I am happy to announce that I am no longer called the crazy lady who keeps saying the sky is falling down. (get the pun about me yelling bird flu to everyone who can hear.) As of this morning, my generator (bird flu prep) is running the heat and lights in my small house. Which at this point is holding two additional families in it for heat. The storm which took out power to the Seattle are Wed night, still has hundreds of thousands of people in the cold and in shelters. However at our house, we are warm, we are fed and we are very comfortable. Crowded, which is not what you want if this were the bird flu, but for now in this scenario, we are good. Last night at dinner my husband the skeptic said, “honey we are very thankful that you prepared for the end of the world for us.” Course he finished with he still thinks I’m a little crazy.
Things I learned…not enough gas containers for the generator. A dog on a bed counts as an extra blanket. It could always be worse.
Thanks to all you preppers who listed the million things I needed. You are part of the reason my family is warm and safe this round. KimmyD Seattle area
Way to go KimmyD. Do your houseguests “get it” now? Be nice if they did, so you could be less crowded next time.
yeah they all get it. I’ve had all kinds of phone calls from friends who say I’m getting the last laugh. I’m not laughing, but a huge sigh of relief…now some of them will start their own preps.
Here in New England, we feel your pain/cold/ice.
prep is just common sense, as occasional ice storms and blizzards are a way of life.
KimmD, I’m sooooo glad you’ve seen your efforts & your discomfort at being laughed at finally rewarded! You GO Girl! I hope that your guests are compensating you not only financially, but with the desire to help you spread the word by not only getting themselves better prepared but by getting other members of THEIR families better prepared.
But remember that time is short -as soon as their power is back on, your care will become distant memory & the pressure will be off them to prepare, now knowing they could rely on you the next time this happens as well! Hate to bring that up, but your kindness needs to not be taken advantage of by others!
Good luck & stay warm!
A dog on a bed counts as an extra blanket
Yup, Three Dog Night had a reason for those in cold climes.
Glad all went well, but I have to agree with some above. Keep encouraging those friends and family to do their own prepping
KimmyD? — 17 December 2006, 11:45
Hey, but did you convince them to prep or just teach them that they can come to your house when they need help? Only time will tell.
:)
Awesome! I was thinking today about all the bad weather other states have been getting an dpower outages, luckily Iowa has not had then YET, but we will, I’m pretty sure. I don’t have a generator but I have threee buddy heaters and lots of lanterns and I was mentally planning what I would need to take over to my parents house to keep them going during an outage.
Good job, Kimmy! And I know what you mean about stored gas—we keep 25 gallons stored in five gallon jugs with stabilizer in it, but our big genny could go through all of it in about five days. Remember, you always have some spare gas in your car, but learn how to siphon it safely (in other words, not the way I did it and end up with a mouthful of gas!:-)
Yeah; use this “teachable moment to say, you will not be taking all and sundry in during a deadly pandemic influenza year.
All prep separately,
or they may all get sick (and turn purple and black)
and die together.
(See, Mr.KimmyD; your wife doesn’t sound so crazy now; compared to me: listen to her! you’re lucky to have her!)
(How people can think you did this so you could “get a laugh on them” when they came to crowd your house is beyond me.)
Jenifer ! no no! there’s a little pump/siphon thingy you can buy - don’t do that!
:-P bleah! no one wants to deal with someone who ingested or inhaled fuel; take it away! Take it away!
(Wonder how my hcw relative in Seattle -who won’t discuss pandemic- is faring?)
(I guess “Preps paid off”; was wondering if it was going to be “the Press”, or the ‘Res had been through to “decide” something, at first thread title glance.)
KimmyD I’m so happy for you, but I’m mad at the news media (what’s new). Here in Illinois we had several deaths during the power outage from the last ice storm. Deaths that occurred from CO2 mostly from badly exhausted generators and people buring charcoal inside, trying to keep warm. If CNN had made a story out of it maybe they wouldn’t have had to put a scroll on the bottom of their screen last night.
Over 100 deaths are blamed on CO2 poisoning from generators and charcoal people were using to keep warm during the recent power outages in the NorthWest.
Actually, it was over 100 cases of CO poisoning, with a few deaths. Most notably this family of four who died after running a gasoline generator in their garage.
For a moment, I thought this was an anti-Bush thread, LOL.
Any mod want to correct the title from Pres to Preps paid off in Seattle…
Great lessons in this thread! : - )
Renamed and bumped.
I live in the area also. I am and have been prepared for years. Still, my C cells were dead when I put them in the radio. Yes I have a wind up radio but misplaced it. I have plenty of food (cans of tuna etc) but didn’t pull the paper plates out. I hate dishes that have set in the sink for several days. Note to self: wash dishes as we use them. I do have candles, flashlights, matches in one place. Need to review them twice a year.
One thing was nice. The day after the storm was wonderful. Sun out and very clear. I opened the curtains at the sliding glass door and it did warm up the room to 68. Shut the door to the room and let the sun in. I was able to heat the room and read without power. Canned tuna and crackers make a good lunch with apple and canned soda.
Used the coleman stove on the patio and heated enough water for tea and two thermos bottles. Have a friend who heated water over a botive candle. I will give her a hobo stove.
MIL and BIL were without electricity until yesterday morning. MIL who is very stubborn spent two days in bed getting up to go outside to heat tea water and soup on her bar b q. It was done safely. BIL had a fireplace so he kept warm. SIL went to her parents house that has a fireplace, small camper and a generator. She and BIL have two small children under three. We had power by then but they are stubborn also and wanted to rough it out. It was surprising to find no gas stations open. Need to get more gas and ration it out. Now I know I need to find alternative ways to stay warm in a long term situation. We do have a wood stove in an adddon space in the house. We own ten acres so have plenty of wood. I want a semi-open shed built to put my wood cook stove. God bless the power workers. They are working 48 hour shifts. They were the life saver.
Also in the PNW and weathered the power outage okay, except for one notable flaw. In the last couple years my asthma has worsened significantly (ended up in the hospital with my last cold), and I could not tolerate the candles and other open flames that have served us so well in the past. This was a significant problem and would be totally unmanageable if we were without electricity for an extended period. Thankfully, our outage extended over only one night. The next thing on my list to buy is an LED lantern (hopefully, more than one). I don’t like the idea of something that is battery dependent, but I have to breathe. Living as we do in the Pacific Northwest and in the middle of tall trees, I don’t think a solar battery charger would work here for rechargeable batteries, so I guess I’ll just have to stock as big a supply of batteries as I can manage.
Cooking was no problem, as we have a gas cooktop. It was pretty warm when the storm hit and by the time the temperature really began to drop our electrical power was restored.
Genoa—I saw some “crank” LED lanterns while out shopping this week. Looked sort of like the rechargeable LED camping lanterns except for the additional hand crank. Didn’t note how long per crank they last. That might be a good source for you.
Galt, That sounds good. Do you remember where you saw them?
Genoa, I don’t remember where I saw it, but if you type in hand crank lantern on amazon.com or on nextag.com you will get several results in varying price ranges. The cheaper ($19.95) one on amazon says 20 minutes of 20 LED light per 1 minute of cranking. Prices seem to range from about $20 to up to $60 for a really snazzy one that has radio, etc. included. Who knows, might be worth a shot.
Seems like I saw some at COSTCO recently.
Genoa, Kmart carries the crank LED lanterns for $15, $10 on sale, in the camping department. They work just fine.
Galt & Northstar, Thanks for the information on where to find the LED crank lanterns. I’m definitely going to need to get some of these.
I bought several of the crank lanterns at Bells. They last longer than I imagined they would… the light they put out is not real bright but would light an area enough to see to walk around,etc. but definately not to read by.
Remember too, you can put any mirror behind your light source so it almost doubles the light output & the more reflective surfaces the better so the tri-fold makeup mirrors definitely have a place in my preps. Ir’s a simple but effective fix.
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