Getting hit by lightning is not fun! If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, which include moving to the SW, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo, use the options in the Tip Jar in the upper right, or drop me a line to discuss other methods. It is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.
NOTE: This is a (very) rough draft
Expanding Your Resources
Alright, now that you have started thinking about food and water, let’s expand things a bit. The next resources to think about are light, the ability to cook or heat your food, and heating.
I really do think that if you could do a study, the lights (power) going out is probably the most common “disaster” we face on a regular basis. It is probably the most frustrating thing, because just as the water goes out right when you’ve soaped up, the lights always go out as you are doing something important. For a number of reasons, I want to focus right now just on light and we will tackle the larger issue of power later.
There are a number of options available to you. Just to name a few: flashlights, battery-powered mountable LED lights, camping lanterns (electric and gas fuel), candles, oil lamps, and chemical lights/glow sticks. There not being that one magical list of items that works for everyone in every situation, you need to decide what mix of items works for you.
For example, candles and oil lamps can be part of your decor. The latter are not just the old-fashioned kind, but newer ones that are very modern looking. With practical preparedness the idea is to have the items do more than one thing. It’s like Alton Brown’s rule on kitchen items: most kitchen items need to be useful for several things. Your choices for preparedness should do the same. While there are a few things that only have one use, most of what you get for preparedness should pull double or triple duty. Even if that duty is to be decorative.
Another bit of food for thought is that whatever you get, get spares and if batteries are used get spare batteries too. If you have a flashlight on a shelf at the top of the stairs, put spare batteries with it. Because if you go down into the dark basement without a light because the batteries are dead, you frankly deserve to have the monster get you, or find out the sewage is backed up the hard way. It’s about as bright as standing artistically in front of the archery targets in one of those teen camp slasher porn movies. So, unless you want the monster to get you, don’t do that.
A further bite of food for thought: it’s not a bad idea to have emergency lighting that can be used in a hazardous environment. There are any number of things that can cause gas pipes to rupture, fuel to spill, or otherwise create an environment where not only is the smoking lamp out, you don’t want cheap electronics or other items generating sparks. While you can spend as much as you want to on hazard-rated lights, you might be surprised at how many of the newer (and inexpensive) flashlights are actually sealed. Look around at what’s available, think about it, then choose wisely.
Back when I had a house in a more rural location, every room had a small plastic storage bin that contained scissors, utility knife, tape, tacks, brads, hammer, tarp, flashlight, chem light, spare batteries, and a small first aid kit. The idea being I had light and a means of covering holes/busted windows, and taking care of boo-boos at hand no matter what. If gas was an issue, I could use the chem light instead of the flashlight at need. Also, for long-term light, the chem light was the better choice.
Which gets to an important point in thinking about what mix works best for you: duration. Give yourself as many options as you can. Church pillars are designed to burn for hours, so used judiciously they can last for weeks at need. There are candle lanterns that use long-lasting candles (as well as bug repellent candles). My favorite brand of lights has an option of a USB rechargeable battery that I can even recharge using the hand crank on the emergency radio. Bit more on that when we talk power, but look at all the options open to you to make your light mix last.
Also, as you work up your plan, be thinking about where to put what type of light. Where practical, you may want to put a mirror up nearby to help bounce the light (or reflect sunlight further inside). In an emergency, when the lights go out, I’ve been known to put aluminum foil up on the wall behind candles and omni-directional lights to put as much light as possible out into the room.
Now, let’s look at using the light that comes out of your plan to do something extremely important: cook and heat your food and drink. Vehicles hit power poles and take down lines. Construction crews dig into gas lines. Things happen. I don’t know about you, but I’m not giving up my coffee or food because someone else did something stupid.
Again, there are a number of options. The portable butane chef stoves you see at a lot of brunches, or events where cooking is being done on the spot, used to be relatively inexpensive though I hear that’s changing. Keep in mind butane does not work in cold weather. There are a number of propane or liquid-fuel small camping stoves available. Better yet, there are even multi-burner propane stoves and ovens that can handle large scale cooking. Grills make an excellent option as well. Got a fireplace? Guess what, it’s can be fun to cook over a fire.
Find a mix that works for you while giving you both flexibility and durability. By durability I don’t just mean the product lasting, but the ability to get fuel for it even in an emergency. For example, a good charcoal grill can also handle wood, which is likely to be available no matter what (even if you have to go cut it). Having more than one type of fuel is also a good thing for your ability to handle moderate to major disasters.
To help with your planning, allow me to share a real-life experience that may help. Where I’m currently living, we experienced a power failure which took out the lights and stove. My bedroom and bathroom are in the basement. I needed to get to work. So, I broke out the camping lanterns and used one to light my room, one to light the common area of the basement, and one to light the bathroom (yes, I already have hooks in place to hang them at need).
I put up two in the kitchen, pulled out a propane camping stove and set it up on top of the regular stove. I cooked breakfast, cleaned up, got my shower (water was still going) using the remaining hot water in the water heater (note: a number of gas appliances will not run if the electricity is off, “safety” feature). As I did all this, I turned off lights when not needed and otherwise minimized my resource usage.
Net result, I had my regular breakfast and coffee, and had no issues making it to work on time. For all that I might be a bit of a coffee head, one of the reasons I use a French Press to make my coffee is that I’m not dependent on electricity to make it. For all that I like the taste better anyway, it doesn’t matter if the water is heated on a stove or over a fire as I huddle in the ruins of civilization, you just need hot water. And coffee, of course. If I did engage in preparedness, you can be sure I would have some tucked away. Cough. Remember the first rule of preparedness club…
The last truly crucial element for survival, and the start of surviving in style, is heating. Cooling, while I do love my air conditioning, is not essential. Even in most temperate zones, having heating comes in handy in an emergency, especially if you are wet or cleaning up after flooding. In large swaths of the world, heating is essential so that you don’t freeze to death in the winter.
Again, there are options for you to explore. Do you have a fireplace? The option to add a wood stove? Portable indoor-use kerosene and propane heaters are available at most home supply stores. They may also be useful for keeping water warm or hot, or even doing some light cooking over them. The key is going to be the ability to store fuel for them so that you can use them as needed in a moderate or major disaster.
Just be sure that what you are looking at are rated for indoor use. There are a number of heaters that are not, and require extra ventilation if they can be used inside at all. You don’t want to freeze, but you also don’t want to either burn up or die of carbon monoxide poisoning. If battery-powered smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are not already a part of your life, make them part of you preparedness planning. They are essential now, and critical in the aftermath of a disaster.
I would also highly recommend good cold weather clothing be a part of your preparedness planning. Fuel shortages, regulations, and other delights can impact anywhere, and even if you are prepared you need to consider wearing extra clothing to cut down on use of your preparedness resources. Get extra blankets and throws now as well, as there may be a run on them in the not too distant future.
Guess what? You now have the basics in place to develop a plan that will provide you water, food, light, the ability to cook, and the ability to heat in the face of disaster. In other words, you have the basics of survival at your fingertips. Now, in the next chapter, let’s look at adding some other resources to your planning mix to take that up to surviving in style.
The book as it goes:
Preparedness Pays: Draft Introduction
Candles – As LW said, pillar candles last a long time. If you’re using tapers (long, skinny candles) get a few large (16-18 oz) cheap metal “camping style” flat bottom mugs and some dry sand. Put candle in empty mug, pour sand around it to nearly fill the mug. The sand will hold it securely, will not burn, and the mug handle makes it easy to carry the candle around.
Lights – headlamps are much many handy. Get several good ones (yes, a good to very good headlamp – like a Petzl – will cost a few bucks) and keep them in strategic places. My preference is for the ones that use AAA batteries rather than rechargeable because I can put spare batteries in my pocket but might not be able to recharge one when there’s no power. YMMV.
Speaking of recharging, something like a 10,000 – 20,000 ma (milliamp) Anker “power bank” to recharge stuff is very useful. The 10k ones are about $25. YMMV, but I buy well known brand names here, not the cheaper “strange name” stuff. Oh, and develop a “recharge schedule” for it to make sure it’s close to fully charged when you need it – quarterly seems to work, put a reminder note on your wall calendar. You can get the lunchbox-size “power packs” that have much larger capacity, but the 10-20K ones aren’t much bigger than your phone, fit easily in a pocket, and will recharge a phone 3-5 times or a headlamp 6-8 times. (And while you’re sitting in the dark waiting for your headlamp to recharge, I’ve already swapped the AAA batteries in mine and gone on with life.)
And, if you have a lot of rechargeable stuff, 120 volt duplex receptacles are available that have two 120 volt polarized receptacles AND a pair of 5 volt USB ports. Replace a couple regular duplex receptacles in strategic locations with these to make it easier to keep rechargeable stuff recharged.
Also RE: candles. Do you have fire extinguishers? Several of them? Buried behind stuff in back of the kitchen sink cabinet, or where you can reach them quickly? FYI, CO2 puts out fires quickly without the mess of a dry chemical extnguisher but CO2 is a LOT more expensive. A pressurized water extinguisher is very useful but do not use it on grease or electrical fires. Fire blankets are handy, and fairly cheap, too. A damp (not “soaked” just “damp”) towel will also work well as a fire blanket but you won’t have time to “make it damp.” A box of baking soda kept handy can be used to put out stove-top fires (shouldn’t have to say this, but “pour the baking soda from the box onto the fire” because I’m sure there’s someone who will set the unopened box on the fire).
Also, think UPSes – the battery backups, not the delivery service. A large – 1500 VA – Uninterruptible Power Supply can power a lot of stuff AND protect valuable electronics from surges at the same time. APC (American Power Conversion) makes a 1500 VA UPS that also has a 1500 VA ‘companion” battery pack to double capacity. The UPS you use to keep your computer running in case of power interruptions can power a 50-light string of LED Christmas lights for about 35 hours. I put one on the bookshelf in the bedroom and plugged the dresser-top lamp into it so that I always have a light to use even if the power is out. I have a 1000 VA wall-mounted UPS in the garage next to my tankless natural gas water heater to protect its electronics and provide up to 12 4-minute hot showers even when there’s no power (tankless NG and LP water heaters consume about 75-90 watts, but ONLY while they’re making hot water).
Pro Tip: Get some red LED bulbs for power outages (I have a couple 2-bulb lamps that have 1 of the bulbs a red LED) because a 6-watt LED bulb doesn’t draw much power (that UPS thing again) and red light preserves night vision, exposure to white light destroys night vision instantly (research “visual purple” for more info). If you ever served shipboard you’ll remember “going red” at local sunset. When power is out and there is no light anywhere it’s very useful to have adequate night vision, a “tactical advantage,” even.
A Pringles can makes a decent expediant candle lantern. Inside is nice and shiny. Not too greasy, at least, I never saw one burst into flames…
Not a bad idea, and a pringle or any chip can and will burn as a short-term torch or fire-starter.