9 Sobering Lessons from the Eastern U.S, Power Grid Failure

I came across some really good information about the recent storm and power outage that left 3 million people without electricity, and thought you guys might pick up some ideas from it.


"In the wake of violent storms, the power remains out today for millions of Americans across several U.S. states. Governors of Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio have declared a state of emergency. Over a dozen people are now confirmed dead, and millions are sweltering in blistering temperatures while having no air conditioning or refrigeration. As their frozen foods melt into processed goo, they're waking up to a few lessons that we would all be wise to remember."

#1) The power grid is ridiculously vulnerable to disruptions and failure.                       

All it takes is a sudden storm, or even a car hitting a power pole to leave you in the dark- no AC, no hot water, no internet, no way to cook food.

 

 

#2) Without electricity, acquiring food and water in a major U.S. city can become a difficult task.

I've mentioned this before, but without electricity, most people will not have any way to cook food, take a shower or flsuh the toilet. As an emergency backup- a clean 35 gallon trash can can be placed in the shower and used to collect water that can be used for cooking, drinking of flushing the toilet. 

A smaller Rubbermaid container or two can be substituted for the trash can. These are fairly cheap and can be found for under $5 at just about any store -Walmart or dollar stores included.

Protip: paper plates and hand sanitizer will greatly reduce the amount of water needed for cleaning. 

 

#3) Most people are simply not prepared and therefore worsen any crisis. 

If you lack basic supplies like flashlights, a first aid kit, food and water, you become a burden on the system that's trying to help people with REAL emergencies. 

Don't wait until the last minute!! Because by then it's too late and the stores will be sold out of everything. By the time you're seeing dire warnings of impending doom on local TV news, everyone else has already:

1) Left the area for safer parts of the country.    

2) Bought up all the supplies they could carry and left only empty spots on the store shelves for you.

 

#4) Cell phones are a fragile technology that can't be counted on in an emergency!

.If there's one lesson that stands out in past emergencies it's that people count on their cell phones way too much. We know from past experience that cell phones are the FIRST thing to go out in an emergency. In some instances an old fashioned land line corded phone may still work after the power goes out. plus- remember, if there's no electricity- there's no where to recharge your phone batteries!

Sony ICF-S10MK2 Pocket AM/FM Radio

A portable, battery powered radio is the simplest way to receive information and updates during an emergency. 

Good battery powered Sony radios are available on Amazon for $10-$15 dollars.

 

#5) The internet is wildly vulnerable to natural disasters.

According to news reports, these storms took down a portion of the Amazon Cloud, and this in turn shut down Netflix, Pinterest and Instagram.

 Don't count on the internet or you cell phone to get updates during emergencies! A battery operated radio is among the basic supplies you need to be prepared.

Here you go- $10  Sony AM/FM Radio Amazon.com

#6) 911 and other emergency services are quickly overwhelmed

Sometimes the actual 911 call centers get flooded, damaged or the phone lines get cut and on top of that- they're not set up to handler 50,000 people calling for help at the same time.

You are own your own. 

It's super easy to start setting aside some basic foods to last you or your family through at least 3 days without power.

Canned food are the easiest and cheapest. There's more info on the blog here:

Start Your Food Storage Today for Under $20

 This is also another good reason to think about improving your home defense and self defense skills.

#7 You May Be Your Own First Responders. 

You have to expect that there may not be anyone coming to help you.

If there is a widespread power outage, storm or other large disaster, there won't be anywhere near enough Fire, EMS or Police to go around.

You are on your own

You may want to develop a plan to communicate and check on your neighbors- especially if you have neighbors near you that are elderly or have medical issues. There are other things to think about after a storm, earthquake or other disaster, things like leaking gas lines that need to be turned off, or damaged houses on your street or neighborhood that needs to be checked or searched for injured victims.

There's actualy a free program that gives you free training for a lot of this:

Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)

The program offers free training in first aid, shutting off gas lines, checking damaged buildings and safely extracting wounded people from them, small scale fire fighting, and assisting during disasters.

You can find more information on CERT Here: http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/

You can also download their training manuals for free here: http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/training_mat.shtm

The Local CERTgroups normall have at least one large scale disaster drill each year. These are large training exercise that normally involve citizens, the fire department, EMS, rescue squads and police.

They can be mock school bus accidents, train accidnets, chemical spills, fires at schools, almost anything.

There are excellent videos on Youtube that show the large scale drills. Your never obligated to participate in anything, but the large scale exercises are also a lot of fun believe it or not.

The CERT training is also offered to business and just about any large group of interested people, like churches or schools.

Here's a well done video that shows a good example of one of the large scale disaster drills- a tornando in the middle of the day. 

#8) A national grid-down situation would be far more complex to repair.

Just about all the electric companies in the U.S. rely on labor agreements with other electric companies in order to supply the repairmen the need to repair damage during an emergency.

That means that if the disaster is spread over 3 or 4 states, the 'loaner' repairman that would normally come in from other areas to assist with the local repairs won't be available- because they'll all be busy fixing their own transmission wires. 

It also means that what would have normally been a 3 day repair job could now take two weeks. That mean no electricity for two weeks for you. Let that thought sink in for awhile.

On the good side however- reliable portable electric generators are now available for $200-$300 that could supply a small amount of electricity after the power goes out- as long as you have gas or diesel for it. Lowes, Home Depot and even Harbor Freight have generators in stock these days. 

Honda is one of the better names in small generators.  

#9) Many emergencies arrive unannounced.

Tornadoes and earthquakes happen without any warning. Hurricanes can change course unexpectedly and small storms can rapidly grow to large storms. 

If you think you're going to be able to breeze into Wal Mart after a disaster and then buy what you need, you're going to be in for a rude awakening!

There may not even be a Walmart left- and even if there is, it's going to be stripped clean and everything useful will have already been purchased two days ago. 

 

$5 would get you:

A cheap $1 flashlight

1 or 2 cans of ravioli and some fruit cocktail

(free spoons and forks at any deli, convienience store or fast food place) 

A jug of drinking water. 

 

 

BAM- there's your basic kit. 

 

 

 

 

*The titles in large bold type are reposted from:

http://www.naturalnews.com/036355_natural_disaster_power_grid_preparedness.html
But the individual comments are mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start Your Preps on Your Next Trip to the Store

The 1st rule of Preparedness Club is:

The 1st rule of Preparedness Club is: only buy food that you and your family will actual eat!

If you don't normally consume dehydrated eggs or powdered milk- don't buy it for you emergency food stash.

Another thing you need to account for when you start stocking up on food is- how am i going to cook this stuff?

Rice and beans are cheap- but they require extra water, a stove to cook it on, fuel for the stove and a

separate pot. This also something to consider with Ramen noodles or mac N cheese. But mac N cheese or ramen can be made with just a cup or two of hot water in an emergency situation. There are also ways to make small stoves for practically free, and I'll go over those a little later. 

MRE's or canned foods can skip those requirements, but you have to balance it against what you will

actually eat. I don't think I could eat more than 1 can of Vienna sausage, or Spaghetti-O's, but I'd be OK with kippered fish or peanut butter. You have to buy stuff you'll actually eat.

Buy what you eat- and eat what you buy.

So with that in mind, let's look at some inexpensive canned foods that wouldn't require much heating or added water.

(It's also not a bad idea to buy a Sharpie marker to put the purchase date on food so you can keep it

rotated and fresh.)

Ideally, you want at least a 3 day supply of food and water for everyone in the house.

But it's more likely that you'd need to feed everyone overnight - for instance until the power comes back

on- so let's start there. The 1st thing would be to check the fridge. If you have leftovers, milk or

sandwich meat, eat those items first.

If you don't have left overs or meat, I think the good old peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are easy to fix, and hard to beat. They're also probably the least expensive way to feed 3 or 4 people easily. Peanut butter and jelly can stay in the cabinet until needed, and bread can be frozen if you don't usually keep bread in the house. Peanut butter and honey is another good combination and it doesn’t require refrigeration like the jelly would.

As a snack or quick pick-me-up during a workout, I’m a big fan of Clif bars. They’re an energy/protein bar made from healthy natural ingredients. They also have nutrients and minerals in them.They come in great flavors like black cherry, blueberry, oatmeal raisin, white chocolate macadamia and about 10 more varieties. I can find them at Whole Foods and my local grocery stores for about $1 each. 

Another possible option is to make spaghetti with sauce, and freeze it for later use. It would need to beheated, but that’s pretty simple compared to having to cook it from scratch. When I go on camping trips I almost always take a big Ziploc bag of premade spaghetti with sauce. it's warm, hearty and filling after a day's hike or a long bike ride and all you have to do is heat it in one pan and it's ready to go in about 5 minutes.

Moving up in convenience would bring us to canned soups and pastas- Spaghetti-o's/Ravioli etc. They last for several years- you can eat canned food past it's 'expiration date' safely, as long as the can isn't rusted , swollen or bulged.

The downside is the canned soups tend to be on the expensive side- especially if you're feeding 4 people for a couple of meals.

Don't forget to have bread or crackers with your soup or pastas to help add some 'filler' and help you to feel full on less food.

Sausage or hotdogs are handy in a short term situation too. Wrap them in bread or tortillas for an

easy meal. Remember folks- this may not be the best meal you've ever eaten, but it sure beats not having anything to eat when the power goes off because of a storm.

If you're going to eat for a 2 or 3 day period, you're going to need a stove. You can use a gas grill,

(or your gas stove if the gas is still on), or a portable stove. You can get small portable burners

that run on butane for about $20 on Amazon, or at local restaurant supply stores or Asian grocery stores.

The cans of butane cost about $1- $1.50 each and last for 45 - 90 minutes, depending on how a high you have the flames turned up.

Once you have a stove to cook on, you can also get by with cheaper foods. For example- Oatmeal is

inexpensive, healthy and easy to cook $3 worth of oatmeal can make breakfast for 3 people for 3 days.  For inexpensive oatmeal, buy the big box-the individual little packets are small servings and quite expensive when you look at it on a cost per pound basis.

Rice is very easy to do on one of the portable stoves, as are the dried side dishes that are add water and heat.

 In recent years there have been a lot of dehydrated cook and serve side dishes introduced to the

market- the Knorr/Lipton brand is a good example. The offer mostly a noodle/sauce combination like

fettuccine with chicken and broccoli, butter and herb, beef stroganoff or even red beans and rice. Theseand similar brands are now widely available at grocery stores and gig stores like Target or Wal-Mart.

They offer similar flavors in rice/ sauce sides as well. They're fairly tasty and cheap and they're also lightweight and easy to store.  And they taste a lot better than rice and beans.

With a stove you can also do things like Ramen noodles - add tuna for extra protein, or mac n cheese (you can add hot dogs for a meat portion).

One other thing that I like to include in my preps is canned fruit. Something like pineapple rings, peach halves or fruit cocktail tastes really good for desert or even as a snack by itself. Plus they also

come packed in fruit juice, so you get some extra water intake as well.

That should be enough to get you started. Start with the simple, basic stuff first and then add to it as

your budget allows. But at least get your supplies set up to make it through the 1st 24 hours.

Remember- think about getting through the first 24 hours, and if it goes beyond that, you have a 2-3 day plan to fall back on.    

Having even some simple preparations- a flashlight, a first aid kit, a little extra water and food and a battery operated radio can mean the difference between making it through with ease, or suffering through without food , light or communication with the outside world.

Some simple canned foods, a jug of water and a cheap flashlight will get you started for $5.
Add a $20 stove and you can dine well and invite the cute coeds next door over for dinner.

As I write this, fast moving storms have swept throw the Midwest a few days ago, and 3 million people were suddenly without power. Don’t wait until the last minute, start your emergency stash on your next trip to the store!

Be Smart- Be Prepared.

Getting Prepared without Breaking Your Budget

Step 1- Storing Water

It's great that you want to make sure your family is prepared in the event of a disaster or emergency, but you also have to keep expenses under control. so how do you do it? You need to plan it out, and start with small steps. Let's look at some basics.

Water is the first thing you need. We want to have at least 1 gallon per person, per day. Our first goal is to have a 3 day supply of food and water for everyone in the house.

Let's go over a couple of different options on water storage.
If you have some advance warning, you can fill bathtubs with water than can be used to flush toilets, or to drink or cook with after it's been sanitized. Water can be sanitized by boiling it for 3 minutes, or by adding common household bleach. The bleach needs to be unscented, regular bleach. 16 drops per gallon is the recommended dosage- you can also add 4 drops per quart for smaller bottles.

In an emergency, you can also use thee water that's stored in your hot water heater!

The easiest way to get started with water storage is probably the 1 gallon jugs of drinking water. These cost a dollar or less. Keep your eye out for a sale and stock up when you find a good price.
it wouldn't hurt to rotate teh jugs out every 6 months or so. Just buy a couple of new jugs and use the older ones for everyday stuff like drinking, making coffee or cooking.
Some people - like the The Los Angeles Fire Department- report that you shouldn't store plastic water jugs directly on concrete due to possible chemical leaching from the concrete.
Here is te LAFD Emergency Preparedness Booklet  if you'd like to read it.
lafd.org/eqbook.pdf

Moving up in storage size, you can use food grade 5 gallon buckets. It's very important that you use food grade buckets and not the orange or black buckets. The food grade is white and has a "5" inside the triangular recycling symbol on the bottom. You can ask local restaurants and grocery stores for their used buckets. Wash them thoroughly with soap and hot water and rinse them very well- a triple rinse is usually good.  Be aware that pickle bucket are very difficult to get the smell out of. bleaching and letting them sit in the sun for a few days will help- but that pickle flavor still ends up in the water. You could cover up the taste with Kool Aid or Crystal Light if you had to in an emergency- but the pickle buckets are best avoided for water storage.

You can usually find good prices on food grade buckets a home brew supply places in your area- check te yellow pages for listings.

Some folks recommend adding a little bleach to the water before your close the bucket, but I don't do that.  You do need to keep the buckets in a fairly dark, cool place to help avoid contamination.

Moving up the ladder in cost, you can also purchase reusable 5 gallon water bottles. I recommend the ones with handles that are designed for reuse- not the bottles that require a dispenser.
I've found the 5 gallon bottles at local water stores. These are stores that sell home filtration systems and also offer refills if you bring your own bottle. Again, check the yellow pages, or yp.com.

Finally, you can buy water storage buckets and bottles at Target, Walmart or outdoors /camping supply places- but expect to pay top dollar for the. Usually in the neighborhood of $10-$20 for a 5 gallon container. They do tend to come with extra features like easy to use spouts and can sometimes be stacked.

That should be enough information to get you started on water storage. Next we'll look at easy, inexpensive ways to start stockpiling food for your family.