A “disaster” in this context could be as simple as preparing for a power outage that might last a day or two, but also includes preparations for other events, such as hurricanes, tornado damage, flooding, or getting snowed in for extended periods. But what preparations have you made?
I used to move some firewood from our woodshed to our patio in preparation for winter. But the last few winters our power failures have only been for a few hours and the logs never got used, so I stopped.
I did put the plow blade on our Arctic Cat, but it is unlikely I’ll use it. Our road is private, so it doesn’t get plowed. Any significant snowfall I (and our two neighbors) just repeatedly drive back and forth, creating tire ruts. If I use the plow it moves too much gravel. I did plow a few years ago when we got a stupid huge snowfall, but that’s a once a decade event.
I have a couple weeks emergency water (minimal, but it did come in handy during the water main break when we had zero water, then a boil order when it did start flowing again.
I try to keep a couple months worth of food in my place, rotating through it so nothing goes off.
I have sufficient sanitation supplies to construct and emergency toilet (which got used during the Groundhog Day Blizzard of 2011 when the line to septic tank froze and all drains in our home stopped working until things thawed out). Along with various other types of hygiene/sanitation supplies.
Stash of OTC meds and first aid supplies, along with a crap ton of allergy stuff because I’m Miss Allergic.
Non-electric emergency lightning and radio, along with a couple charged powerbanks to keep them and my phone going. Also a couple fans that can run off USB for summer time outages - would really like to replace my defunct battery-operated ones that stopped working a few years ago.
Emergency kits in both vehicles (I have used the fire extinguisher not for myself but someone else). Also includes paper maps because it’s a bummer when GPS isn’t available for one reason or another.
Unfortunately I don’t have a good back-up heat option for winter outages, just lots of clothing. I have a very primitive camp stove but that has to be used outside.
I concentrate on local/limited potential crises. I can’t do anything about, say, asteroid strikes or so I don’t bother.
You mean aside from the bomb-hardened lead-lined underground shelter in the back yard, fully stocked for the apocalypse?
We have a portable gas/propane generator and enough fuel stockpiled over the winter to handle a 48 hour+ power outage while maintaining heat and limited appliances including fridge/freezer (after 48 hours we’d have to scrounge up gas from somewhere reasonably close). A large John Denver-style gasoline storage tank is probably not in the cards.
There are enough canned goods, freezer food and other supplies to handle periods where we are snowed in or trapped by roaming packs of rabid coyotes, plus batteries.
We have 30 gallons of water in plastic containers. The supply was topped up in advance of warnings of extreme cold descending on our region (we survived lows down to -4F without the main water line freezing like it did last year).
No “bug-out bags” or other classic survivalist staples.
Nothing really. We used to have a few 5 gallon jugs of water in the garage. I guess we used them.
We have enough firewood to keep us from freezing for a few weeks at least, but we have that because we like a fire in the evening this time of year, not for safety reasons.
I keep meaning to sell ours. My gf’s ex-husband bought it 25 years ago and had wiring done in the garage so it is all plug&play. To this day it has never been used. We’ve used the fireplace, but even avoid that now due to the clean-up needed.
I really need to gather it all out get an emergency bag and maybe some food kits. My six-year-old recently took an empty Amazon box and started filling it with supplies - a pillow, toys, a start bottle, an umbrella. Underneath that was a container of restaurant leftovers he didn’t mention. Fortunately just stale pancakes, but I didn’t catch it until the next day.
This, basically verbatim. The thing is, we’ve had decades of outages, and I finally bought a hybrid generator and got the house wired this year, and we’ve already used it three times. (with all the ice, we’ve had a rash of drivers sliding into poles this year)
When we lived in Florida we used to keep about 10 gallons of water in containers in the garage. And we had a propane camping stove and camping lantern. Kept probably about a couple of weeks worth of non perishable food like cans and dry pasta. Got us through a few hurricanes.
Now that we’re in Chester UK, we don’t really stockpile anything. The UK is reasonably free of natural disasters; our power feed is underground rather than overhead (haven’t had a power cut here in 5 years).
Probably getting too complacent…
I maintain a rigorous flexibility and mobility routine so I can kiss my ass goodbye.
Not a thing, really. We have a couple of fire blankets, and some candles/flashlights. But not expecting much in the way of “disaster” here in the Chicago area beyond an occasions - and brief - power outage.
Pretty much always have enough food on hand to outlast the infrequent blizzard that might prevent us from getting to the grocery 4 blocks away. Hey, maybe those few extra pounds we are both carrying is strategic - to avoid starvation!
Living in an apartment, the options are kind of limited. I have 10 days worth of food and water stashed with my camping gear and a well-stocked go bag in the storage room. If necessary I could have everything in my car and be gone in 10 minutes. The thing is, if the disaster in question is a major earthquake, there’s a possibility the storeroom and carport might collapse and make everything inaccessible.
I have a 6500 watt natural gas generator. I have stocked all the spare parts I might need for my furnace. But our normal life style provides for a lot. We usually have 20-30 lbs of rice and a small chest freezer full of meat and things. Many boxes of pasta and noodles. I get my drinking water from a local spring and could have up to a dozen gallons on hand. The wife buys toilet paper when the stack is short enough she can see over it. Same for paper towels. We have 50 to 200 lbs of whole corn for the wildlife but I’m not sure what we would do with it. I could hammer it and then use a mortar and pestle to make corn meal, I suppose.
I have a waterproof backpack filled with survival supplies. It’s mostly intended for being lost in the woods, but it contains many items that should be useful in any emergency situation. We have a metric ton of canned food. We have a fireplace and plenty of stuff to burn.
Here in the UK I have some candles and matches in case the power goes out.
I have 2 deep cycle trolling motor batteries and 2 750 watt inverters that can keep my electronics alive for a long time.
We have a propane furnace. If I wasn’t monitoring usage closely, we might run out of fuel. A couple/few times, the roads were too bad for the trucks or else usage was higher than expected because of colder wetter and a wife that likes it rather toasty. Last year the propane company installed a monitor on our tank that alerts them when fuel is getting low. I guess the electronic monitor counts as ‘disaster prep’, even though I didn’t undertake it myself.
In case we do lose the use of the furnace, we have a wood-burning stove insert in the fireplace (with a nice window on the door) that does a very good job of heating the house. I built a small wood (5’x3’) shed from reclaimed materials a couple of years ago. I can get two rows of firewood in it, and we still have about 1¼ rows of wood left from trees we had cut down years ago. My wife bought me an 8’x5’x2’ custom wood stack cover last year. I built a PVC frame for it, and it was completely full of firewood from a couple of other trees we had cut down. That wood burns fast, so now it’s empty. There’s a good stack next to the fireplace, and one out in the catio. We have some logs in the back yard from a tree Scotticher had cut down, waiting to be split.
A third source of heat comes from multiple electric space heaters. We have three oil-filled radiator-style ones, and a ceramic one (and other ceramic ones that more-or-less are still functional).
Our stove and oven are electric. In the event of a power failure, I have a number of camp stoves. Most of them are Svea 123s, with at least one Primus, and one or two other similar style ones. I have an MSR Internationale stove, a two-burner Coleman stove, and a sice burner on the propane grill. Of course I can also cook on/in the grill.
Also in the event of a power failure, I have a 3,000 W Honda generator. With a couple of extension cords we can run the living room lights, the TV, DVD player, computers, wireless router, cable box, and coffee maker. (Internet and cable will last two or three hours after a power failure, thanks to a battery in the box on top of the pole outside our house. Xfinity will put a gasoline-powered generator on top of it if the power is out too long.) I have my phone set up to act as a personal hotspot.
We have flashlights all over the place, there are a few cantle lanterns, and there’s a two-mantle Coleman lantern at the ready.
So that covers heating, cooking, lighting, and entertainment.
There’s plenty of food around. I may not eat rice or beans because of the carbs, but we have dried rice and dried beans in the cupboard. The deep freezer on the catio should keep food usable for a long time.
When I can’t use the Prius and my wife won’t drive the RAV4, we have my Jeep Cherokee to get around in.
Security measures are Need To Know.
We have a portable generator that can keep half the house going (including fridge and furnace) and I keep enough gas on hand to run the generator for 18 hours. We keep a 5 gallon water jug on hand because we often (2-3 times a year) have tap water that fails quality tests.
We have battery banks for mobile phone charging that we keep topped up and LED lamps/lanterns in each bedroom and in the kitchen cabinets.
I have a bag of driveway ice melt that I bought in 2015. Because I realized it’s toxic to dogs, we haven’t used it.
I also gave a roof snow take that I haven’t used since 2015 when we had over ten feet of snow in four weeks.
I wish I could plug the generator into the house. That would get rid of the extension cords. Wouldn’t be able to run the dryer (and therefore no need to run the washer) or the stove/oven, or multiple space heaters, but it would run the fridge, lights, TV, etc.
We have a transfer switch and we plug the generator into that. I am replacing it today. Switch is $400, install/supplies is another $800.
I found out the hard way that you can’t plug out furnace into an extension cord. It’s hardwired inside the walls somewhere.