Are there any preppers in Kentucky here?
Here!
Interested party here.
Me!
What part of Kentucky are you from? Been prepping a while now or just started? Neighbours/media talking about it yet?:)
Friends are starting to think about it. I have been seeing a few people at the store with what looks to be prepping supplies( SAM’S + Gordons ).
I am from NKy across from Cincinnati. mostly conservative area with a lot of folk with german heritage. Not being talked about a lot. few articles in the paper. I’ve been doing more mental prepping than physical. but I plan on doing more now that my financial advisor is on board.
I am located a few miles from the Tenn. border. It is a small, very backwards community.
I called my electric company, to see how stable they would expect our power survices to be and was told by a woman there, that she didn’t even know what a pandemic was. I called our water processing plant and the man woorking there wasn’t sure where our chlorine came from. When I called the person in charge of emergency planning, he told me that we couldn’t have a plan until we knew what the “virus” was going to do. He did tell me this…”You betcha, the gov’t is reading all the news reports!” Whew!!!! That made me feel better!
I’ve given up on my community! However, I am still harassing my friends and am continuing to stay in touch with the local Amish community. They are very scared and receptive to information I copy and take to them.
im here in paducah not as preped as i need to be but on the way
I am going in fits and starts as they say. Made good headway for awhile - experienced weariness and some burnout - but will start back at it this week. Working torwards 3 months supplies to start with. Really hope I will be donating much of this to the food banks later on in a couple of years!
Hi Kys!
My big project now is an over 1/4 garden, full of rocks. I have it about half planted and am now de-rocking the rest. I stopped by our extension office today, to ask if we could have a little seminar on safe canning methods. They agreed, all I have to do is get about five interested parties together and pick a time. I bought a large, professional canner, made by All American. It holds 14 quarts and 19 pints.
I am also taking part in an H5N1 vaccine trial at Vanderbilt. I have now had two doses of whatever… I pray their study shows promising results. However, this is egg based vaccine and most likely our “chicks” will never see a dose of it. I pray harder for some of the new, novel vaccines now under research and developement. Mostly I pray for SPEED!
I started planning for 3 months, but after researching pandemics and waves, have been working on 12 months. I am probably past 6 months now, but this is so much work and money and it is slow moving! There are a lot of us!
We live in Henderson County, have been following bird flu in the news for about 8 months. Have always had extra supplies on hand for power outages and storms, Homeland Security. This is the first time I have considered to plan for a 3-month quarantine situation or 3 waves of a 12-month pandemic. Have had ups and downs, felt ridiculous and guilty about storing food others need now. I planned for the Iban Browning Earthquake—that’s where the feeling of ridiculousness comes from, got suckered into that one. Yet, there are so many experts weighing-in on this. Trying to balance my efforts to prepare with efforts to maintain a normal life.
I volunteer for a food pantry, we’d love to have food now, not when you don’t need it anymore and it’s outdated. So rotate your food if you’re going to stockpile and use it yourself before it expires, or donate it before it expires.
Add your neighbors and the poor to your planning. I understand that a 3 month stockpile is very expensive, but, God forbid, a pandemic does come, we can’t just wall ourselves off. Think about meal extenders: homemade soups that could be made from leftover vegetables and extended with egg noodles, rice, etc. and shared with a neighbor in need.
Also, I had not posted here before because FluWiki went down right before I found it. I hope that the KY Preppers will get more active here. I am surprised at so few posts since I last visited.
LibraryLady – at 13:12 Good post. I share a lot of your same concerns. “Add your neighbors and the poor to your planning” I’ve been too busy lately but plan on spending more time back at fluwiki(glad to see it up and running smoothly again-also glad to see all the names posting again)
Hi- I live in South Central Kentucky. I don’t know anyone prepping, nor have I seen any signs. Am planning a trip to the BIG City (Bowling Green!) tomorrow will do a little scouting there. We have frequent power outages-had two of two weeks each back during the nineties, plus the occasional tornado, plus I do the massive buy if theres a sale thing so I keep supplies on hand. But I have kids and my husband’s dad 0h! and husband too! to look after and so am cranking up the prep thing into full gear.
Good luck Green Mom. Try to buy in an orderly fashion and set up a plan for your purchases. A whole lot of info on here and at Curevents.com re prepping. I have tried to take it slowly and over time and am nowhere near where I would like to be but way ahead of where the general population is I suspect. The Boy Scout training - Be prepared…really set in with me when I was a kid. Doing better than I did with Y2K. Using the preps and rotating them - buy 20 eat three, buy 10, eat three….sort of going ahead in fits and starts. Watching the movie gave us a visual on what could happen and also made me worried about there being a run on stores by even a small section of the public. Could create short term disruptions now.
SO step up Kentuckians and don’t just lurk! :-)) If anyone has a suggestion about canned meats I would appreciate any reasonable priced canned goods. GFS has some great stuff - but in too large a cans to be really usable except for larger families/groups!
Hi Green Mom!
I live very close to BG and go there many times each week.
Have you tried Aldi’s? I have tested many of their own brands and found most to be quite good. They run out of their advertised specials, soemtimes, very quickly. You might want to try going on a Sunday. Thye are quite rude in that particular store, but the prices are good.
There is also Southern Foods, which is a restaurant supply distributer. They have thousands of items, but no central list. They will sell to the general public, but you have to ask for a particular item and them have them look it up, to see if they carry it, the quantity, and price. I think they are on Nashville road, but can look up the exact address if you are interested. They are open Moon.-Fri. and very early on Saturday mornings. They have canned mashed pots., with Vit.C, and the milk and butter added, with 170 servings a can. Most large cans come in a 6 can case, but they also have special prices, in the front of the sotre for broken case lots.
Let me know if I can help!
Hi kyanonguy!
I have been buying Sams canned chicken. It is actually quite decent. I think it comes pkg. five cans for a littel more than $10. The cans are larger than tuna cans and tey carry a large can for aobut $7.
I have bought a professional canner and plan to start canning my own meat. Shad has some wonderful info. and is especially qualified in this area, since she does this professionally. There are some other pros. on the canning chicken and turkey thread, as well.
Ask your extension office if they would do a little canning seminar for you and a few of your friends. Mine has offered to do this and then you will know all the safety rules.
Good luck!
Hi fellow Kentuckians. There is no where else I would want to be if the S*** hits the fan (for what ever reason) than in KY. I was not born here(Dad was)and I have been living in NKy for a long time now and never plan to leave.One of my favorite places to visit is Breathitt Cty ,beatiful country and people.If things get real ugly thats where I hope to be. If you get a chance check out a flu tracker, Roche Pharm. has one on its web site. One of the last and lowest infections rates in rural KY. I too want to learn how to can, bird flu or not.
For the canners- I STRONGLY recommend the Ball Blue Book-I posted this, I think somewhere else, but its a really great resourse. I have canned quite a lot of ground beef using their recipie and it was really good, its ground beef in a tomato sauce, great for stew, sphegghti, sloppyjoes, etc. Alas! now I have a food allergy and have to make do with tvp-NOT the same at all!!!!! I wonder if you can can tomato sauce with tvp? I also have a set of pamphlets I got from the County Extention office on canning-quite good.
I have tried Aldi’s for some reason I thought they were closed on Sunday? Didn’t know about Southern Foods though. I’ll have to check that out. I can get address from my B>G> phone book. Thanks!!!
Hey guys, A few of my friends are starting to prep here. One was involved for years with JIT inventory mgmt and she is now stocked with food after having a few discussions with me. I told her she could afford it and how would she feel standing waiting to feed her kids courtesy of a govt who might not be able to perform. She is now fully prepped and another friend is starting this week to be reayd for something!
There was a really good article on the frount page of the Park City Daily News that I picked up at a Krogers in Bowling Green- Waiting for the Bird Flu Talking about the Pandemic Influenza Summit sponsered by the Barren Riven District Health Department. Also one last week in the Lousiville Courier Journal. Sounds like the health department is trying to make some plans. They also mentioned personal prep being key. May be a good article to clip and save to show disbeleiving folks…..
Hi!
I attended the Allen County Pandemic Influenza Pandemic last week. I was very disappointed by what we were told. The federal gov’t. sent an Epidemiologist and he told us that htere was very littel chance that we would see any Avian Flu in our domestic bird flocks. He said there was something unique, in the way the birds flew around KY. We were also told that the virus was probably not nearly as deadly as feared and there had most likely been many unreported mild cases. When one gentleman asked how long the virus lived on surfaces, he was told “hours. I guess that you can calculate days into hours…6 days= 144 hours, but I think the average person walked away from that summit, thinking a surface would be free from infection in a couple of hours. We were told to keep several days worth of food, meds., and other supplies. They suggested “a” bottle of anitbacterial hand gel.
We have a large Mennonite community and some of them came to this summit. They left, not expecting H5 to present a problem in their flocks. These poultry farmers weren’t told what signs to look for, indicating they had infected poultry, nor were they told what to do if they had sick birds, nor who to contact.
No one came from any of our utility companies. When asked if there were any Dr.’s attending, none raised their hands. I heard someone ask “Are there any veterinarians here?” No vets. either.
Our hospital has 10 extra beds. Their plan is to sent the 120 nursing home residents home for “several days.” Home to “where?” That is their home and they may already be infected. Who would take these elderly patients? This is ridiculous! Thye have a $39,000 budget for “medication.” This is calculated for 1 first responder, his/her spouse and an average of 1.5 children each. Although these medical personnel should certainly come first….it is plainly clear, that our “chicks” will be on no one’s food chain! Keep prepping everybody!
on the canned meats, dollar general store has caned ham (16oz)with a key on the bottem of the can, and turkey chunks (5oz)made in canada by royale. the the folks at http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/vb/index.php think alot of it and the royal brand.(i have not tryed them yet but i am going to get a case of each. the ham was about $2 and the turkey i think 50 cents. i will try out the ham this weekend.
The Dollar General store near us sells these really great little packages of tuna salad with crackers presealed in foil, as well as chicken salad and ham salad, for a $1 each. They’d make a great lunch and would be good in a portable emergency package and/or in-house. I dry-pack crackers and even those dry chow-mein noodles so that we have something crunchy and for variety to add things to our meals. BTW, I’m not from Kentucky but we visit Louisville about once every quarter. We’re in Indiana.
I will check out Dollar general this weekend. I am close to being relatively prepped for my storage level and now just plan to rotate and try diff combos of my food preps.
Bird Flu preperation will be the topic of discussion on Western Public Radios Mid day edition, today, may 16th at 11:30 central. I’ll be sure to listen, take notes and report back featured speakers will be a Red Cross Rep and head of General Motors Security(?) I’m guessing thats in relation to the Corvette plant.
Western Kentucky University Public Radio’s link
I am from Tennesse but I contacted TVA to get info on pandemic planning and thought y’all might be interested. TVA services Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. For a map, please see their website at http://www.tva.com/sites/sites_ie2.htm.
I looked up TVA and learned the following from their web site:
They get 30% of their power from nuclear power plants they own. They have some hydro power plants. Most of their electricity comes from 11 coal burning plants. One plant uses burns about 14,000 tons of coal a day, an amount that would fill 140 railroad cars.
There is an article on the TVA site that refers to a problem in “purchased power costs.” While this is not explained, it appears to me that TVA is purchasing power from other power companies. Remember, power generated can not be stored for long and must be used almost immediately. My worry is this may be from the fragile grid system we have spoken about in other threads.
I contacted TVA by e-mail and asked I live in Memphis and my local utility informs me they get all their power from TVA. 1. How many days supply of coal does TVA keep at it’s power plants in case of an interuption in coal supplies/delivery due to a pandemic? 2.What percentage of employees must work in order for a plant to keep functioning in case of a pandemic? 3.Does TVA have a pandemic plan? 4.When TVA refers to “purchased power costs” does tht mean form time to time TVA purchases power from other places/plants? If so, where does the purchased power come from usually and how frequently on average does TVA purchase power?
I got this response:
TVA is committed to ensuring the safety of the public and our employees and to providing a safe and reliable supply of electric power. TVA maintains a Continuity of Operations Plan to address various emergencies. In addition, like many other government agencies and private companies, TVA has established a team that is updating our emergency operations plan to address the possibility of a flu epidemic. The team is developing an agency-wide plan to enable TVA to continue to operate during and after a possible pandemic. This includes identifying critical functions, employees, and suppliers necessary to maintain business operations.
The TVA region covers an 80,000-square-mile area that includes Tennessee and parts of six adjoining states — Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. For a map, please see our website at http://www.tva.com/sites/sites_ie2.htm
In response to your question about purchased power costs, TVA does buy some electrical power from other power suppliers. That’s because buying power is sometimes more economical than generating electricity, and sometimes additional power is needed to meet customers’ high demands for power. The power we would buy usually comes from areas within or adjacent to the TVA region. The cost of the power varies greatly with market conditions — supply and demand. Prices are influenced by several factors, including the cost of fuel, such as natural gas, the time of year, and even the time of day. For example, a very hot summer afternoon would increase the need for electricity to power air-conditioning and meet other needs, thus driving up the price for potential buyers. TVA purchased about 9 percent of our power needs in Fiscal Year 2005.
We hope you find this information helpful. If you would like more information on TVA, we invite you to visit our Web site at www.tva.com. Thank you.
I am preppped for about three months. Our goal is to double this. Problems I encountered are: how to acquire prescription medication for extended periods, animal food, space to store supplies and maintaining sufficient paper goods. During the summer we will can some meats, soup mixture and other vegetables.
Being from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, I know how to survive. We can live without electricity, but water may prove to be a big problem in small, rural communities. In our area, many people still have old water wells on their property. We do. We plan to put a hand pump on our well.
I do know that as a community very little has been done to plan for a pandemic. We have numbers of very poor people whose food budget does not include buying extra supplies. This could prove the undoing of many plans. Here in the mountains, we have been taught to share, especially food, since childhood. Refusing to feed the hungry would go against everything we have been taught. But a few dozen preppers can not meet all the need without devine introvention.
I know a number of those who are prepping, but who are not advertising this fact to the general public. We are rural people who know how to garden, can food, dry food, etc. That is not going to be as much of a problem as acquiring medical attention for already existing conditions. We will go “to ground” when it has been documented that the flu going human to human. Good luck to everyone. Keep on prepping. Encourage your friends, neighbors and family to prep. Something is coming our way…perhaps not this year, but we need to be ready.
I’m in Shelby County, and it seems that awareness levels are pretty low here. Schools have plans, after a fashion; local officials have received some information and done some planning, but I don’t think bird flu is on the radar for many people.
InKY, Mom11, others, I would say that is pretty much the same across the state. There were meetings in each of the health districts. I talked to some who attended the one in Hazard. It was geared toward informing health department employees. There was another meeting at Natural Bridge. I could not attend either. I talked to our county judge executive. He is more concerned with current problems than what “might happen”..I thought each county had to make a plan, but apparently not. However, I do suspect there are more people prepping than we might think. They keep it a secret. I have not heard anything on Lexington TV about BF except in a very casual way. I talked to several doctors; one in Lexington and one locally. The one in Lexington said if I believed in prayer, to pray. The local doctor did not say very much except that it was frightening. My husband and I have existing health problems. His conditions are all serious. He goes to the Lexington VA. They send his medication by mail. Since he takes insulin and heart medications, I am very concerned about acquiring sufficient medications. Otherwise, we could SIP for an extended period.
Next week, I am going to begin to can dog food. We have two large dogs who consume eight cans of dog food per day. I am ashamed to say how much this costs, but I think I can purchase cheap cuts of meat and can it at less expense. Too, there is never enough in the grocery stores to see us through a long period of time. Dry food is much easier to acquire…and they may have to learn to eat it, like it or not.
We have gas logs for backup heat during winter storms and a gas range. I am going to inquire about purchasing a second 250 gallon tank. The supplier is not the most cooperative person in the world. We will have sufficient water once we get a hand pump installed in a well on our property.If we were young and healthy we could cut all kinds of fire wood on our property and could end up doing it healthy or not.
Good luck to all my fellow Kentuckians…
kycreeker
Kentucky preppers, I’d love to see us get active as a group. I worry about how little people know of the pandemic flu threat here, and I’m mulling what can be done. How many people do you know who are prepping? What signs do you see? Has your community made any effort to raise awareness?
INKY- I would LOVE to get more info out about bird flu-however, I am extreamly reluctant to advertise that I am prepping-I have serious concerns about people looking for me and my preps when TSHTF. I have been anonymously dropping off flu-flyers at public places-mostly doctors offices, schools etc.
I have not seen my community raising awarness-however, I do know several hospitals/health departments have contingency plans in place and there were several pandemic flu meetings back in the spring- I know Louisville, Glasgow, Bowling Green had these that were open to the public. Western University’s public radio station ran some stories about bird-flu in the spring.
Practically everyone I know has at least heard of bird flu. Most people agree “it could be a really bad thing” - at least they are not blowing it off as some “liberal hype”
This is a very rural area with people whose families have been here for genreations. Alot of the older people still tell family stories of various epidemics-sometimes the 1918 flu, but also of typhiod, yellow fever (!) tb and others.
People tend to be more self-reliant here, especially after a series of tornados that went through last couple of years. Most people keep at least several days of food at home. I know of one other person who is prepping specifically for bird flu-I suspect several others are and like myself are reluctant to talk about it.
I would love to hear from other people in KY.
Rural areas like yours will be better off than towns where people are, by and large, not prepping. I share your concern about being open regarding prepping. Given how little preparation seems to be going on around me, I have no hope of having enough to share with everyone, so I don’t feel safe sharing what I’m up to and why.
I’ve thought about whether flu preppers could do an awareness campaign whereby they switch out communities. I’d feel better about passing out pamphlets and sharing information openly in a community where I do not live and having preppers from other communities do the same in mine. I’d want to be at least 50 miles away from home when doing this. I don’t want to be reticent. I want to save lives, but not by jeopardizing my family. There has to be a way to accomplish that.
I’d like to applaud you for the anonymous work you’ve done. I hope to accomplish something along those lines over an upcoming fall break.