Mrs. Krabappel
Minister of Fire
When I lived in soFL we got hit pretty hard by a hurricane. No surprise if you live there. Forecast for days in advance. THE NEXT DAY thousands of people were lined up for water, food and gas.
When the emergency came, here's what I learned . . .
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Okay, so I was a *touch* sardonic with the milk comment, but you have my sympathy w/the ice storm (moved a cord of cylindrical ice cubes out of my suddenly-vertical driveway in an ice storm in November, so yeah. Hunker down, plug the puter into a battery back-up system, and let us know how it goes.
Loco Gringo
Feeling the Heat
Shari said:
I dont know what hes luckier to have. You or his new ticker. Enjoy your lives together....forever.
Snag
New Member
Food spoilage shouldn't be a problem in the winter here as our garage makes a great giant walk in frig. If needed, we use the Honda freezer parked in the driveway ;-) Melting snow on the wood stove provides ample water to flush the toilet if we didn't think to fill the tub up before the power went out ;-) But that was before we bought the generator. I'm sure we'll never have a power outage again.
Carolyn
Carolyn
Emergencies can happen at anytime of the year. We've lost power for a week in spring with mild temps. But I know what you mean, our generator can sit idle, except for test runs, for a year.
remkel
Minister of Fire
As long as I have wood in the basement, food on the shelves, and fuel for the generator I do not mind any power outage. Have heavy snow with a changeover to ice going on today. Wood is in, wife just went shopping, and did a test run with the generator last week. setting in for a comfortable day.
velvetfoot
Minister of Fire
I'd like to point out to make sure you make sure the generator will power that well pump because startup current can be high.
Loco Gringo said:
Loco Gringo, you are a poet! and, you are right. Welcome to the forums~
Shari, I appreciate your sharing what you did. The movies all show the folks carrying around a beeper and exchanging poignant stares when it goes off. They don't show spouses out shoveling snow at 5 AM, or plugging in husbands when they go to bed.
I've thought about your post several times since I read it, and it's helped me put this in perspective. It's all about perceptions; if worse came to worst in my situation: garage burning down, house freezing up, those are all, at the end of the day, inconveniences. I was sitting in front of my fire at the end of the day with the boy sleeping peacefully in his room. I'd had a nice bowl of soup, and was listening to music playing in the sunroom, thinking that if I had a remote, I wouldn't have to go out there and switch CDs. I have a cord and a half of wood in dry storage under the porch, and another cord or so for the hauling uphill, an apparently clear stack, food in the pantry and frig, a job to go to in the morning, school for my son, and a car in the cool-but-not-cold garage to get us there. So far, the stove is keeping back the cold, and we're not out in it. Nobody's shooting at us. This does not fit my definiation of emergency.
I guess a better definition would be "in a situation where you don't feel bad about getting into the wood stash".
Thanks to those who are pointing out that its not enough to have the equipment--you need to put it through a run-up once in awhile. I don't have a shallow well hand pump, or a shallow well for that matter--I have a holding tank. But it occurs to me that if I had a handpump on hand, and a run of pipe, I could easily access the water in the holding tank in the event of a power failure. So now I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a bargain for one of those--just one of those little plastic gallon-a-minute jobbies would keep things rolling here for basic necessities in a power failure.
Good stuff.
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