This thread was suggested by OldSchool to discuss living for what you are prepping for. I'll get the ball rolling by sharing my experience of living during the ice Storm of 1998 - without electricity for 2-1/2 weeks. We woke up one morning in early January to no power so I quickly got the fires going in the woodstove upstairs AND downstairs. Our woodstove downstairs was smaller but it was a "step" design and we could cook better on it with two different heat surfaces. It was abit of a pain taking everything downstairs but we felt lucky to be warm with full tummies. In early January, it was only light outside between 7:30 am and 4:30 pm , so you had to get alot of stuff done in the daylight. My husband took a car battery and rigged up a couple of car signal lights for night-time light in case one of the kids (four, ages 3-17) had to see to go to the bathroom. The battery lasted the entire night and then he re-charged it again the next day. We weren't sure what was going on at first because we had no electricity, no TV, no radio....It Freezing Rained for the first 5 days constantly, making it dangerous to go outside. Power lines littered the roads and everything was coated with ice. During the day, the neighbourhood kids all came over to our place to play board games because we had the motherlode - some of these kids had never played a board game in their life! We ate simply from our stock of stored potatoes, onions, carrots, and canned goods plus using frozen meat from our freezer. Being winter, we turned our mudroom closet into a walk-in "fridge" because it was around 2degrees C in there. We took all the frozen meat out of the house fridge and put it in the garage where it remained the coldest. We just left the house fridge door open until we had power. And we turned off the main breaker at the electrical panel.
With all that freezing rain, our sump pump pit was filling up quickly - IT was our biggest threat. We baled about 25 five gallon buckets a day.....which we used to flush the toilet. We had NO running water, so we found a town closeby that did and filled up water jugs of drinking water to bring home. You REALLY conserve when water is sparse. Dish washing water can be re-used to flush toilets. And little ones can have "baths" in the kitchen sink with water heated up on the woodstove. To this day, I never leave the water running when I'm brushing my teeth or washing dishes.
Luckily, we were able to find a generator to purchase from a Home Hardware store in a town 40 minutes away, four days into the ice storm. They were rarer than silver dollars to find. It really saved us from our sump pump flooding the house. After we were all tucked in bed after 10 pm, my husband went out with a friend and our generator to help other people who needed their sump pits pumped and furnaces turned on for an hour. I remember going into town and the bank machines were all down, banks closed, and most stores too as they couldn't process transactions without power. Some grocery stores were open in the dark, just to get rid of product before it went bad. We went equipped with a flashlight, unlike most people, and helped alot of folks while we were there. But up at the check-outs was a different story -cash ruled and the poor cashiers couldn't add or subract without a cash register doing it for them!
After the ice storm, we invested in a 10,000 watt generator and my husband wired the house to run off it. We also replaced our upstairs woodstove with a new wood cook stove which heats the house and cooks the meals all winter long now. And we keep some cash on hand for emergencies. I continue to add to my foodstores all the time.
How about you? any experiences with extended power outages or 'simple living'?
interesting....now just before i moved from England to Canada you had a major blackout in north america (2004 - 2005 i think)...anyone care to share on that? did all the traffic lights etc not work? go into detail...
"I think that I am very reasonable therefore ......." ICRCC
Ahhh, yes, "the blackout"......well yes, nothing that ran on electricity worked including elevators and traffic lights. In the big cities like Toronto, people had to walk home because the subways a.k.a. the Underground, didn't work either or the electric buses (TTC)....so I understand. Here, out in the country, we first wound up our crank radio and got the info that 6 million people were out of power in Canada and the U.S. -once the radio broadcasters got their emergency generators up and running to provide the news updates. It was around 4 pm in the afternoon. Many businesses here still had their generators left over from the ice storm so they got them going to get the gas pumps working and a few lights, but basically everything closed down right away. We fired up our generator after turning off the main power breaker at the electrical panel -which ran our whole house. Then we took our first smaller genny over to the neighbours to help them out for the night. Then all the neighbours came over to our place and we had a BBQ, sat on the porch under the patio umbrella lights, played guitar and sang songs till well after dark.....no panic. The 'newbie' neighbours got a taste of life with no electricity and some of them have since installed whole house generators and wood stoves....
Ahhh, yes, "the blackout"......well yes, nothing that ran on electricity worked including elevators and traffic lights. In the big cities like Toronto, people had to walk home because the subways a.k.a. the Underground, didn't work either or the electric buses (TTC)....so I understand. Here, out in the country, we first wound up our crank radio and got the info that 6 million people were out of power in Canada and the U.S. -once the radio broadcasters got their emergency generators up and running to provide the news updates. It was around 4 pm in the afternoon. Many businesses here still had their generators left over from the ice storm so they got them going to get the gas pumps working and a few lights, but basically everything closed down right away. We fired up our generator after turning off the main power breaker at the electrical panel -which ran our whole house. Then we took our first smaller genny over to the neighbours to help them out for the night. Then all the neighbours came over to our place and we had a BBQ, sat on the porch under the patio umbrella lights, played guitar and sang songs till well after dark.....no panic. The 'newbie' neighbours got a taste of life with no electricity and some of them have since installed whole house generators and wood stoves....
ha, so what your saying is, don't worry, have a party....like it!
"I think that I am very reasonable therefore ......." ICRCC
LOL ....well not really, but you could IF you've prepared ahead of time! I'm sure after a few days we wouldn't have been so jovial, but more concerned....
Thank you for sharing. I didn't think of using grey water to flush.
During the blackout down this way, it took me about 4 times as long to get home. There were a lot of amazing people trying to help, including regular joes directing traffic. Once I got home it was more or less fun plus I used it as a chance to mock some of my neighbors that had been nasty about my prepping and gardening. I still fed them lol
My biggest problem was the no air conditioning with my fish tanks. I think I had about a dozen at the time. If I had no water I would have been screwed. The only way to keep the temperatures down on the tanks was to partly empty a tank and then add cool water to it. I have no idea what I would do now either. If the black out happened in the winter I would most likely lose my fish, axoloto(sp) and maybe my bearded dragons
I am glad to read your story as I am sure many others are also, or at least should be. Even in these so called modern times we are just a downed power line away from going anywhere from an hour to who knows how long without electricity and all the problems that arise from that outage.
You and so many others went 2 1/2 weeks in the dead of winter. Having your wood stoves was a true blessing and I can just imagine what the poor families had to go through that didn’t have them, or could not get a generator either.
You and your family were prepared to deal with this disaster and have now increased your preparedness level with a new wood stove and 10,000 watt generator, which is very wise and what I hope so many others did after as well.
It kind of follows the old saying about rather having something and not needing it, than not having that same something when you do need it.
My wife and I have a habit of imagining the worst that could happen in certain situations and then going about preparing for it. Even our 5th wheel trailer has solar panels as well as a 5,000 watt generator and we always use grey water to flush our toilet.
I hope that other people read your post and imagine what would happen to them and their loved ones if the power went out for a prolonged period...and then PREPARE for that possibility.
Thank you for that great post.
Noli Illigitimi Carborundum
(Don’t let the bastards wear you down)
During the power outage on 04-05 i was in collage but had gas stockpilled and used it to get to the cabin for the week. The cabin ran off gennys at that time and i had 3 20 lb propane tanks and 4 100 lb propane tanks so we cooked on the bbq alot. it was worm so i didnt want to fire up the wood stove. since then i have improved the cabin to run on solar and there is a large up draft field stone fire place to cook with it also has vents on the side so it can provide heat as well. we also ran low on gas for the boat and atvs but that was due to the amount of fun we were having. I had no food saved but we were lucky that the small town we were close to had a grocrie store that ran on a genny and worked on credit if you had no cash so we got what we needed right away.
It was at that point i realized the need to stalk food and most other necessitys and have don so ever since.
:twisted:I`m not carzy everyone else is!:twisted:
I was down on a dog training trip from Nunavut in a rented car, (taking a 3 day sheepdog training course) when the big black out happened.. it was kind of funny, we didn't know that it had happened till we left the farm and headed back to town, most of the folks could not get back into their rooms( power key cards) had no food/water or power etc.
Being me, I had a full tank of gas, and trunk load of supplies, including cases of water, cooler with ice and food and a travel kit I had hauled with me, I had left out the sliding doors and had looked and figured out how to slip it open on the way back in, as I didn't put the bar down, so I ended up with six other folks in my room, handed out water, food and had a room party, left the next day back to ottawa, no flight as the airport down, so car camped till could fly back up north..
I was honestly surprised at the folks that had flown or drove in for the course and had brought no extra gear.. but there was a few others like me, that had no issues.
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/