Are you prepared?

Heard on the news about the power outages out west. Last year after the hurricane some places were out for weeks/months. Are you prepared if you were to lose power for 1, 2, 10, 20 days? The winter of '93 we had 36" of heavy wet snow. It took trees, power lines, sub stations. We lost power for 7 days. We have a deep well (280') no power no water. We melted all the snow in our yard 1 bucket full at a time to have water. We had only lived in the country for about 6 months, so we never thought of all the things you use electrity for.

Do you have enough water? If you live in the country you already know that you will need this but if you have town/city water you may never have been out. So what will you do if your town has no water?

You need:

1 gal per person in your family unless you have a baby, than more. Enough to last 3 day or more. If someone has medical needs that use water, have extra.

If you have advance warning, fill the bath tub, buckets, every container your not using. Some people keep trash cans for just this, so they are clean, ready to be filled. You can add drops of plain clorox, not scented/colored, to help keep it fresh for long term storage.

Filters if you are thinking of using water from a stream or rain water. Never drink water that has not been running thru filters or pureified.

Check out: ready.gov, beprepared.com, redcross.org, fema.gov to find out what you need in your plan so your family is prepared.

Comments

  • ines871
    ines871 Posts: 1,283 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2019

    Very good advice @bcabrobin

    Fortunately, our Power company from the very beginning thought Well-enough Ahead, when they layed/Installed the powerlines UNDERGROUND. - And worked together with the WATER company, such that at the worst, in the past 50 years their customers have been without either Electricity &/or Water for a maximum of 7 hours.

  • merlin44
    merlin44 Posts: 426 ✭✭✭✭

    A few months past moving to this mountain ridge in 2003, the power was out for 3 days. July 4th weekend-no water, no fans, no lights-a miserable 3 days but lesson learned. A few years later, our area experienced a devastating ice storm. Had no power for 4 weeks. Wood stove furnished heat and cooked meals, had the summer harvest canned and freezer full of protein, adequate water stored for people and animals and a generator ready to refill when needed, battery powered and crank radios, the generator was in use for all of 1 hour in the evenings for computer use and lights. And with all the fallen trees, we had firewood for the next year.

    We live in a time of uncertainty and we are use to the benefits of electricity. What happens if.......