Without Power - Be Ready

Power This morning my alarm went off as usual. I lay in bed listening to our dog bark at something. About 1 minute later the power went off. I got up and called the power company to report the outage. As I drove in to work I thought about our dependence on electricity. What could you do in your home without electricity? Can you cook? Would you have heat or water? Would your toilets work? We have tried to answer these questions with alternatives. We can cook on our propane stove in the kitchen. Or we have a wood stove, for heat and cooking. We have a solar oven that my wife has cooked in regularly. This not only saves propane, it’s free and the experience is invaluable. We have a generator with gasoline storage. We have solar lights that also can recharge our rechargeable batteries for flashlights and other devices. We have a few crank generator flashlights that can also recharge our cell phones. We have various camping stoves, a traditional white gas stove, a wood powered rocket stove, and small backpacking stoves. We have hurricane lamps that run off of kerosene, and camping lanterns that run off of white gas, and of course, candles. We also have various power tools that run off of gasoline. Even with all these things, I want more. We’re looking into wind power and solar power. There is water power if you have access to running water, a river, etc.. On top of the alternatives we have, we still have conventional batteries, car batteries, and water storage. We try to keep spare parts for motors, plumbing and electrical parts, and building materials around. We also have a variety of manuals and books to help us in our fixing or building projects. All these things support living off the grid. Living without electricity requires forethought and preparedness. Items need to be purchased a little at a time. We’ve been doing this for most of our married life. Some things require more planning than others. I would suggest a few things you can do now. Find a container such as a 5 gallon bucket and lid. If you don’t have a spare home improvement stores such as Home Depot or Lowe’s carry them for a small price. Start to fill this container with boxes of matches. There are several kinds on the market, stick or book, safety or strike anywhere. Also lighters should be included in this container. As you purchase these items put them in your container and you’ll be surprised how fast it adds up. Look at your situation. How do you receive water? Is it through a municipal system or your own well? What alternate heat sources do you have? What about light? What about cooking? These questions should be answered with several answers. Redundancy is king and if one solution fails, you’ll need another. 2 is 1 and 1 is none. Find solutions that you can work on and put it on a schedule. If it’s the purchase of an expensive item, save for it slowly and stay in your budget. I strongly discourage going into debt for any of your preparedness items including food storage. If you need to use credit for short term purchases be very careful it does not turn into long term. On occasion, test your program. Live a weekend with your power turned off. If you do this your eyes will be opened to where your program has holes. We had an unexpected snow storm that taught us where our holes in our preparedness are. But that’s the hard way! Involve the whole family. It can actually be a good and fun experience if you look at it that way. Doing this will also give you experience with the items and equipment you have. Remember that safety is very important. Open flames are very dangerous and should not be left unattended. Camping stoves and hurricane lamps use up oxygen so always have ventilation especially in winter. Never run a generator indoors. Keep fire and fire making materials away from children and pets. Do your smoke or CO2 alarms run off of batteries or hard wire power? You may need battery power for these items too. Speaking of pets, do you have a contingency plan for your pets? They will need food, water, medicines, and anti-insect sprays and powder. If you want your pets to survive with you have a plan for them too. As you test your “off the grid” preparations you could also incorporate your 72 hour kit plans into that exercise. You don’t have to use your all your 72 hour kit items but finding our operational details would help you in your knowledge of your system, and to know what may not work. We’ve mentioned many things but here is a list of considerations: Remember my favorite acronym for emergency and survival priority: SWiFFS (Shelter, Water, Food, Fire, Security) Shelter: We assume you are in shelter because the electricity is out. Replace shelter with heat. Heat: How will you stay out of the elements? Either stay cool or stay warm, or stay dry. Water: Where will you get it and if it needs to be purified, how will you do that? Food: How will you and yours eat? How will you cook food if you have it? Fire: Heat, see above. Food, see above. Security: How will you keep you and yours safe either from animal or human preditors? Power blackout – general suggestions. Suggestions include: Have an emergency kit prepared. (Either a shelter in place kit or your 72 hour kit) Switch off all electrical appliances, especially those that have heating elements. Unplug ‘surge-sensitive’ equipment, such as computers and video recorders. Keep one light switch turned on so you know when the power returns. Telephone your electricity provider for updates on the status of the blackout. Turn on a battery-operated radio and listen to a local radio station for information. Check on your neighbors to see if they need assistance, particularly if they are elderly or have a disability. Heat and light. Suggestions include: Multiple layers of clothing trap body heat more efficiently than one bulky layer. The body loses a great deal of heat through the scalp so wear a hat. Close doors, windows and blinds to maintain heat. Flashlights are much safer sources of light than candles. Make sure you have a good stock of batteries. If you must use candles, keep them away from drafts and away from children. Be aware of fire hazards – keep candles away from curtains and other flammable objects. Make sure to extinguish all candles before retiring for the night. This morning my alarm went off as usual. I lay in bed listening to our dog bark at something outside. About 1 minute later the power went off. I got up and called the power company to report the outage. As I drove in to work I thought about our dependence on electricity. What could you do in your home without electricity? Can you cook? Would you have heat or water? Would your toilets work? We have tried to answer these questions with alternatives. We can cook on our propane stove in the kitchen. Or we have a wood stove, for heat and cooking. We have a solar oven that my wife has cooked in regularly. This not only saves propane, it’s free and the experience is invaluable. We have a generator with gasoline storage. We have solar lights that also can recharge our rechargeable batteries for flashlights and other devices. We have a few crank generator flashlights that can also recharge our cell phones. We even have an old fashioned hard line cord phone so that we don’t need electricity if the phone lines are out. We have various camping stoves, a traditional white gas stove, a wood powered rocket stove, and small backpacking stoves. We have hurricane lamps that run off of kerosene, and camping lanterns that run off of white gas, and of course, candles. We also have various power tools that run off of gasoline. Even with all these things, I want more. We’re looking into wind power and solar power. There is water power if you have access to running water. On top of the alternatives we have, we still have conventional batteries, car batteries, and water storage. We try to keep spare parts for motors, plumbing and electrical parts, and building materials around. We also have a variety of manuals and books to help us in our fixing or building projects. All these things support living off the grid. Living without electricity requires forethought and preparedness. Items need to be purchased a little at a time. We’ve been doing this for most of our married life. Some things require more planning than others. I would suggest a few things you can do now. Find a container such as a 5 gallon bucket and lid. If you don’t have a spare home improvement stores such as Home Depot or Lowe’s carry them for a small price. Start to fill this container with boxes of matches. There are several kinds on the market, stick or book, safety or strike anywhere. Also lighters should be included in this container. As you purchase these items put them in your container and you’ll be surprised how fast it adds up. Look at your situation. How do you receive water? Is it through a municipal system or your own well? What alternate heat sources do you have? What about light? What about cooking? These questions should be answered with several answers. Redundancy is king and if one solution fails, you’ll need another. Find solutions that you can work on and put it on a schedule. If it’s the purchase of an expensive item, save for it slowly and stay in your budget. I strongly discourage going into debt for any of your preparedness items including food storage. If you need to use credit for short term purchases be very careful it does not turn into long term. On occasion, test your program. Live a weekend with your power turned off. If you do this your eyes will be opened to where your program has holes. Involve the whole family. It can actually be a good and fun experience if you look at it that way. Doing this will also give you experience with the items and equipment you have. Remember that safety is very important. Open flames are very dangerous and should not be left unattended. Camping stoves and hurricane lamps use up oxygen so always have ventilation. Never run a generator indoors. Keep fire and fire making materials away from children and pets. Do your smoke or CO2 alarms run off of batteries or hard wire power? You may need battery power for these items too. Speaking of pets, do you have a contingency plan for your pets? They will need food, water, medicines, and anti-insect sprays and powder. If you want your pets to survive with you have a plan for them too. As you test your "off the grid" preparations you could also incorporate your 72 hour kit plans into that exercise. You don’t have to use all your 72 hour kit items but finding operational details would help you in your knowledge of your system, and to know what may work and not work. We’ve mentioned many things but here is a list of considerations: Remember my favorite acronym for emergency and survival priority: SWiFFS (Shelter, Water, Food, Fire, Security) Shelter: We assume you are in shelter because the electricity is out. Replace shelter with heat. Heat: How will you stay out of the elements? Either stay cool or stay warm, or stay dry. Water: Where will you get it and if it needs to be purified, how will you do that? Food: How will you and yours eat? How will you cook food if you have it? Fire: Heat, see above. Food, see above. Security: How will you keep you and yours safe either from animal or human predators? Power blackout – general suggestions Suggestions include: Have an emergency kit prepared. (Either a shelter in place kit or your 72 hour kit) Switch off all electrical appliances, especially those that have heating elements. Unplug ‘surge-sensitive’ equipment, such as computers and video recorders. Keep one light switch turned on so you know when the power returns. Telephone your electricity provider for updates on the status of the blackout. Turn on a battery-operated radio and listen to a local radio station for information. Check on your neighbors to see if they need assistance, particularly if they are elderly or have a disability. Fall and Winter are on the horizon. Semper Paratus Check 6 Burn