Would you be prepared for the unexpected?
As it was getting toward dusk, the first round of neighbors were leaving for the shelters or trying to go into Lexington which was experiencing the same effects but more of the city had electricity than we did. My neighbor across the street packed his bags and he, his wife and mother in law headed out to find a hotel with power about 30 miles away.
Once it got dark , it was apparent that the power was probably not going to come on any time soon so I went to a friends house to ask him to come over with the wife and kids. As I arrived at his house, he was walking out the door with his son to go to a shelter,(by the way, his wife was at work….at the County Emergency Operations Center). He was happy to take me up on my offer.
I happen to have a generator that I bought in 1999 (with “W”‘s 400 bucks he gave us as a stimulus) and I have a free standing wood stove in our basement family room and a fire place upstairs. I also have about two years worth of firewood at all times. I get free tree stumps already cut by finding someone that has cut a tree down. They are happy to have someone haul it away. Each summer, I split the wood (yes I use a wood splitter) and stack it away to cure. I have not always had a place to burn wood. Previously I used a couple of kerosene heaters (the round ones put out the most heat and you can cook on them too).
To get to the point, I was the ONLY one in our area that had power from the generator, heat in the house, hot food on the table (cooked on the wood stove and the charcoal grill), had overnight guests sleeping over and we were watching Directv. It also was nice to have lights in the bathroom
I ran the generator in the evening and shut it off while we slept. then again for a couple hours each day. This kept my refrigerator and freezer from thawing out my food. Most people lost all their perishable food, including the grocery stores. What a mess that was. The fire from the big wood burner in the basement kept the house at 70 degrees all night. Having power for coffee the next morning was wonderful. We made several pots and offered them to neighbors that were still home.
As the next day went by, I would see more and more people that stayed at home during the first night leaving for shelters. People were also scrambling to find generators…and then trying to find gas for them since the gas stations had no power. My next door neighbor finally found one on the 5th day in another town. Just as they were pulling in their driveway with the new generator, our power came back on.
That was back in 2007 I believe….but would you believe that generator is still in the box in their garage!! They do not know if it works or not. they have no fuel stored away (and rotated with fresh) in case it happens again. I have offered several times to get it out and check it over but they have not taken me up on the offer.
Soo , all in all my family and a few friends came through the ordeal with little impact… not because I am a prepper but because I look at life as a Boy Scout ….just being prepared.
You do not have to go out and spend a lot of money to get everything at once. it is a progression from the most simple basic things and upgrading as you need or can afford. I started with no generator then graduated to old broke down generators I tried to keep running until I put back enough money for a good one (with “w”‘s help mentioned above). The firewood is free and gives me good exercise. I was fortunate to have a wood stove and fire place but in a previous house, we heated with a kerosene heater when the power went out one winter….although the power was not off near as long.
In the coming posts, I will be giving tips on how to get by with the absolute basics and you can upgrade from there when you feel the need. I will tell you how to stay warm, feed the family,have light at night, charge your phones …all without the power grid being up and spending very little money to do it. The truth is that many of you have the things you need already, you just do not know how to use them…because the need never arose.
I hope by sharing an actual event, I have interested others to forecast and plan for times that they may have to do without. It isn’t hard…and can be done on the cheap. It is like a hobby once you get started
Since it is winter, lets look at a scenario that happened to me here in my small town a few years back. We had a large ice storm which brought down trees and power lines throughout the state. Only about 10% of our town had electricity . The rest of us went without for as much as a week for most of us.
Now I am not a prepper by any means but my family and I got through this with little impact. Here is how we did it. By the way, the photo above is an actual photo of a huge tree that came down across the street
The power went out in the mid afternoon time frame. The freezing rain started breaking trees and the almost constant sound of large tree limbs breaking made you cringe. As the power remained off into the evening, people in our town were starting to get cold in their home…and hungry. The emergency operations center here in town opened up shelters which included the university buildings and gym which I have never seen used as a shelter before. The breaking trees after dark got louder and broke more often. you wouldn’t believe how loud they were…and you hoped that pretty tree out front did not fall into your home.
As it was getting toward dusk, the first round of neighbors were leaving for the shelters or trying to go into Lexington which was experiencing the same effects but more of the city had electricity than we did. My neighbor across the street packed his bags and he, his wife and mother in law headed out to find a hotel with power about 30 miles away.
Once it got dark , it was apparent that the power was probably not going to come on any time soon so I went to a friends house to ask him to come over with the wife and kids. As I arrived at his house, he was walking out the door with his son to go to a shelter,(by the way, his wife was at work….at the County Emergency Operations Center). He was happy to take me up on my offer.
I happen to have a generator that I bought in 1999 (with “W”‘s 400 bucks he gave us as a stimulus) and I have a free standing wood stove in our basement family room and a fire place upstairs. I also have about two years worth of firewood at all times. I get free tree stumps already cut by finding someone that has cut a tree down. They are happy to have someone haul it away. Each summer, I split the wood (yes I use a wood splitter) and stack it away to cure. I have not always had a place to burn wood. Previously I used a couple of kerosene heaters (the round ones put out the most heat and you can cook on them too).
To get to the point, I was the ONLY one in our area that had power from the generator, heat in the house, hot food on the table (cooked on the wood stove and the charcoal grill), had overnight guests sleeping over and we were watching Directv. It also was nice to have lights in the bathroom 
I ran the generator in the evening and shut it off while we slept. then again for a couple hours each day. This kept my refrigerator and freezer from thawing out my food. Most people lost all their perishable food, including the grocery stores. What a mess that was. The fire from the big wood burner in the basement kept the house at 70 degrees all night. Having power for coffee the next morning was wonderful. We made several pots and offered them to neighbors that were still home.
As the next day went by, I would see more and more people that stayed at home during the first night leaving for shelters. People were also scrambling to find generators…and then trying to find gas for them since the gas stations had no power. My next door neighbor finally found one on the 5th day in another town. Just as they were pulling in their driveway with the new generator, our power came back on.
That was back in 2007 I believe….but would you believe that generator is still in the box in their garage!! They do not know if it works or not. they have no fuel stored away (and rotated with fresh) in case it happens again. I have offered several times to get it out and check it over but they have not taken me up on the offer.
Soo , all in all my family and a few friends came through the ordeal with little impact… not because I am a prepper but because I look at life as a Boy Scout ….just being prepared.
You do not have to go out and spend a lot of money to get everything at once. it is a progression from the most simple basic things and upgrading as you need or can afford. I started with no generator then graduated to old broke down generators I tried to keep running until I put back enough money for a good one (with “w”‘s help mentioned above). The firewood is free and gives me good exercise. I was fortunate to have a wood stove and fire place but in a previous house, we heated with a kerosene heater when the power went out one winter….although the power was not off near as long.
In the coming posts, I will be giving tips on how to get by with the absolute basics and you can upgrade from there when you feel the need. I will tell you how to stay warm, feed the family,have light at night, charge your phones …all without the power grid being up and spending very little money to do it. The truth is that many of you have the things you need already, you just do not know how to use them…because the need never arose.
I am sorry for the long post but I hope by sharing an actual event, I have interested others to forecast and plan for times that they may have to do without. It isn’t hard…and can be done on the cheap. It is like a hobby once you get started
More to come with suggestions and ideas for all to get started…or at least thinking about it
Dan