After very severe wind storms from Chicago to New Jersey, power has been knocked out to 4 million people in extreme heat and many states declared a State of Emergency . Hope at least some of them were preppers...
None of the ones I saw were....
Lining up to buy ice..... what for? A woman calling out "anyone have a generator?" Like ... yeah I bought one years ago and I'm gonna give it to you now?
I know a few families who were supposed to be "preppers" (we were all a part of a group on FB) and after 2 days they are BO and at a hotel across state lines. I have just been shaking my head.... why claim to prep when you can't last 2 days? One family didn't even have enough gas for the 2 hour drive. Frustrating.
Actually I am not all that surprised. I would use the word scary rather than frustrating. However I bet they have learnt a valuable lesson for next time. 💡
sewage backup is the smelliest nasty thing after the power goes out I think!...Would love a wee solared up cabin with composting toilet,a well and wood cook stove.. I think I may have found a relatively inexpensive way from an edmonton company (Mr. Container)that sells sea cans, insulates them if you wish & puts in electrical ( great houses can be made-watch you tube videos), also fits them out for shelving for storage, It will be much easier to find a small piece of land and buy about 4 of these ($17-20,000)and turn them into our home, safe shelter than build another house!
Actually for about $30 you can purchase a simple backup valve for your sewer line. Getting to the line for an existing building is usually the problem and can be quite costly. It is beyond my comprehension why these simple, cheap solutions are not incorporated into every new construction.
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The power going out I could live with. It's the triple digit weather they are getting that would drive me out. I'm not a fan of really hot.
That $30 item that would definitely be a really good idea is still $30 peeled off the profit margin of the builder. I only know a couple of contractors, so I don't want to paint the whole of them the same, but they are the stingiest mothers you'll ever meet. The two I know won't spend a dime more then they need to even if it's a dime. I asked one of them once why they didn't build indoor sump pits in each of his houses, and he told me it's because it's not needed in the local code...so he didn't have to add the cost - and he told me because having a nearly guaranteed dry basement doesn't give him any work in 5-10 years when the foundation needs to be dug up and a membrane attached to the foundation walls to seal out the water.
Runs With Scissors
Runs With Scissors
sewage backup is the smelliest nasty thing after the power goes out I think!...Would love a wee solared up cabin with composting toilet,a well and wood cook stove.. I think I may have found a relatively inexpensive way from an edmonton company (Mr. Container)that sells sea cans, insulates them if you wish & puts in electrical ( great houses can be made-watch you tube videos), also fits them out for shelving for storage, It will be much easier to find a small piece of land and buy about 4 of these ($17-20,000)and turn them into our home, safe shelter than build another house!
I have been trying since I've been on this site to get people to look at this kind of shelter housing. If you get the tall containers, <10ft this will give you room for plumbing/storage above or below (about 1-1/2 ft with an 8ft ceiling). Bravo, for the effort. They have been making appartments out of these for the past ten years. 
:ugeek: 😀
"We 'Prep.' to live after a downfall, Not just to survive."
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If only one learns from the experience then it is a good thing.
OK so power is slowly being restored... but, it is sporadic and twice today my friend called me to say "Power was on then a humming and zap all gone again, now we wait!" Because of the heat, when the power gets turned on, everyone puts the fridge, fans, ac on high and it is over loading the systems locally now and transformers are blowing.
With the heat and humidity on the rise, I wonder how well the grid can hold even with 2-3million off the system.
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It was the power outage here that got me to add/change how I was doing things. Before I was just doing canning and dehydrating. Since then I started carrying things that I would need in case of another power outage. Maybe others will do the same in the US
I wonder if any one down there would be interested in a gasifier/ generator system. Maybe not the city types, but the people that live on the fringe.
"We 'Prep.' to live after a downfall, Not just to survive."