Irma and Florida

[les snyder]

power back on Wed evening (3 days out)...nice to sleep with the A/C on again...the two generators worked well, loaned the small inverter generator to a friend to keep his 3 upright refrigerators and freezer at temp

get a good LED headlamp (preferably AA) with a center top strap ... get a good single AA LED task light and keep it in your pocket... buy good equipment... the AA Eneloops in-use got time on the charger daily when I ran the genset in the morning... worked well as well as the two small Coleman area lights... I switched to AAs after the 2004 hurricane season

all my emergency lighting is AA Eneloops... they are less likely to leak... I just ordered a 4 station Nitecore charger to supplement the 2 station Nitecore I currently use
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[billt]

Does anyone know if the area in and around Middleburg, (Southwest of Jacksonville), has flooded?

[PegLeg45]

Also, to add to the list Les has, get a $15 re-chargeable battery pack to charge cell phones. We picked up one last week at wallymart.

[crusader rabbit]

Got back and actually reviewed the situation on Thursday at 1300 hours.  No power at my house for about 5 days, so the refrigerator was a biology experiment.  I cleaned it out.  Had a length of fence blow down and maybe away since I can't find it.  Got power today (Friday) and that's when I discovered I had missed a single raw chicken breast in the back of the freezer.  Amazing how much stink can be generated by a single breast.  All in all though, Bunny and I are lucky Rabbits.

Haz has had no power for about the same length of time, but the guy across the street had power restored on Wednesday and ran an extension cord for our Cat.  Not enough to power the house, but it saved the stuff in the frige.  Haz had pre-packed the freezer when we first heard about Irma.  He filled containers with  water that froze solid before power went out.  It was enough to maintain freezing temps until he got the extension cord, so all is good there.  He didn't have Duke Energy power as of 7 PM, but the promise is by midnight tonight.

We had no food or the ability to cook any so we tried to find a restaurant for lunch.  Local Hooters lost all food.  Applebees was closed. Closest Publix was closed but we couldn't cook anything anyway.  Finally found a Flippers Pizza and enjoyed a pie.  It was missing a few ingredients, but tasted fine anyway.

AC has been on since about 1600 and it's going to feel good to get some sleep in the cool.

Thanks to all for their kind thoughts and prayers.  We really dodged a bullet--with the Good Lord's help.

Crusader Rabbit

[Big Frank]

I wouldn't say I'm prepared for emergencies but I have some basic things covered for other reasons.

The bottom half of my chest freezer is filled with gallon milk jugs full of water. The fuller the freezer is the more efficiently it works as long as you have some spaces for air to circulate. It's jam packed right now because I bought so much frozen food yesterday but it's usually not that full. I never hear it run because it's so quiet but I don't think it cycles on and off very much. The power went out for several hours earlier this year or sometime last year and I never opened the freezer door at all. When the power came back on everything was still frozen solid. That was the longest my power ever went out but it could go out longer in the winter because of ice storms. I wouldn't worry about the freezer as much then as when it's 90 degrees. If you put jugs of water in your freezer like I did don't fill them all the way to the top. Give them about 3 inches of expansion room. Experiment a little to get them as full as you want without splitting open. I have pieces of plywood on top of some so I have a flat surface to stack everything on.

I recently gave a small heater I bought for camping but haven't used in several years to a friend. It runs off disposable propane tanks. I still have a propane cook stove brand new in the box. It looks like a steel bowl that screws onto the top of a propane bottle. I much prefer the short, fat 16.4 ounce bottles to the tall skinny ones since they're more stable and they hold more, but you can use either one. I thought the skinny ones were 16 ounces but when I looked online they're only 14.1 ounces. The prices of the 14.1 ounce and 16.4 ounce bottles used to be the same or very close. I stocked up several years ago when they were on sale for I believe half price and haven't bought one since. I still have about 8 or 10 of them in the basement. My propane stove puts out 10,000 BTUs which is more than double the maximum that the heater puts out. I'll use it to stay warm if I have to. I can also cook outdoors on a pair of pocket sized stoves I have and army surplus trioxane fuel tabs. Esbit hexamine tabs work great too. They both have nearly infinite shelf lives but trioxane tabs look weird when they get old. Clear crystals form on them but they still burn good and don't make any smoke.

There are some other things I bought for camping that I can use in emergencies. I have a dual tube fluorescent lantern that I use when camping that runs on 2 6 volt lantern batteries. I only use one tube since it's about the same brightness as two, and I save the second tube as a spare that's already in place. The batteries are cheap and last for years, and if I get desperate I can get more off the flashing lights on top of orange barrels in construction zones. We have construction 9 months out of the year so they should be easy to find. I also taped aluminum foil around half of the lantern so all the light shines out the front. It looks brighter and I can carry it without the light shining back in my eyes.

There are other things for camping that are good in emergencies but for me the main things are enough heat to keep me alive and light so I can see what I'm doing. I also have some small LED flashlights from Harbor Freight. I got them all free with coupons but had to buy something to use the coupon for most of them. I have them in my house and truck and in a bag that I carry in the cargo box of my ATV.

[Sponsor]

[Timothy]

More good news, Mr. Rabbit!  Stay safe..

Looks like Jose is going to give us a little blow on Monday/Tuesday.  Nothing to worry about up here unless he turns due north at the last minute.  Preparedness is something I'm comfortable with.  Like Frank, we Northerners have a different list of priorities.  Water and shelter are the common issues we all face.

I keep a a good deal of water handy, fill the tub to flush the crapper, gas grill to cook on if we lose power for any length of time.  During Bob back in 91, we had a condo park cookoff with all the food we were going to lose during the 10 days of no power.  Fed more than our neighborhood and made some good friends!

I can always make fire, fix a boo boo, protect my stuff, build a lean too, stay somewhat warm with the pack I carry in both vehicles... even carry a small forest ax.

[Big Frank]

Speaking of vehicles, I have an air mattress in the back of my truck. My truck is a long bed, 8 feet long, and I keep the air mattress in there inflated at all times, unless I need to haul something. There's plenty of room between it and the tailgate to put over a dozen bags of groceries and it keeps them from sliding around. On top of the air mattress is a large duffel bag. Inside are my sleeping bag and insulated blanket that I use when camping. If my truck breaks down in the winter I can stay warm until help arrives. I also have a plastic tote in the truck all the time full of gear like a bow saw, tarps, bungee cords, and jumper cables. I've helped a lot of people jump start their cars but never my own. The air mattress keeps the box from sliding around. I have a first aid kit, flashlight, and toolkit in the cab too. I don't have any food or water in the truck but really should have a couple of bottles of water. I have a shovel that started out as a military surplus entrenching tool, and a hammer I made from a Vietnam tomahawk in the back too. Both have steel pipe handles welded on and could be deadly weapons. I use the hammer to set up my tent. I needed a hammer in the truck more than a tomahawk since I already keep a full size ax in there. If I had a passenger car I would carry most of those things in the trunk. You never know when you might need them.

[Timothy]

Surfs up from Jose in southern Maine!

[jaybet]

We have family in your area so we knew that you escaped the worst of it. Thank God.

You all are very important people.

[Rastus]

I'm really glad all of the "family" in Florida and along the east coast made it in as good a shape as you did. 

This thread has also been a good review on preps.  I'm in the throes of getting a generator and have a line on the Lister cold start diesels.  Les's observation about lights with standard (AA in this case) batteries was good and that Nitecore charger is an excellent choice (got one).  A 100 or 200 watt solar panel with an AC inverter would be good to feed the Nitecore with...I should try to find a good one if anyone here is please share the information.

Maybe we should start a new thread in the "Best Defense Survival" Topic just for equipment updates and ideas?