I tell folks is to have windows that will open and have bug screens on them. Spare screen material is good to have, the wind can throw stuff and tear the screens (or worse) so having some stuff to repair them will allow you to open windows without the bugs whipping you.
It’s not just the winter either. We live in the south and were without power for 6 days in March 3 years ago due to a tornado and also during Katrina in August.
Luckily is wasn’t overly warm that march….but it can easily be 100 with 100% humidity which can take it’s toll on the elerly and very young, as it was with Katrina.
Our neighborhood has underground power, but is fed by above ground. The power company put us at the bottom of the list because of the underground power.
We were not very perpared. Luckily, we camp, so I had camping stove and fuel. We drink only bottled water because of the bad city water supply, so we had water for several days already.
My children still have fond memories of us reading stories by latern light.
Great article, Michelle! It reminds me that I need to see if my generator is big enough to keep my refrig and/or freezer going. I have ordered a hand pump for my well…just hope the water table doesn’t drop too much. If electricity goes out, we farmers won’t be irrigating, so that should help with the water table. I do not have a wood stove, just a fireplace. When I lost electricity several years ago for three days, I found out my huge living room is not heatable with just it. Also, was adding wood every 2-3 hours around the clock. So I have planned to build a tent in my living room to contain more of the heat but still stay safely vented. I need an insert for it at the minimum…wood stove would be better. I currently have 3 cords of wood, but want to keep that at the minimum of what I have on hand. I have a gas stove, so was able to cook anything I wanted. I have always had 2-3 weeks of food on hand even before I started prepping. Of course, now I have much more.
I need to store more LP for my grill and small heater, gasoline for the generator and mixed fuel for the chainsaw. One bad note is that any wood needed has to be shipped in as I live on the prairie without many trees. A major concern for me. (Don’t have buffalo chips to burn either!!) I do need some bigger water storage containers, too, so don’t have to hand pump but once a day or so.
Prepping never ends, but will keep at it. God willing, we Wolf Pack will be safe. Blessings to all!
Copperhead – If you and the other farmers irrigate from pumped ground water wells you are probably correct about your water table. Where I am we use reservoir water and my water table drops from 8′ during irrigation season to 10′ in the winter. Jeff
Thanks for the article. I know that there are some combination wood/gas fireplaces but does anyone know if there are charcoal/propane gas grills and if so, are they any good?
MD tested the “Volcano Stove” which would take wood, charcoal or propane (attachment needed) fuel.
Awesome post, ty.
I need more cast iron cookware, one pan simply isnt enough.
I need more gas, the fuel stabilizers keep it fresh for 1 year and I can easily use the gas for work to rotate it out.
More board games for the kids and crafts for the wife as well. keeping them busy, helps me think. :-)
More wood and propane needs to be stored.
More water is good.
Thanks for this weeks prep list :-)
George, today I picked up more mesquite wood (already have quite a pile) and brought in 10 more cases of water and Mrs. SurvivorDan tsked-tsked me and asked ‘why on earth’ we needed more water. We live in the desert George. Need I say more. Never enough water. We have a canal behind our property but it will only flow if the pumps are operating.
{I would kill myself before I would stand with hat in hand in front of a FEMA truck full of bottled water. Saw such scenes at Katrina} Was looking at cast iron cookware last week at Sportsman’s Warehouse and Walmart. Walmart prices seemed better. I am most interested in getting a Dutch oven. Have lots of wood for cooking fuel. Though I haven’t a clue how to use one.
Survivor Dan, Check where that cast iron is made. Most of it today is made in China and is inferior. We pick up old cast ironware at garage sales, yard sales, auctions, and antique stores (if it is reasonable). Even if it is all cruddy inside with a good coating of rust, it can be fixed up. Hubby sandblasts it in the barn and then I season it before storing it. Dutch ovens can be used for ovens – I always bake pies, cakes, breads not to mention any meal I would put in the oven, in one when we camp. There are good inexpensive books out there to teach you how to cook in one. It is a lot easier to control the temperature in the dutch oven if you use charcoal briquettes for your heat source, instead of coals from a wood fire.
Thanks, Michele, for the great article.
Many years ago, we were visiting my daughter when they experienced a three day power outage. Hotels, restaurants and grocery stores were all shut down.
They had gas service, so we were able to fire up the gas fireplaces, cook on the stove top, and shower with hot water. We dragged all the matresses into the master bedroom, where there was a gas fireplace and slept there.
Camping lanterns and flashlights provided light to read at night.
We ate through the pantry. If the outage had lasted longer, we would have been really hungry.
City water was available. There are some advantages to urban living.
When I bought our current house, I had it converted to gas heat and hot water and had a gas firelplace installed. We keep a well stocked pantry and have backup water.
I’m a homebrewer and home winemaker and always have something ready to drink (even if it’s green), so if things really get bad, we can stay looped until it’s over. I hope someone lets us know when we can sober up. Or not.
Well played sir.
Five days without power is a regular occurrence if you live in the northeast during winter . I lived in Maine for three years and people expect it and are ready for it , five days is not unusual for city folks , rural people can expect up to three weeks . Just sayin . The most important guy on TV back there is the weatherman .
Great post reminding us of some of the reasons why we prepare…and what to have prepared! Another couple of “good to haves” are tea lights and old pickle/jam jar lids. Candles will warm a room quickly in a pinch, great for reading and gaming…and are just fun to watch flicker! The lids make a safe and fire-proof stand, and catch the wax without burning your fingers when walking.
Somebody taught me this trick a long time ago . Wrap your pillar ( or any candle ) in aluminum foil . What this does is , force your candle to burn all the wax instead of having it melt and dribble down the sides of the candle after its been lit for awhile . It also burns more evenly and buys you many more hours per candle , rather than if you just let it do its thing .
Thanks for your input and what you learned from this experience, Michele. I like the idea of the trial run with no electricity. You really can gain some invaluable knowledge. We recently experienced an electrical outage,as well, but not quite as long as yours. I found that our prepping had us ready for most things, but like you, we had a few surprises. A trial run definitely helps you determine where you can improve. We also found that most of our neighbors were completely unprepared. Some didn’t even have a working flashlight!
Michele,
First of all, congratulations on surviving 5 days without power in an all electric house full of kids. That by itself is an accomplishment.
My observations as I read your article follow:
A cookbook I recommend is from the LDS online store and is called ‘Deseret Recipes’. It focuses on cooking with your stored foods.
If you have a little warning you can store massive amounts of water with a Water BOB & 5 gallon buckets w/lids. These do not have to be the expensive Gamma lids, but just the simple cheap snap on lids to keep crud out of the water. You can also use non food grade buckets which are in expensive to store water for flushing.
A Coleman stove with either liquid fuel or propane is a handy thing to have on hand if you don’t already cook with propane.
A propane fueled Buddy heater can keep the chill off of a room, bit if you have Coleman (propane or liquid fuel) or Aladdin (kerosene) lanterns, these give off not only great light (in the 75 watt incandescent range) but also something in the range of 3000 BTU per hour of heat. Both propane and kerosene also store rather well.
I also think that history shows us that a grid down situation will never be permanent. If you consider that humans were grid down for more than 5 millennia before the invention of power generation equipment, and we still electrified the world, then I don’t see how we wouldn’t eventually recover and get the grid back up and running, especially since we don’t have to re-invent anything, and we already know the huge benefits of having power available. I am a prepper and a realist, but in the end I guess I’m an optimist, because I think that even if it’s only for self interest, humans will continue to progress in technology and our understanding of science.
Michele – Don’t fault PG&E too much for not getting right to it on your 97 customer line. Storms tend to spread the damage out, and think triage, a 9700 customer town or a tap line. Where shall the crews go first? Not to mention the fact that you all probably have your own transformer and there are several poles between each of you. Just think of it as a very good trade off, enjoying the foothills above the fog and smog versus the need to be a little more self reliant. Jeff
Actually, our power was the first to go in the area. I called PG&E and they told me there were NO power outages at all, and I told them yes there was – my power was out. I could hear crews working within about an hour, but then Power went out in Placerville and they pulled the crew working just below my house and sent them other places. Placerville at least has water, so, yes, I can find a little fault with PG&.
Michele,
Electric companies have set procedures for whose electric gets turned back on first. The priority is hospitals and emergency response. Then drug stores and grocery stores. Then they do the work that will restore power to the most the quickest. So if you live way out in the country and there’s only a handful of homes on that line, you will always be the last to get your power back.
We did a couple 48-hour grid down weekends at our last home (pre-y2k), one in July/August and the second in January (daily highs temps below freezing). I flipped the main breaker at 8pm Friday, no power til 8pm Sunday. Had a 5kw gas generator though. Really helped locate the weakspots in the plan, and understand the need for redundancy, spare parts, and Plan B’s. Kept notes during the test, and did an ‘after action report’ later on for what worked, what didn’t, and supplies we went through during the test.
One big lesson learned in the first test was how much longer everything took to complete. Seemed like we were always scrambling from one chore/project to another trying to keep us and the house functioning. Having plans is one thing, having enough hours in the day to implement them all and keep them going is another.
Another lesson was water. We had city water, but the house also had an old well with a submersible pump and pressure tank left by the previous home owner. Just required a copper T and a valve to add it fully back into the system, and we could flip between city/well by opening one valve and closing another. For the test, we shut the city water off and filtered the well water (camping style water filter) for drinking. Very slow and time consuming. Afterwards we added a whole house water filter, and two inline undersink filters for the kitchen faucet. So the water to that faucet went through a 30 micron, then a 5 micron, and finally a .5 micron filter. Felt much better having those filters (especially post-9/11), considering that terrorists might contaminate a city water system and it go unnoticed until people started getting sick.
Also got an idea how long our stored fuels would last in a real emergency, and it was an eye-opener. 5 gallon cans are for transporting fuel, not storing it in any quantity. Added two 55 gallon barrels, one gasoline and one kerosene. With the barrels and four 5-gallon cans each, had two weeks of fuel and enough to bugout 200 miles – barely. Also made a 12v portable gasoline transfer pump from an old automotive fuel pump, hoping it might allow pumping gas out of a gas stations tanks (with permission and payment) if they couldn’t pump it themselves – didn’t work, not enough head/lift. So, bought a transfer pump from Northern Tool. Still wasn’t happy with the fuel situation, but that was about all we could do living in the suburbs and we were better off for it.
When the Northeast power outage of 2003 hit, we mostly watched and listened as the chaos unfolded (with a bit of smirking). We had everything in the home under control fairly quickly, and still had time and resources to help family and friends.
Rambling, and post is longer than intended already… Anyway, highly recommend testing your plans before needing to implement them. We learned alot about our plan, our house, and ourselves.
Wow. Someone who actually did an grid down experiment – without being forced to by tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms or snow. I’m seriously impressed!
Should have started by taping the fridge shut to remind people not to browse. I’m pretty good about remembering to keep it sealed, but a little insurance doesn’t hurt.
That reminds me, I need to run another fridge/freezer sorting.
I’m accidentally on purpose running a “no heat” experiment right now. I got too hot yesterday and just shut the thermostat off… went from 71 when I turned it off, didn’t check what happened when the sun went down, was 64 around sunrise. With the stupid amount of solar gain we have, I imagine it’ll get to 70 again by sunset. I wouldn’t have done that willingly a few days ago when we got a breath of “feels like November,” this house is still drafty even after I complained.
These are the kinds of things we all can plan for. My youngest is in New England and in a rental apartment. I’m always talking to her to look at what they can do WHEN the next storm causes them to loose power again.
Yes, we should make sure that we are able to survive without power.
One of the things that I am most concerned about, but which I so far have not been able to resolve.
I do know this, with what little outages we have had (the most being 5 or so hours) all you can talk about or think about is when is going to come back on.
And then wow the lights come back and you can conversate about all sorts of topics.
Thanks for your insightful article, Michele. In my part of the country, we’d be completely hamstrung by two feet of snow. When I went off to college (long ago and in a galaxy far, far away), we had a snowstorm and it turned out my little campus had more snow plows than my big city. (To be fair, snow was commonplace in the galaxy far, far away.)
Your lessons learned were a big help in thinking through our readiness for a similar situation, and also jogged some thoughts on what gaps we might have in facing power shortages in extreme heat.
Good point, Lantana: heat blackouts. The blackout in the NE some years ago was from the heat, and we’ve been having deliberate “rolling blackouts” here in Texas during the summers over the last few years. With the lack of substantial rain and cold this Winter, I shudder to think what this coming Summer will bring. Best to be as prepared as possible.
Nice article Michele. You are pointing out areas where we still need to work on.
We went through a power down situation several years ago. It was mid summer in S. Texas so cooling was the problem. We ran 2 small freezers, refrig and a fan to sleep with at night off of an inverter and weak deep cycle battery. Hooked the battery to the car to charge it at night.
Now there are 3 good batteries to feed the same inverter. That system provides mobile electricity for an income producing activity. It is there for alternate power if we need it. Still need to get a generator to recharge the batteries and provide alternate power.
Great article. The DW and I have been through several ‘power down’ ice storms in Tenn. as teens so it was not new to us. Since being in so.fl. for 30+ years now , the hurricane preps give you a head start on a long term power outage situation. Water is not an issue here ever for us and being on septic is the best. Many down here found out what no power to county or city lift stations means to them when everyone uphill on the sewer system sent their waste to the bottom of the pipes. There were hundreds of homes flooded with waste from county sewer pipes up to 5-6 inches deep.
Thankfully we don’t freeze here nor does our water. We also live on a lake, have a hand pumped shallow well and a 40,000 gal pool.
We keep 2000 lbs of charcoal for cooking and a cord of wood for heat if we ever need it, I think we have turned on our heaters maybe 3 times in 30 years here. I did buy a 2 burner Camp Chef propane cooker this year for canning and enough jars to can the freezer/frig stuff during a power outage.
Our power outages in our all electric house have been 7, 8, 3, 5, and 10 days. Remember when the power is out all over, the gas pumps don’t work either for generator fuel. We buy and condition 100 gal. before hurricane season, then use any unused in the truck until time to stock up again. That gives us about a 12-14 day window to empty and can the freezer and frig stuff.
After 2yrs and 5 weeks I finally got a job. Less prepping for me now but the time off was used to prep and LEARN to garden in so.fl.
We now have/using, gr.beans, tomatoes, cukes, squash, snow peas, red and gr. leaf lettuce, chives, parsley, Chinese cabbage, romaine, gr. onions, collards, rosemary, cilantro, oregano, bell and hot peppers, ginger, and spinach.
Planting our first sweet corn next week and will use the first batch out of our compost bin to encourage it.
Our last power outage was during Wilma, while we were hosting a stay here reunion for 14 family members for the week! We did all the cooking on the grill for 14 people for 8 days. All the usual food, if you can cook on a gas range, you can cook on open fire wood or charcoal.
Congrats on the job!
I had a similar experience not long ago with my power being out and I could not flush the commode or get water from my well. I’ll tell you what I did. I gave everyone a dose of radiator stop leak to reduce the times everyone went to the toilet. I worked great. Since no one was peeing, eventually everyone stopped drinking. It saved me hours of worry and I went on about my prepping. I canned four hundred jars of earthworms in one evening after eliminating the drink and pee cycle.
Well, that’s one way to get rid of the credulous. Your supposed to keep the earthworms breeding so they don’t need to be canned.
Good idea Johnny,
Lets pay our income taxes with stop leak.
Michele – I can appreciate what you went through in December. I think back when I lived in Washington State. All our appliances were run by electric including the heat. We had no basement, which I think is fairly common out there. We would have faired about the same as you did. In all the time I lived there, we never got more than a couple of inches of snow. TWO FEET ! That’s almost unheard of.
I called my cousin who lives in Port Angeles and they got 2′ of snow also.
We got our chance to test ‘grid down’ here in New England after an early, heavy snowfall that took lots of trees down because they still had leaves on them. I was ready for it, but I still learned a number of things from the experience. One area where I needed improvement was in substituting for the woodstove fan, which runs on 110 volts. I have since rigged up an attachment to the air intake using a car battery and an old defroster fan that was taken out of an old cadillac. I also bought an 80 watt solar panel to recharge the battery in case of another extended power outage.
Very interesting article Michele.
One thing that’s beginning to seep out of the collective comments of everyone is an absence of failure regarding natural gas.
A lot of us don’t have natural gas, so its not an issue. Also, earthquakes could wreck that source of fuel.
It seems that hurricanes, tornadoes and brownouts don’t cause an interruption to natural gas service.
Am I wrong?
HD, natural gas service goes down if the electricity goes out at the transmission station. Transmission stations serve a broad area, so losing electricity at your home doesn’t mean you’ll lose your natural gas service.
Transmission stations would be a top priority for power restoration if say storm damage interrupted a station’s electric service. So the odds of extended natural gas outages are relatively remote.
Of course, if you have record cold weather and the electric company can’t keep up with demand, the electric company may institute rolling black outs that cut off electric service to a transmission station. Which cuts off gas to the transmission station’s service area. In which case, you could have power but no gas.
While I was in Virginia, one of my friends installed a generator that runs on natural gas. His power was out for a couple weeks several times after hurricanes blew through, and the gas was never disrupted.
However, I wonder if the power was out for months, if that might not change With a major EMP event, it wouldn’t last long – unless the gas companies have a pipe stuck in the ground and are harvesting it on site. Remember, most cars and trucks now have a bunch of little computers in them that would be fried.
According to a friend of mine who works for a major gas company, MOST but not all natural gas pumping station have natural gas powered backup “drivers” or pumps so the gas should not stop unless it cannot get to the transmission lines. But, never forget Murphy’s Law.
Natural gas is mostly shipped by a pipeline network. I didn’t see whether or not a total power failure would make the supply disrupt or not.
I’m not sure about other areas, but we had natural gas service after Hurricane Ivan and Katrina. We also had water, so I was the only person in my neighborhood who could still take a hot shower! Too bad I didn’t have a gas stove, lol.
BamaBecca,
I’ve had several storms come through and I’ve never lost gas or water. After Ivan and Fran, I was the only one in the neighborhood who had hot water (gas water heater) and a working stove (gas stove). Another neighbor did a neat thing. He had his gas line run out to the back porch so he could hook up his grill to that.
Great article…and I remember the 2008 storms well…we live in the Sac Valley, but have a cabin in the Sierras. For years we’d go up in the summer and I’d turn the power off at the pole and we’d play “Little House on the Prarie” (that’s what the kids called it)…but always in the summer…not bad…we had a good time. In the Winter the cabin has power only half of the time…sometimes out for weeks…I just don’t last that long…usually pack up and go back down to the valley. My plan is to spend a whole Winter up there next year…with only wood heat and no electricity…I’m freezing just thinking about it!
There were three things I went and bought after a nasty storm. And three things I will never be without again. A large generator that will run two refrigerators and some lights, extra gas for the generator. A fireplace stove/insert that you could heat coffee with. Food I can do without for a while, but no coffee, no workie.
LOL , I hear ya , one thing a lot of folks use that I shy away from is propane . During a week long power outage in Maine , the house down the street from me burned to the ground just three days before Christmas . The cause was a propane heater . Couldn’t have felt worse for the family .
True,
When you have small children, candles or lamps that can be knocked over or that have a heating element that is not enclosed are a bad idea. I also went and bought some fire extinguishers. I recommend some basic Firefighting equipment as a prep if you’re bugging in.
Mexneck,
Or if you have pets. I opted for battery powered lanterns. They may not be as efficient. But they will not burn down my home.
You hit a BIG nail on the head wit the firefighting comment ! I have looked at countless survival sites and you are the only person to mention this !
Check into the ones that are refillable – the older type. This way they can be refilled again and again.
When the grid shut down in the NE for about 24 hours several years ago, I got a call from my daughter in Michigan about an hour after the shut down asking how long the food in the refrigerator and freezer would be good. I had her seal the doors with tape and both of them had good food when the power came back on. A friend kept “checking” the freezer and lost everything in it. It helped that they had a lot of ice stored in the freezer for a party! They ate things out the the pantry. Their kids thought it was exciting to boil water for drinking and to eat peanut butter and crackers, canned fruit, tuna sandwiches (without mayonnaise), and things that were not usually combined in their nutrition-conscious family.
I live near Buffalo, NY, and experienced the Blizzard of ’77, as well as numerous other winter weather events that caused the lights to go out. ’77 wasn’t much of an issue because my folks were used to hardships. My dad grew up during the Depression, my mom during WWII. We had everything we needed, as well as a “6-pack and TV”. That aside, over the years other events came and went, the most notable being what we around here call the “October Surprise”.
It was a freak event-weatherman forecast heavy rain, but a cold front came out of Canada unannounced and off we went. The trees still were in summer livery, and within hours, we had tens of thousands of branches and whole trees coming down and taking out our (highly antiquated) power system.
The result was near-chaos, even for winter-hardened folk like ourselves. No power meant no streetlights, signals, gasoline, etc. My GF was at her mother’s house and shortly before the phones went out (including cell service), she called me in tears that her car was stuck in the driveway. I collected a good friend and we went off to assist.
Now, I’ve been doing prep stuff for years without really realizing it, I went out there about as unprepared as you can imagine. Yeah, I had my possible bag (what some folk here might call a BOB or a GHB), but my truck was nearly out of gas and I only had about ten bucks in cash on me, and a prepay cellphone almost out of time and power.
What usually was a ten-minute ride turned into a two-hour ordeal, ameliorated only by the fact it took us past the only working gas station in the county at the time. Ten bucks in a 4X4 doesn’t get you far, but there we were.
When I got to her mom’s house, her sedan was hopelessly mired, the drive wheels dug in to the frame, and nothing short of a a full-blown wrecker was getting her out, and there were none to be found on the now-nonexistent phone lines.
Her mom was fine, gas heat and hard-line gas heaters, along with more canned and packaged food than most folk could imagine (she was child of the Depression/WWII as well). The GF wanted to go home right then and there, and my friend and I agreed that’d be the wisest course of action.
In just the hour and half we were there, it snowed another foot at least, and the 2-hour trip down became 2.5 hours back, down roads that had old-growth trees down, wires, two notable accidents (one fatal). Halfway there, she demanded I turn around and take her back, but just maintaining forward motion, even in a dedicated four by four, was nearly impossible. I wasn’t very nice how I informed her we were still heading back.
My buddy lived close, and let me drop him off close by to make it to his place on foot (he did, okay). She and I made it to within half a block of my house before Ol’ Betsy finally couldn’t take anymore. Stuck in the middle of a side street with over 3 feet of snow, we had to slog it out on foot to get to my house.
Now I’m handicapped (bad back, walk with a cane), but I can still hump it when I need to. She was wearing sneakers, jeans, and no real coat, just a zip-up fleece jacket and her purse. She had nothing with her in the car (I can’t stand ANYTHING in the truck except groceries!!!), and it took us almost fifteen minutes to make what I could schlep in about two.
There was still gas service (self-contained pump stations rock!), so heat was never an issue, and my family’s always kept candles and flashlights around the house. For the next four days, my mom and I (she lived upstairs from me) had, at best, minor annoyance at not having lights and cable, but we had radio, food, running water, and heat. My GF? Three of those days were spent in my bed, bitching about the cold and how we should have stayed at her mom’s house (that lady was downright comfy-her sons brought over a generator and she had lights and TV through most all of the event). I didn’t have one, but I did have one of those 5-in-1 jump starter-compressor-power supply units I bought at Harbor Freight (good thing to have, at least short-term). Not enough oomph to run Ma’s TV, but there was at least one lamp she could use to read. Candles and dollar-store kerosene lamps (watch ‘em carefully and trim the wicks), and it was actually kind of pleasant for me, but I’m masochistic that way I guess. The fourth day I was able to extricate my poor truck, but I had to schlep to the gas station. Pro-tip: use one of those blow-molded kid’s sleds, run a rope through all the holes in the side starting from the rear-you can pull a couple hundred pounds with one. I filled up a couple five-gallon cans (all they’d let me take, shades of ’73), and was able to gas up Betsy and the neighbor lady’s generator. I think that event was when I realized I’d been a ‘prepper’ without really knowing about it. The GF still hasn’t learned a lesson from it. In her own words, I’m her “Plan B”. Sorry for the long ramble, it seemed appropriate for the topic.
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