What if...

[Sniper-T]

A new thread, inspired by another thread, after referencing an older thread...

to quote an old movie...
"Shall we play a game?"

I will pose a scenario, and will look for members' responses in dealing with it. Please be specific. "Lock and load, kill them all" type responses are useless.

Scenario 1:
Localized catastrophic event, something that severely affects you... TODAY! Blizzard, hurricane, volcano... that type of shit... unexpected, . you are at work, and the announcement comes over the air.
let's say it is localized to 200 miles from your location, and 'suspected' to last for 10 days...

detailed replies are encouraged... lets learn here peeps...

[bacpacker]

Sniper hope this is something like what your looking for.

I'll throw out a real example from 1993 in East Tennessee. Keep in mind this area is a Zone 7 growing area and don't have winters typically like you folks up north do. Nor the means to deal with lots of snow. 6-8" is a pretty good snow around here.

Feburary 1993 we got hit with a 2 day snow storm that ended up dumping 24" on us. My grandpa was in his 80's at the time and couldn't recall ever having that much snow at one time on the ground. Let alone from one storm. For the area traffic was pretty much at a standstill except for 4WD vehicles and the national guard. Local 4wd clubs were put to use helping folks in the area. National guard vehicles were task with taking medical supplies and other stuff to folks up in the mountians. It took 2 days to get the main roads opened up. Nearly a week to get most all the roads open and it was thawing pretty well by then. The heavy snow load took down lots of trees and power lines with them. There was over 100,000 folks in the dark for close to a week, probably 10,000 for nearly a month.

From our perspective at the time, I hadn't yet gotten involved with ham radio so two way comms were out. Luckily we never lost power so heat and cooking were no problem. Back then I was just getting into what is now called prepping. We had plenty of water and food stored up to see us thru for a month or so. The area we were living in was a trailer park with probably 75-100 homes. A lot of folks around ran out of food and were walking about 4 miles to get supplies after 3 days. Stores were getting low, but due to the fact no one could get out they never ran out.

Several lessons I learned from this. Food and water, keep at least a month on hand for any reason. Have at least a week of that as easy and quick to fix, preferably without the need to heat or cook it. Heat, have 2 or more methods. No more than one that requires electricity. Have an established method of communications. I got my ham licenses the following year. Have the tools you need to try and free up your vehicle. At the time I didn't have the space to store tools, so I had no shovel available. I ended up using a push broom and tramping the snow in place just to clear out my little parking area to be able to get my truck out once the roads started opening up. The trailer park never cleared the roads inside at all.

I guess you could call that a wake up call and a real eye opener for things I needed to do and get.

[Sniper-T]

bp... that is exactly the type of response I was hoping for. 'your' scenario... your way...'


bp, if you woulda lost power.... how would things have changed?

[bacpacker]

We had a kerosene heater we used for supplemental heat anyway to cut down on the light bill. Kero was much cheaper then. We would have hung some blankets in our hall way and isolated a small space in the house as best we could. The house we are in now s much more open and would be hard to close off anything besides one bedroom. But we have a wood stove that will run us out of the house if we don't keep it choked down.

I know you folks up north deal with stuff like this most every year, maybe several times a year. But we just don't have the needed gear to deal with it. Plus lots of areas in the mountians just don't have decent roads, maybe 1-1/2 lanes with one side straight up, the other side a 500 ft drop off. Not much room for error.

I'm looking forward to seeing other things coming out on this thread.

[Sniper-T]

BP, as 'accustomed to winter weather' as we are up here, we still get smacked by mother nature at times. 2 years ago we had a warm spell in Feb, and got a couple inches of rain, followed by -30 temps. Google it, and you'll see kids skating on the paved highways and gravel roads. We were out of power for five or six days, and with the wood fireplace, and freezers of meat, and pantry, we didn't notice anything wrong.

[ElevenBravo]

If I chain up all 4 shoes, Im sure the Jeep will get me home... doesnt have the ground clearance the WarWagon has but Im pretty sure I can make it home (snow).

Once I get home, I make sure everyone is safe. I dont have any fears that civil will break down in the first few hours... after 2 or 3 days things might get "iffy".

If this was snow, Id think the temp would be low enough to preserve food, so Id just take my food out to the shed and stow it there.

I have a nice propane space heater, we can camp comfortably in the living room for the duration.

Dont "need" electricity as long as the food is outside.



If it were summer, then the genny would be on 24X7 for fridge/freezer, whatever lights are needed and fans... it can even run a portable AC I have.


Dericho 2012


Luckily I was already home.


EB

[ElevenBravo]

[Sniper-T]

EB, in the hottest of summer, you would need to run a genny for maybe 2 hours, twice a day to maintain fridge/freezer. just don't be opening them every 20 minutes....

[Socalman]

I am in the general area of Pasadena, Ca. Think Rose Bowl football and head east along the mountains for about 10 miles and you are close to me.

My scenario is a large earthquake hits. Water mains and gas lines break. Many of the main access roads to the Los Angeles basin are closed due to bridges being down. Airport runways are damaged. Food supplies are not getting into the area for a few weeks.

We have enough food supplies for almost 3 months, but my water supply is only about 3 weeks worth. I have a propane gas grill we can use for cooking food, boiling water, etc. I always have at least 20 gallons of propane in storage plus a 5 gallon tank on both the grill and an outdoor heater. My camping gear has 7 small propane bottles. We have a small basic first aid kit with a good amount of bandages, antibiotic ointment, alcohol (not the drinkin' kind!) and some bsic OTC medications. Fortunately neither the wife nor I are dependent on meds of any kind to keep us alive.

We have a tent we can set up and live in if the house is too badly damaged. Our longest stay in the tent has been 9 days camping. Even in the coldest months it is not that bad in this area and we may get a bit cold we can survive. We have spent time in the Yosemite high country when it was below freezing and it rarely gets that low here.

We are on our own closed septic system and it may survive a bad quake, so by using water from our spa we can flush it. If it is out of commission, I will be digging a latrine in a back corner of the yard.

Depending on the time of year, we have a number of veggies growing and several fruit trees will provide some nourishment.

We are capable to protect and defend our home in suburbia.

[ElevenBravo]

It depends on the fridge (age, insulation, etc). From studies Ive done, OUR fridge comes out of the safe zone in one hour of idle time.

Our fridge came with the house in which we rent, not like we had choices.. its an OLDER model, I feel pretty sure that a new model would perform much better (In energy use and in duration of cold without power).

You need to have a good reefer thermometer and some spare time on your hands. I did my study when the power went down. For me it was easier to just keep the genny running almost continuous and I was insured no spoilage.

Again, you need to check your particular fridge.... this is an issue that cant be charted and applied across the board.

EB