Reading Melton's phlog [0] has made me miss my own experiments in
self-sufficiency and preparedness.
Hurricane Katrina was a wakeup call for many Americans, our family
included. I lived in Connecticut at the time, with a wife and two
young children. The realization that if there was a disaster,
natural or otherwise, you were largely on your own was sobering. We
endeavored to prep, as it were, and over the course of several years
we built up a cache of storage food, water and essentials.
For food we stored staples like milk, flour, honey, dried veggies
and some dried meals in the 20-year cans. My wife and I started a
vegetable garden. I built three raised beds and we attempted to grow
various sorts of vegetables over the years (cucumbers and lettuce
were the most successful). We had three apple trees and several
blueberry bushes on our property.
For cooking we had a propane tank that provided gas for our kitchen
stove, and a gas grill, as well as several camp stoves. With no
electricity we relied on matches to light the burners, so we had
plenty of those.
For water we had four, five-gallon containers of fresh water and
lots of smaller spring water bottles - you know the kind you can buy
in the grocery store for a few bucks in packs of 24. Because we had
a well and could not ensure an unlimited supply of gas to run the
water pump off of the generator, we purchased a well bucket, which
for a residential well is a long, narrow stainless-steel tube with a
one-way flap on the end. The flap lifts when you lower it down into
your well, and closes when you pull it up, full of water.
For heat, our house had a wood stove, and we purchased a gas
generator. We had an electrician install a transfer switch, so that
we could run the major appliances off of the generator safely,
including the oil furnace. For fuel we had stored 20 gallons of
gasoline (stabilized with Stabil). In the fall we would order four
cords of firewood, and I'd stack and split it over the course of a
few weeks. A neighbor who had experience in tree work suggested a
Fiskars axe, I bought one to replace my old, wooden axe and
immediately noticed how much easier it was to split wood with it (it
has a specially shaped head and is formed in one piece, I highly
recommend it).
For lighting we had various solar lanterns (D-Lite brand),
flashlights, lots of candles and several oil lanterns. We had five
gallons of lamp oil (clean-burning synthetic kerosene - Kleen Heat
was the brand).
For communication I got my ham license (general class), and tinkered
with various HTs and HF radios. I also had an SDF dialup account
which theoretically would allow internet from my laptop and USB
modem for a week or so without power - in practice I found that
modern-day phone companies provide a day or less of power to your
phone jacks if they themselves are on battery power.
Apart from the generator, we had two solar panels and a deep-cycle
battery that we could setup on our south-facing deck as needed. The
battery I used to power my HF radio, an Icom IC-718.
For defense and hunting I had one handgun, a Sig P228, one 12ga
Remington 870 pump shotgun, and a bolt-action .22 rifle. Both my
wife and I were comfortable around guns - I had been hunting or
target shooting since I was 18 and had a concealed pistol permit,
and my wife used to be in the Army Reserve, and so had her training
there to fall back on. Obviously those stayed locked up most of the
time, but I felt better having them.
For bugout purposes we had camping supplies and two pre-packed
storage boxes of essentials that we could quickly load into a car
and go. We never had to use those, however.
So how did all this work? We had several power outages over the
years, the longest was 11 days after that freak, late fall snowstorm
in New England that knocked down so many trees and power lines, I
think that was in 2013. In 2011 we had no power for three days after
Hurricane Irene. Things worked pretty well. We learned to ration the
use of our generator to conserve fuel, so we would use it in the
morning, then again at lunchtime, then once more for dinner. So it
was only on for about four hours a day, and the seven-gallon tank
will last a while if you use it like that. Obviously this only works
if you have secondary lighting and heat sources. During the 11-day
outage we had several neighbors who left their generators running
overnight. Some of them had them stolen. The clever thieves would
start a lawnmower to cover the sound of the generator, so the owners
would not notice when it was shut off.
When we moved to Canada in 2016, we gave away most of our supplies,
simply due to space constraints. It would have been both costly and
time-consuming to try and import the weapons, as Canada has much
stricter gun laws than the US, so I gave my guns to a good friend
who is an avid hunter. A lot of the tools we gave to our
neighbors. We kept the generator, one lantern, the Fiskars axe (our
house here has a fireplace at least) and some storage food. We rent
our house, and don't have the property to garden. But someday we
will move and enjoy gardening and prepping again.
[0]
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/melton/phlog
