h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The squirrels in my neighborhood have been busy for the past few weeks, gathering nuts and acorns to carry them through the winter. I have done the same thing.

My region is prone to ice storms and blizzards that sometimes strand us at home for days on end. Years of this has taught me to put up extra supplies. Being prepared just makes good sense. I have loaded my pantry with non-perishable foods and, made chili, pasta sauce and stew for the freezer, bought extra candles and made sure my oil lamps have new wicks and enough oil to get through several evenings of no electricity, washed extra blankets and laid in an emergency supply of cat and dog food.

Two winters in a row of week-long power outages prompted me to put in an alternative heat source and replace my electric range for a natural gas one. My gas furnace won’t light without the fan being on, so when the electricity goes off, so does my furnace. I put a gas heater that does not require electricity in my fireplace. It will supposedly heat 1200 square feet if cranked up full tilt. I loved burning wood, but it is messy and wouldn’t have produced as much heat. I can close off my bedroom and the larger of the guest rooms and sleep in the smaller guest room or even in the recliner in the living room. The rest of the house should stay warm. The gas cooker will let me have hot meals. I will be much better off than the last time the power went down.

We are so dependent upon electricity that our entire lives change when it goes off. I’ve learned to put the items from my refrigerator outside on the back porch in Styrofoam coolers to keep them fresh. If things in the freezer start to thaw, I put them outside where it’s cold, as well. Without the distraction of the internet, stereo, television and DVD player, I can catch up on my reading. It won’t be so bad.

Of course, since I’m better prepared, the power won’t go off at all. That’s how things like this work.

It's not just electricity we rely on very much. It's water, too. The other week, they had announced a water outage for between 9am and 4pm, so I filled bottles and bottles with water. If they switched off the water, I didn't notice. By the end of the day I still had all those filled water bottles. I used them up because it would have been such a waste to pour them down the drain.

Sounds the right two things to do

Tomorrow between 15:30 and 17 (3:30 and 5 pm for those so inclined) they're threatening with irregularities or temporary shut-offs of our phone and internet ...

It drives me to distraction every time there's a threat of a hurricane people rush to the stores and make a run on cases of bottled water. After the storm hits, there isn't any left in the stores. What people are too dense to realize is that you don't need to stock up on bottled water if you have containers around the house. Tap water is as good and often better than the bottled water for a microfraction of the price. I keep some 5 gallon ice water coolers. When a storm is coming I'll fill one of those with filtered tap water. I've never needed to yet though because our water system hasn't been breached, or if it were no one bothered to turn it off or notify us in my town.

I'm sure it's a big pain and all that, and it's probably because I know it'll never happen here, but that sounds wonderful, actually. Nothing to do but read by the light of an oil lamp, wrapped in a snuggly blanket with the dog beside me. Bliss.

You can't recreate that sort of thing when it's not forced on you, can you? Real life always seems to intrude.

Deb

I used to live in one of those states and was never prepared. I don't know if our power grid was particularly well designed, but if I was just lucky, but we rarely lost power for more than a few hours at a time.

Now I live in earthquake country and my household is better prepared, but there are some gaping holes in our preparedness.

We have never lost our water supply, thank goodness. But it wouldn't hurt to fill up some containers if a storm is forecast just in case. And it wouldn't hurt to fill up the bath tubs to have water to use to flush the toilets.

They did shut the water off in the next town over BEFORE the Ike hit. That was a controversial move as they didn't bother telling the Volunteer Fire Dept. They had no water pressure to put out a house fire.

Ouch. That was a very serious oversight.

When I lived in Beaumont back in another lifetime, the water supply was in danger from hurricanes because it came out of the river and salt water washed up into it.