When we had an ice storm here in 1998, which brought down some of the long distance power lines from the hydroelectric generators (and some of the towers that held up those lines), it was said afterwards that we were within hours of having no water. I can't remember whether they were talking no filtered water or no water at all, but after the fact they did say that if that had happened, an evacuation of this large city was a possibility.
Five months of non-stop rain = mudslides blocking roads for weeks at a time (ever been to Big Sur?) and houses slipping off hillsides yearly. I'm sure plenty of people experience flooding, as well. The city of Napa comes to mind.
Five months of non-stop rain + seven months of hot, dry summers = wildfires/firestorms, which threaten/damaging multitudes of homes yearly. The firestorm in the East bay was deadly, and the hillsides are still scarred with areas that haven't yet been rebuilt.
I'm sure the people in the Sierras have few tales to tell about massive snowfall and its effects.
OK, it could be an old gravity system, but how does the oil burner work without electricity? All the oil burners I've ever worked on have a motor and igniter that require electricity.
Like I said, "long enough to be annoying", but no real big deal. However I figured that one of these days we would have an extended outage so I wanted to be ready for it.
I'm served by a co-op. They are very good at trying to keep service on. Note the *trying* becuase there service area is rural and a lot of it is heavily forested. Even underground service can be taken out by landslides or tree root balls lifting the cables when the tree blows over.
They mangle the trees near the main lines three times a year. They also have a program in place to put problem causing lines underground. They rank the sections of overhead line by the number of outages by customers affected times hours of outage. Right now, of the 11 miles from the substation to my house, 3 miles are underground. By the end of the year, it will be 5. 3 more miles are on the "list", but are ranked lower. The last 1 1/2 miles probably will never be put underground due to the low number of customers in my immediate vicinity.
They are bright like the white gas and propane lamps, but burn kerosene.
Growing up in the country we used Coleman lanterns inside the house in emergencies, like ice storms when the power would be out for a day or so. We never had a flare up. I don't know if the white gas burns cleaner than kerosene or not. I'd also be more careful in a modern home - our house was not as airtight for sure, so the risk of CO poisoning was lower.
I note when I go to their website today, Coleman sells kerosene mantle lamps that look exactly like their white gas lamps did.
I really like my Vtech 2.4 GHZ. The base is also a speaker phone, but not an answering machine. The range is good and the sound quality is very good. I have had this unit for probably 4 or 5 years now.
for some reason this isn't including the rest of the thread ...
is beside the point. Most parts of California don't get very cold, at least as compared to the upper midwest. Different areas require different praparation.
We have a lot more power problems here in Hawaii than they ever had in California, but we never got cold ... (and our water is really gravity fed. I do keep some bottled water around in case the filtration fails).
disaster preparedness to me includes:
- food that can be stored without refrigration and (at least in a bind) be eaten without cooking (you propane stove doesn't help if your house was flattened by a hurricane or earthquake, but you may still be able to find the cans or boxes)
- enough batteries of all sizes we use
- enough tarps to cover the house (or what's left standing) including bungee cords to secure them - as I mentioned, we don't usually get cold here, but we can get very very wet. Wet can easily cause hypothermia even here, and in very little time.
Maren, Hilo, HI (do you have any idea what 40"/rain in a day is like?)
If you are having ice storms, your first necessity is heat. I have a few cords of dry firewood in a woodshed, and a 30-year-old Fisher Mamma Bear. It heats the whole house nicely. There are several other options for heat, like portable kerosene heaters, or a generator wired up to run a furnace. Obviously, electric heat is not a good idea during a power outage.
Your second need (some would say first) is water. Without water, your toilet won't work. Basic sanitation is a necessity of life. If you are on a municipal water system, you are in pretty good shape, except in cases of earthquake. I am rural and get water from a well that isn't reliable in the summer, so I set up a 2500 gallon cistern to store whatever water is available. The bottom of the cistern is level with the window sills, so during power outages it provides gravity flow to fill the toilets. If we want a shower, we have to fire off a generator to run the pump.
Another critical need is a survival kit. 30 days of any medication. Gloves. Emergency ponchos and space blankets. Emergency flares and fire lighters. Water purification tablets. Keep it in your car. There's no guarantee that you will be able to get home immediately. Be ready to take care of yourself wherever you are.
For food, just stock a pantry with dried and canned foods. A camp stove will do all the cooking you need. I have a travel trailer and a camp kitchen with a propane barbecue and 2-burner propane hot plate. During the last big outage, I never used them. We just cooked on top of the wood stove. Pot roast. Yum. Coffee. Pancakes. Chili. Stew. Sloppy Joes. A manual drip coffee maker and a hand coffee grinder are very nice. I bought the coffee grinder after being reduced to smashing coffee beans with a claw hammer one icy morning. As a backup, learn to make cowboy coffee.
Light is handy, particularly for winter outages. If you have pets, locate any flames where the pets can't knock a lamp or candle over and burn your house down. I have candle sconces and wall mount kerosene lamps to provide light, all of which hang 6' off the floor, well above the height of wagging doggy tails. For a porch light, I hang a kerosene storm lantern by the front door. It's cheery.
Aladdin lamps are bright, but they burn HOT! They can't be near a ceiling, or they will set the ceiling on fire. Around animals, they can't be left unattended. Fluorescent lanterns put out a lot of light, and can be found that run off of D cells.
One of my favorite lights is an LED clip-on book light, that provides plenty of light for reading. It provides about 300 hours of light from a couple AA batteries.
Generators are handy things. They make electricity when the delivery guy doesn't show up. I think most people over-do the generator thing. I don't even bother to get a generator out until the second day of an outage. I have one generator big enough to run the electric water heater or the well pump, but not both at once. I heat a tank of water, turn the tank off and the pump on, and take a shower. A shower is luxury. It sure beats a sponge bath. The big generator eats a gallon and a quarter of gas an hour. For general electrical power, I have a little 2-cycle 1200 watt generator that will run 4.5 hours on a gallon of fuel. 1200 watts is plenty to run the fridge and freezer, some lights, a computer or TV set. It's also so quiet that it doesn't irritate me or my neighbors. I think it cost $149.
Most of the time, I just hark back to the 19th century and do without electricity. A couple hours of electricity a day is plenty to keep the freezer frozen and take showers. The rest of the time, my house is snug and warm without electricity.
Other things that are handy:
A NOAA weather radio. A GOOD battery powered radio. I have a Realistic DX-440 that is super. A battery powered travel alarm clock. Battery powered carbon monoxide and smoke detectors. Batteries. Alkaline batteries have a shelf life measured in years, so stock up. Lots of candles. I keep 40 or 50 on a shelf in the garage. Lamp oil. I keep a gallon of the scentless paraffin oil handy, and can substitute another gallon of kerosene if things get tough. A hard wired telephone extension or two. I have a couple princess phones that I plug in at opposite ends of the house. A gasket kit for the generator, if you know how to repair small engines. Several good books you haven't read.
Jonathan Grobe wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@worf.netins.net:
How big a battery? 8-)
battery powered fluorescents. I've got a 2 tube camping lantern that runs for 40 hrs on one tube,20 hrs on 2 tubes,cost is about $12 USD,uses 4 D cells. Then I've got a brighter $10 12v single tube light that I can connect to an external battery,like a car/scooter SLA battery or my homemade alkaline D cell powerpack.It carries 8 AA cells internally. I used them both after Hurricane Charlie;No power for 7 days.
There also are other models of fluorescent camping lanterns.
**you can't use kerosene or white gas lanterns indoors.** (unless you want to asphyxiate/incinerate yourself;CO poisoning,Also a fire hazard.)
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.