I want a good supply of medicines, basics like Benadryl, acetaminophen, naproxen, etc. My biggest concern in an EOTW as we know situation though would be my daughter's insulin and there is not a darn thing I could do about it, so I try not to think about it too much.

I used to worry about doomsday when I was a child in the 1950s and constantly saw messages on TV telling me to "Duck and cover" in case of nuclear attack, and there were Civil Defense shelters all over the place. We also had bomb drills at elementary school. I was so afraid of nuclear war as a child that I vowed never to bring a child into a world that was only going to be destroyed by a nuclear explosion. I am somewhat less pessimistic now but do see overpopulation as a real threat at this time. At this point, I do not think doomsday will happen in my lifetime, and so I have not prepared for it, although to look at my pantry, you would think that I have. I am really not interested in surviving beyond the collapse of civilization.

I have no intention of preparing for "doomsday" - I have more faith in out people and our government than that. We've survived far worse over time.

What I DO prepare for, however, is tornados as I live in "tornado alley". When the sirens go off (usually in the middle of the night), I immediately grab my pets and take them to the basement where I have a huge crate for the dogs. When I had cats, I had another big crate with a loft in it, and always kept a disposable cat box in (and doors closed so it wouldn't be "pre-used") and a few extras. I keep plastic and metal water bowls for pets in the basement at all times.

After animals are safely down, I run back upstairs and grab a tote bag and throw in ALL my medicine. While I'm doing this, I turn on the TV to see just how close it is - if there is time, I take another tote bag and load it up with all my good jewelry, and yet another tote bag and grab as many framed family photos as I have time for.

Then I head to the basement, too. I have a basement garage, so my car is already down there. I keep my handbag/wallet etc in the basement near the entrance to the garage. I also keep my cell phone plugged in on that same table. I have a TV and my desktop computer down there, as well. There is also a daybed and tons of old bedding/pillows if it's going to be a long night. I used to keep bottled water, but have not done so lately. I also keep extra pet food down there.

I have a whole house generator fueled by natural gas. So, I'm about as prepared as one can be. So far, so good since we moved here in 1984. A few limbs down and once an entire big tree, but that's been it. Fingers crossed!

My attitude is "que cera,-cera". I've previously sometimes prepped for, but lived through, thankfully, just about everything: hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunami's, floods, mud slides, wild fires, avalanches, severe ice storms, blizzards, lots of earthquakes, typhoons, even Mt. St. Helen's volcanic eruption (50 mi. away). The prep I do now is to just having a good pair of shoes in each car and at the back/front doors, knowing where the fire-proof safe is that holds my precious family photos, where the fire extinguishers and flashlights are, extra medications in a few other places than the house and my purse; blankets and canned water in different places, and phone numbers of friends and family to get help or to say we're OK taped to my cell phone, plus DH's ham radio location. You can't live your life being scared. You can't totally prep survival if it is your time. You can also be stupid and not even have a bucket to fill with water from wherever or know which direction to go to to find it. Food is way down the list.

Agmss15, I think why most of us go to real disaster prep ideas, rather than doomsday, is the necessity of the real as opposed to the anxiety of the hypothetical. I think the current political situation in the world looks more like a pendulum swing back, which is inevitable, rather than a true change of course. I hope I'm right. So many of the young people around the world seem to care so much about sustainable agriculture, social justice, and getting away from the culture of lying and cheating that has taken over so many institutions, both public and private, and which has been a norm for so much longer in so many places, I have hope for the future.

plllog, I am cautiously optimistic about the future of the world also, although none of us really know when the end times will come.

In the event of extended power outages for whatever reason, though, prescription medications are the thing that also concerns me. Both daughters and one grandson are on anti-convulsants and it's very dangerous to just stop taking those.

My dogs eat what I eat and my livestock can forage if necessary. It gets darned cold in Michigan in the winter though, and if necessary we could use wood to heat and cook. My canned goods could feed us for months, even if there was no power for the freezers. I do have corn and wheat and can grind my own. I'm usually stocked up on toilet paper and have water available. Cell phones don't work out here, so no data saved, LOL, and my days are usually happier without the constant bombardment of information.

I think coffee would be my biggest issue, or at least my most immediate one. I've even heard of people canning water, though.

Annie

I have canned water, just filling my canning jars as they are emptied, then water bath processing them. If you have to store canning jars, why not store them filled with potable water vs. empty?

"Olychick

I have canned water, ----"

Why bother? You can buy dehydrated water. Organic, gluten free. Plenty online, including Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Future-Essentials-Organic-Dehydrated-Water/dp/B00BQ1VD6W

Or make your own if you have a dehydrator.

dcarch

I had to click on that link and see that it's frequently sold with canned Unicorn meat! Thanks for the laugh.

:) Nice to see all the sensible answers for civil disaster preparedness. Agree that laying in supplies to deal with disasters that interrupt supply chains, including water, is sensible. Not doing so is very foolish and irresponsible.

Disruption of systems resulting in loss of delivery of energy, food, water and other services is the most likely very large-scale, life-threatening disaster that could happen over an entire region or regions, making it very important that people be able to shelter in their own sustainable homes until things normalize again.

Goodness knows, ALL NGO and government agencies that deal with disasters strongly recommend it and publish lists of suggestions. They know need in a widespread disaster would quickly overwhelm the resources of local, state and federal governments.

Also, the Obama administration required/recommended (?) local governments all set up very detailed plans for just this. State guard and other units would likely quickly block highways and other routes for those who, lacking information, were trying to drive away to somewhere the lights were still on. Federal law now, among many other things, also empowers local authorities to confiscate anything needed for the general good. This is real.

Our own preparedness for sheltering at home is just more of what we'll use anyway, including medications and vitamins. We live in the country and do use canned goods, so we just stock up extras of what we'd be buying over the next year anyway. I picked up several jars of Herdez salsa and tins of kipper snacks on sale a couple of weeks ago.

More basically, we also have over 100 pounds of rice and about half as much of dried beans--a complete protein together--that'd carry the two of us through at least several weeks. The rice especially is very inexpensive and can just be stored away in an insect-resistant container for years and will always be there in case. Salt and sugar also.

Agmss15, I haven't been thinking in terms of cookies. It's all just-in-case, and I figure if it actually came to it feeling too sick of rice and beans to eat another bite would be a temporary, self-correcting situation. :)

There was a particularly extreme ice storm here in the late 90s. I wasn't living here at the time. Ice storms are incredibly lovely and dangerous for those who haven't experienced one. I prefer snow any day. During this particular storm there was a delicate mist of ice falling that just didn't stop for days and days. Huge ice build ups. Lots of downed trees and lines. Birches bent over and often stayed that way. I think half of Maine or more lost power - in some cases for weeks. The people who lived most primitively fared the best - wood heat, hand pumped well water (or in my mom's case gravity fed) etc...

Thinking about it a bit more, if I were preparing for an end of civilization type scenario, one thing I would want a large stock of would be salt as there is no local source. We could shoot some meat (deer, rabbits, etc). and grow vegetables but salt is just not readily available.

While I am not preparing for a collapse and not even really preparing for a natural disaster (the ones that come way are either get out quick like a wildfire or hunker down like a snow storm which normally just lasts a couple of days here), I try to maintain 6-12 months worth of staples in my pantry. I figure that it inures me against a much more probable calamity such as a change in financial fortunes. If we have a bad couple of months, I still have the condiments, grains, spices, etc. to still eat well.

For those interested in keeping an emergency stock of food in a small space I think this is helpful (direct PDF link):

Stockpiling Food for Small Spaces and Small Budgets - A Common ...

I got this from someone here. I think it may have been grainlady who posted it. If not, apologies that I don't remember.

Peanut butter and jelly (I have lots of strawberry jam from last summer), bread, of course. and cases and cases of cat food.

Agmass, we were in Maine during that ice storm and it was a doozy. We were living in a firm faculty apt at a boarding school on the ME/NH border. We were awakened I. The middle of the night by the sound of huge pine tree limbs, crashing down. Sounded like Armaggedon! We were very grateful our car was not hear any trees but many others at the school were not so lucky.

It's astounding how quickly a residence can become bitterly cold with no heat. We spent most of the day in bed with multiple cats and dogs under a very heavy down comforter and other covers on top. We wore parkas, hatstand gloves. Too dark to do much reading. Luckily, the dining hall was working on backup generators so we could go get hot meals. The school was on the same grid as the Police and volunteer FD so the had priority to get power back - it was back on in about 24 hours.

The school was very generous to the entire community - all could come and eat - no charge - use the showers in the gym and the washers and dryers in the dorms. Some areas were out for 2 weeks.

Eight years ago, KY got hit with a similar storm. Luckily, my DD and two DGS were in Paris. SIL had a generator and a fireplace to survive at their house. My pet sitter ended up dumping my dogs on a near stranger and abandoned my house. DD got power back while we were driving home from Cincinnati- I got mine back the next day but it took a 2nd day for the house to warm up enough to move back from DD's were dogs and I stayed. KY is not used to things like this. The city finally got all the downed limbs and branches picked up right before Derby. Don't want to make a bad impression on those well- heeled race goers!

Living in the mountains I always have a good supply of just
about everything. When we first moved here 35 years ago the main canyon road
was closed for 3 months luckily that was in the spring and we had a few other
ways out. With the storms we has a few weeks ago the main canyon road and one
other were closed due to rock slides and flooding most of the week the other
2 had snow. They had to helicopter
medical emergencies out and even the mail didn’t come. Don’t really know why
other that the snow was really heavy and wet but trees were falling over
everywhere we lost 2, one fell across the street and one across the creek plus
large branches all over. County roads took care of the one in the street and
our tree guy is coming next week to clean up the rest.

We have a propane fire place and 2 wall heaters that don’t
need electricity, tankless propane water heaters that don’t use electricity
plus a propane Weber grill, pizza oven and a big green egg and propane cook top
so we figure we could get by for 6 or so months.

We keep cases of bottled water, DH supplies to the gun club,
plus we have a river within walking distance. Thankfully neither of us in our
mid seventies takes any prescription medications but I do keep a supply of over
the counter first aid items, aspirin, Rolaids and that kind of stuff. One
neighbor is a minister one is a doctor and her sister owns the local brewery so
we figure we are set for any emergency.

Olychick, I agree that canning water isn't a bad idea, if you have empty jars on your shelf they might as well be full of something useful. I just haven't done it because my shelves are already full of canned goods. My jars are stored in the garage, where they could freeze. They'd probably be just fine, but I'd rather avoid the mess of breakage, so I don't can water. Doesn't mean I won't ever, though.

I also got a kick out of that link. "Related items" displayed for me were the Unicorn meat, as well as a child's book called "The Night Dad Went to Jail" and a DIY book about making your own coffin!

Annie

Anglophilia - I saw another thread where you mentioned living in ME NH at a school.

I have a childhood friend lives at/lived at a boarding school in the same area. Her husband teaches there I believe. I can't remember the name. I wonder if it is the same school?

Edit: The White Mountain School

Now it looks like she is teaching in coastal Maine near their summer home.

Salt, oil, yeast, vinegar, baking soda.... I usually have a large container of vinegar and baking soda around because I use them for cleaning too.

Further afield - whenever I find old carbon steel knives I try to buy them. I used to think about (but haven't really implemented) buying old tools in general - made with better quality metal & just saving them. Garden, woodworking etc... I think I picked that up from my dad. Six years after his death and we still haven't full inventoried the his collection of old woodworking tools. Some usable, some lovely and others just old..

If you live around San Francisco, preparation needs to be ASAP.

It has been warned that the "Big One" can come anytime. Like next hour, tomorrow, next week?

dcarch

Whoa... be safe all!

....But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great
And would suffice.

agmss15 & anglophilia: yes, even in our more southern climate, our next door neighbor was stuck for several days in the same or similar ice storm. I guess she was lucky that roads must have been passable after a couple days because she was able to drive to her minister's house and take a shower. I think running water would be the most obvious severe inconvenience. We have only seen the beautiful affects from an ice storm.

But back to drinking water: my mother used to can some jars of water but I think that was unnecessary because of the water heater supply mentioned above. Aside from space, each empty canning jar would also waste a sealing lid that among other things might be useful for canning the hoped for next fall's produce from the even dispensation of farmers rains throughout the doomsday summer!??

I doubt that most of us could really handle extended problems. However, just being a COSTCO member creates short term preparation. Canned goods, rice, beans, toilet paper; check, check, check, check!

We live between three Nike missile bases, left over from the Cold War, two have been deactivated, but one is still ready to go live.

So we are pretty much doomed.

Our blanket fort is always pretty well stocked. We live a ways from a grocery store and I hate to run out of anything. I try to stay a year ahead on home canned stuff in case something fails the next year.

It's not unusual for our power to go out for several days at a time. The generator is wired in so it's a minor inconvenience as long as there's gas. We cook on an old wood cookstove in the winter anyway, so we use the generator mostly to keep the fridge and freezers going and the pressure tank filled. And lights, internet and tv.

In the long term we'd be ok for quite awhile (depending on the catastrophe). We have enough fuel to run the freezers long enough to give me time to can or dry whatever I could. There's a log truck load of firewood piled at the shop....and hopefully enough chainsaw gas to cut it up. There's a big drum of stove oil that can be used in kerosene lamps. Our well is shallow and taps into an underground spring. If we had to, we could put a hand pump on it.

In the really long term, I'd be glad I've saved seeds from a lot of what we grow.

A house near us was recently listed by a realtor catering to the great American redoubt crowd. It sold within days. I looked at the website and the new thing seems to be million dollar+ homes way out in the boontoolies with panic rooms and fully stocked pantries. One picture of an emergency food stash featured Spam and Velveeta, lol.

A couple of ideas for you to consider:

1. Your food-safe water supply may not last long. Get a few 50 gallon trash cans ($25?) and put a contractor's trash bag inside to leak proof. 50 gallons of water can give you lots of cleaning water, especially in the hot sweaty summer with no air cond.

2. If you can't have a generator, get a DC 12V inverter (300watts to 1000 watts, $30 to $200). You can plug in your car to run your PC, charge cell phone, run lights, TV etc.

3, Search posts by Grainlady. She is an expert in preparedness. (solar cookers, foods, etc. )

Grainlady if you are reading, we need your help!

dcarch

Yes grainlady!

Lars... duck & cover?? I'm going to have to start looking at "ancient" building that have been around since the 50s for that fall-out shelter sign. When I taught in an alternative school, it was an OLD, 2-story, stone building and it had one of those signs. Later I wondered... where in the building was that area and were there and relics inside?

Here iin NJ, we're in prime snow storm season. Seems like majority of residents go totally "Chicken Little" at the first mention of snow. I can only remember ONE snow that left me and neighbors on our circle stranded... and that was for less than 2 days. Streets get cleared in order of "importance" so guess our 7 houses don't rate. When forecast is for an amount of snow that culd be more than just a nuisance, I do a mental grocery list. Do I have cat food and itter? Check! Do I have toilet paper? Check! Do I have coffee? Could do tea for a day or 2. I don't even think survival food... between pantry and freezer, I surely wouldn't starve. I just make sure I have GOOD "junk food".

I'm not a card carrying member of The French Toast Club!

I'm not a member of theFrench Toast Club either, but evidently they have a facebook page. I also never went into one of the CD bomb shelter sites - I just saw signs on buildings indicating that certain buildings (particularly downtown) had them, and they had signs with just CD on them. It was a bit unnerving to see those signs. I never thought about what might have happened to those shelters.

I generally drink a cup of tea in the morning, but if I do not have it, I don't miss it. I know that people who drink coffee can go through withdrawals if they do not have it, and that to me seems like a good enough reason not to drink it at all.

Later I wondered... where in the building was that area and were there and relics inside?

It mostly wasn't anything as special as you might think. I can remember being taken on a tour of something or other with my class as a child and for the local shopping center we were shown the "bomb shelter, " which was just the inner part of the parking garage, the area near the elevators. IIRC after all this time, they did keep a few cases of bottled water on hand.

I remember doing duck and cover, too, and during the Cuban missile crisis, in Miami we all had to wear dog tags (our first sets were recalled as not being fireproof enough) and those of use who lived within a 15-minute walking distance had to wear a special little ribbon badge. I did, and I often thought a lot about what those 15 minutes would be like.

ETA Now that I think about it, I believe the water was military issue canned water, not bottled, so that brings us back to the original topic.

I have to imagine that the Cuban missile crisis would have been very scary for anyone living in Miami at that time. We lived seven miles north of Temple, Texas, which is now part of the Killeen/Temple/Fort Hood metro area, but in the 1950s, Temple was much larger than Killeen and was the main shopping center for the area. Back then, we had no malls, and everyone shopped in downtown Temple, including soldiers from Fort Hood, but they most went to the pawn shops on Second Street or else looked for hookers on Eighth Street, which was considered the most dangerous street in town, as prostitutes would get in the car with you if you stopped at a red light with doors unlocked. Anyway, all the stores were downtown, as were the CD shelters, although I think Temple High School also had one. Fort Hood was considered a major military target, and so that made living close to it scarier. Also, they did a lot of testing that sounded like bombs going off and they also tested planes that made sonic booms when they broke the sound barrier, causing windows in the house to rattle. They started building shopping malls in Waco in the 1960s, causing the decline of downtown Waco. I much preferred shopping downtown, and I'm still not a fan of malls.

Our family had its own water wells, as my great-grandfather was a water-witcher (according to my grandmother), and he dug a lot of wells, including a very deep artesian well that provided water for an entire community. In fact, my grandmother owned the water works for the entire town, but she never forced people to pay their water bills, as she thought that water should be free. My father had to do the bill collecting for her. When the town incorporated, my family sold the water works to the town. We used to have a pumping station in town where people could buy water to fill their tanks to deliver water to their cows, and I used to have to fill a tank of water on a trailer that I pulled with a pickup to deliver to my father's cows, but I was not a very good driver (especially when pulling a trailer with a full tank of water), and once I ripped off a side of the building where the water pumping station was, and then when I got to the field where the cows were, I somehow managed to turn the trailer over with the tank of water. My father was very mad, but I was only about fifteen at the time, and did not have sufficient driving skills.

I remember the drills - hide under the desks, or go out into the hallway, where you'd crouch by the walls and kids from the 7th and 8th grades would hover over and protect us younger ones.

I remember thinking this was just another thing we did that made no sense that we weren't supposed to question aloud.

I mean, New York city, Manhattan? Nuke target number one or two... right, our precautions were going to make any difference?

"----I mean, New York city, Manhattan? Nuke target number one or two... right, our precautions were going to make any difference?"

Actually, it may not make much common sense, but I think NYC, San Francisco, Washington, etc. would be very safe. These are the cities which will be (are) protected by extra extreme defense measures.

dcarch

Not back then, though, dcarch. I can remember even at 7 years old being amused by our relatives in other parts of the country who wanted my parents to send the kids to them so we'd be safer.

I agree, artemis. As it happens I had read John Hersey's Hiroshima when I was 6, so I knew what could happen. And my best friend from high school, who lives in a suburb of NY always used to say that if they had enough warning she and her husband would go into Manhattan so it would be over in a flash.

If NYC is under a direct hit, there will be many survivors.

Tall buildings can shield a lot of blast energy, many buildings have multiple basements, subway tunnels, etc.

dcarch

Well, they were not thinking of heading for the subway, but for someplace like Central Park or a restaurant with a terrace. Their survival odds were much better at home in their own basement and they knew this.

The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming

One of the few comedies from that era that's still funny today. And I love seeing Mendocino when it was just a country village.

Emergency! Everybody to get from street.

The population of Mendocino (the town) today is 894, and so it is still a country village. Kevin and I visited there August 2001. We stayed with a friend of mine at Sheep Dung Properties.

I've not seen The Russians Are Coming, but I pretty much love all movies that feature Jonathan Winters.

Writersblock, a friend an I were just talking about that. Two of my favorites are Fitzwilly and Prudence and the Pill. I love all the moving parts. :) And I love when a film is better than the book! Unless you meant Cold War era, rather than mid-'60's? The only other ones that come to mind are Strangelove, which was really too serious to be frothy, and The Mouse that Roared, which wasn't nearly as good as the stage version, though I think the play was better than the book...

What a fascinating thread.

I'd already done my doomsday packing nearly 50 years ago. I'm talking Israel just before the Six Days War started. It was about 3 weeks before my 10th birthday. Bearing in mind that doomsday was near, I found a cardboard box and packed it with the biggest jar of instant coffee for my mother, who was addicted to caffeine at the rate of a cup per hour. To this I added a carton of cigarettes for my mother, who was also addicted to tobacco as in chain smoker. There wasn't much room left in that box, which was rather small, so I put in a bag of flour, a bag of sugar and a bottle of oil - all stolen from the kitchen. The carton of cigarettes I stole from my mother's hoard. I hid these life saving supplies in my tree house. My mother missed all those items, searched the yard and found the box while I was at school. She almost cried with emotion but insisted on using the coffee and cigarettes as per usual despite my stern admonitions. So much for doomsday preparations.

Trying to keep this thread on the light side of dark.... but my ancestors are rolling over in their graves right now....

I didn't go through the duck and cover era - though my mom certainly did in NJ - not so sure about my dad in Brooklyn. I saw the funny old videos about it as a kid.

I do remember people thinking about the/an apocalypse a lot when I was a teenager. But in a fairly unsophisticated way. The person speaking was always one of the few hale hearty survivors (hopefully with a cute member of the opposite sex - teenagers) was magically unhurt, and suddenly knew how to hunt, fish, garden like someone 200 years earlier with no learning curve. And ancestral memory rather than a learned skill.

My parents were a bit earlier than most back to the landers. But they always said with great respect that those that stayed in rural Maine found local people who taught them the way to chop firewood, what wood burns green, how to put up fences for livestock, to graft fruit trees, to make baked beans, to replace an axe handle etc.....

In our case those neighbors were Truman and Beulah - who must have found us to be very alien but were very kind. We were what Truman called the perfect distance neighbors - where you could just see the top of the chimney to see that all was well without getting into each other's business. Beulah was a grand story teller who relayed the most tragic personal tales in a very soft spoken undramatic way - very New England.

Back to food - the parents may have needed lessons in the practicalities of life in rural Maine. The children cherished these people for access to Marshmallow fluff and other delicacies. Homemade donuts yes - but also Twinkies. And Snowballs, pink marshmallowy balls of such sheer awfulness that I loved them. And that could safely be stored in a bomb shelter for decades....

Ok I am way too long winded in the AM.

Unless you meant Cold War era, rather than mid-'60's?

Not really. I was thinking more of the other work of many of the cast members around that time, like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, for example, which was a whole lot funnier then than now. :)

ETA Lars, you should search out Russians, then. I'm pretty sure you'd like it.

I'd be loading up on cured meats and lot's of jarred foods. I've done my fair share of canning and it's much easier than you'd think if you have never done it. I'd be looking for the most calorie dense things to jar as possible. Pigs feet anyone?

Agmss15, thank-you for the story. Truman and Beulah sound lovely! So unlike the anecdotes about people in Maine not talking to newcomers. :) The closest I've come to actual farm work, rather than planting a few edibles in the city or riding a long resigned to it horse, is painting a barn. :) I also know how to fish and shoot, but haven't since childhood. My survival skills are more on the organizational side. :)

Writersblock, I have to admit, I never knew It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was ever that funny. :\ I take your word for it!

I keep a few items around - canned sardines and anchovies for instant protein. I should keep a good stock of water around, but if it is a storm we tend to have some warning so I just fill things. (I see no point in BUYING water when it comes out of my tap for free.) Fill things for potable water, fill other containers for cleaning water, and the third category is for flushing water. I live on a well with a septic system.

One thing I recommend are those disposable gloves that food service people use - clear plastic of some sort, and cheaper than the yellow cleaning gloves (athough those are useful, too). They came in handy when I had to eat down my freezer (I have a grill) during one or another of our several 2011 major power outages. Yeah, chicken??? Handling RAW chicken? Limited water??? How long will the grid be down? Those gloves were the main lesson from those outages! I consider them essential.

I have a water purifying pump, which will be good when I move north, as there is a stream on my property there.

I do have about 2 months supply of food down here. Mind you, dining will get boring as the second month settles in, but hey. It will be balanced for my needs, and won't focus on things one really shouldn't be eating. And I can always vary things up with my extensive spice collection... When I move I hope to put in vegetables -- I'm already starting seeds for things I can transplant. Fresh veggies are a real must for me. I can live without wheat and most grains and sugars, and actually prefer to do so. I do have a good supply of beans (black, lentil).

My goal is to have a six month supply of food. This will include things I can grow fresh as well as what I dehydrate, can, or otherwise preserve. None of it would be junk food. (Frankly, I don't consider small quantities of quality DARK chocolate to be junk food.)

When we had the blizzard of 1978, we lived in Indianapolis, five blocks from the grocery store. Neither of us thought of preparation at the time and we had two large dogs. Well, we wound up with almost no TP and only enough dog food for a scant feeding. It was fun, but I swore I'd never be in a situation where I had to walk that distance and back for those two items. Everything else was okay. Today I always make sure I have a good supply both at all times.

Before we moved to the boonies, I was designing my house and researching what I would need. After a lot of research, I bought a Hopi Liberty wood burning stove. It provides heat efficiently, light and one level for cooking, the other for keeping things warm. I also bought a fan that works on the heat from the stove, not electricity, to distribute the heat. I have a good supply of wood both in the house and on the porch. I have lots of woods with deadfall as well. It took me a while to get the generator situation set up. The first one we had was a basic one with everything exposed. I sat and watched our little Australian Cattle dog destroy it while trying to get to a mouse inside the wiring. Didn't really realize what was going on. The next one was a Honda 200, totally enclosed. It sits on the porch ready for use at any time. There is also a larger, diesel powered generator in the motorhome. There's always lots of diesel in the motorhome and I keep all the vehicles full plus extra gas stored in the storage building. All of that is primarily to keep the fridge and freezer going although my late DH had to have the TV on. I do keep lots of flashlights, battery powered lights and batteries on hand. I've got candles, but prefer the battery powered while they last. Oh, I do have a portable radio and am a ham radio operator with both a handheld and a mobile unit.

The pantry, cupboard, fridge and freezer are fully stocked. Probably could last for several months at least. I have plenty of water, then there's the hot water heater. If we were due a violent storm, I'd also fill up the washer. I do have some natural springs on the property and a nice creek at the rear. The chickens give me about five eggs a day. I keep an extra 50 lbs. of chick feed and 40 lbs. of dog food on hand. I'd go without food before I'd let the girls or Sig go without.

When we first moved down here, it was not uncommon to wind up stranded if we had a big snowfall. The house is at the top of a very long, steep hill and they didn't have the equipment to clear our road. Heck, they usually couldn't get the nearby roads cleared. Now things are better. I just want to be prepared so if its bad and I don't want to go out, I don't have to and to be able to go for a long time in case of a natural disaster. We have had tornadoes go over our house and one went between the storage building and the house. No damage, knock on wood, other than the wheel chair ramp that weighs a ton winding up in the center of the drive. The master bath is situated very well in case of this and DH made sure the crawl space was extra deep.

As for a nuclear disaster or whatever, I don't worry because I figure it would wipe us all out anyway. Its not like it as back in the '50s, 60's, etc.

Madonna

Madonna -

I have a Lopi stove as well. Fabulous stoves! But I have the smallest model the Answer - the top is not hot enough for cooking. My only complaint about it.

It took me a year or so of living here full time before I got the internal fan. It is expensive but makes a huge difference. I still need to get one of those non-electric fans - good if the power is out - and I like it how it looks kind of steampunk.

I have a charcoal grill and a wood fired oven outside. So I can cook if the power is out. I need to perfect a method of using the charcoal from the WFO in the grill. When I bake bread I remove the coals while hot which makes a fair amount of charcoal. I have occasionally fished some out of my ash bucket but that is very

Snowing here today. Worse further south though. Maybe 6-8".

Lots of fun, then get to snug up inside. Best of all of it. :)

Of course, it's not just rural dwellers who can have these problems. The year we moved to the Atlanta/North Georgia area had a very bad ice storm, or two, that took out the power to hundreds of thousands of people, I think in February. In any case, tens of thousands of people had to evacuate their nice--often very nice--suburban homes, because those homes were built without a backup heat source.

We were fresh from Southern California, where power out in winter mostly means no TV, and listening to the news with our mouths hanging open. This could happen these days? To hundreds of thousands? Really? Most of it was from above-ground power lines being brought down, so why aren't they all below ground? Surely winter isn't a new thing...

We didn't know. We were just fortunate that our son had purchased a little old mobile home on a lake for us to stay in which had a gas range that was able to keep it warm. So we first listened to stories of mass evacuations in comfort in our little metal box (on a battery-operated radio) until the power was restored, then on the evening news.

In any case, where more rural communities were more affected was in how many days or weeks it took to restore power, efforts of course going first to more densely populated areas.

Now the house we built in a rural area with woods covering half our 5 acres has an EPA-certified wood-burning furnace in the fireplace (unfortunately without the outrgeously expensive pot and hanging arm accessories, Agmss). But we blew all our budget on that, no gas, something that always bothers me. Should at least put in a propane tank.

Agmss15, I just love my stove, too. The upper level is 12 1/2" by 30" with the stove pipe coming out the center. The lower level is 9" by 30 12". I like the fact that if I really wanted to I could cook the dreaded hot dog, too, just by opening the front door and having it on a metal stick. I know, I'm bad, but I love them. The fan I got is an EcoFan and it sits on top of the stove. I bought the smaller one which ran around $60 at Rural King. The young couple who bought the place next to mine are getting married in May and have listed an EcoFan on their bridal registry.

Hamamellis, yes, even people living in the cities need to be prepared. Last time I experienced a power outage, my power was back on 'way before some of the people in Indianapolis had theirs restored. We weren't really prepared until we moved to the boonies and we knew how vulnerable we would be. Actually, in really bad weather, I could move out to the motorhome because it is diesel and propane, self-contained, but we didn't have it until about 5 or 6 years age. We had propane for heating, hot water heater and cooking while we stayed in our mobile until we could get the house built, but I really don't like gas. Twice I had propane ovens blow up in my face, luckily with no burns, and I just flat don't like them.

My dear late husband scoffed at my preparedness. I'm not a survivalist, just like to be prepared for ?. However, he also came to appreciated my being prepared.

Madonna

No apocalypse but it is storming outside now.... Today was a lovely day with a steady light snow. I went snowshoeing and threw chunks of ice for my dog to kill. Now it's cold, windy, drifting and snowing harder..

With the Answer wood stove the lower level is maybe 2" deep. And the upper part is barely warm unless the fire is absolutely roaring. I can in a pinch grill meat directly over the coals in the stove. My aunt gave me some grill accoutrements in order to do just that. It is delicious but I can never quite figure out how to hold anything that close to the coals comfortably. My aunt does it in her tiny Jodul. Either her fingers are tougher or my larger bed of coals is hotter.

Hmmmm.... now I want to face my jumbled freezer to find some pork chops. I don't have any hot dogs at the moment.... maybe tomorrow.