Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pre-Frankenstorm hoarding or preparing?

courtesy of The Washington Post
If you live within about 1000 miles of Manhattan then you've heard about the Frankenstorm (I did not make this up!) that's about to clobber those of us who live on the east coast of the US. It's actually a hurricane that combined with two other large land-based storms. Where we live now we are virtually guaranteed to lose power to and lose it for a number of days as this happens following even small thunderstorms. So how do we prepare? Well, we could go overboard, as so many people are right now:
Keeping too much stuff is a danger in and of itself in a disaster. I can't image what my mom would do if the basement (in my blog's banner!) got flooded!

We try to be rational about it. We like a 72-hour disaster kit as ready.gov and the Red Cross recommend. It looks like this. Not unreasonable in size. If we need more than 72 hours worth of stuff then we need to leave the area. That's what the full tank of gas and/or the hiking boots and camping gear in the basement are for. Either that, or we head a few blocks over to where I work, which quite literally was built to withstand an attack by a small nuclear missile. It also has a generator and ample bottled water.
An intelligently-sized example of a disaster kit, from rhiclaimsspecialist.com
Our kit is in an old toolbox that my mom gave me as my medicine chest in college. No, I am not sick enough to need a chest that's the size of a 20 gallon fish tank thought she seemed to think so. I almost decluttered it but it works great as a box to store our foul weather supplies. The kit includes stuff I cobbled together from around the house, many things that I originally wanted to declutter like candles leftover from our wedding and a little tube of small first-aid items that I got at work.
Water, candles, a tarp, batteries, a hand-crank radio and flashlight, glow stick, dust mask, sanitary wipes, swiss army knife, whistle. We keep canned food in our kitchen, a manual can opener, first aid supplies in our bedroom, and sanitation supplies in the bathroom.
But the most awesome thing we found for these long power outages?
 $5 home depot LED head lamps!
These were affordable, they last a long time, run on standard AAA batteries, and most importantly, they keep your hands free while you're trying to do things in a blackout. They're an essential part of our Frankenstorm preparedness kit.

Even the gerbils are getting ready. Raisin spent all day building this elaborate paper-bag-and-boxed-meal house with help from Rye. Raisin knows there's something coming. I've never seen a gerbil haul something three times his size all the way across the cage before! Smart little guys.
A loaf of bread is baking in our breadmaker, the fridge is full of ice and our 96-hour cooler is ready to take over for the fridge and freezer. The cellphones are charged, the kindle is loaded up with books, and the radio batteries are fresh. And we're both off work tomorrow!  Stay safe and un-hoarded this Frankenstorm!

12 comments:

  1. Fingers crossed you guys don't get hit hard!! We've never been in any bad weather scenarios (other than the very rare A/C going out), so I can't lend any advice. I like the 3 day stockpile rule though! If you need to escape, sunny AZ welcomes you to our non-weather conditions ;)

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    1. Careful, I'd be tempted to become a snowbird. Er, rain-bird, at this rate.

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  2. Please be safe! My heart goes out to those that are in our mothers' situations and afraid to leave their hoard even at the risk of their life. Give us an update after the all clear :)

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    1. will do! Very fortunately my mom has the driest basement in town. But how I wish a deluge of water would flood the basement and grow mold and force her to get rid of everything. Oh, to see clean, if only for a few days.

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  3. Stay safe! Hopefully it will be a fun adventure and nothing more serious.

    I fear I am one of those who is quite susceptible to over-preparedness. After hurricane Katrina I got totally freaked out - hurricanes are such a big problem here in Colorado, don't you know? Anyhow, I went out and bought over $200 of canned food... even stuff I'd NEVER eat like canned spinach... yuck! I tried to use it all up, but I fear a chunk of it ended up going bad and being tossed.

    And then there was the emergency kit for the car. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but suffice it to say that candles in a car... where it can get REALLY hot when parked in the sun... BAD idea! I don't think I'll EVER get the melted wax out. Oh well... it's a constant reminder of my idiocy, and when I start to get ridiculous about stocking up I just have to remember the canned spinach and car candles and it sets me straight pretty quick!

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    1. Better than nothing though. Much better than nothing. One of the few times when being minimalist can be a super bad idea! I've heard ice works well on wax though.

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  4. I hope it doesn't get too bad!! Last winter here some areas were without electricity (and water) for a week. This is one reason to have a wood-fired stove in the house... And one's own well is great. I don't keep a separate emergency kit, but there is bound to be some canned and dry foods in the house, which I do use up and buy more so they don't expire. Also candles and a flashlight.

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    1. That sounds like a fantastic plan and I'm jealous at how self-reliant you can be! We've never lost water before but we'll see if the mains here get contaminated because of all of the flooding.

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  5. Good on you for being prepared and able to articulate your plans clearly. Stay safe, we are thinking of you and please let us know that all is well when you are able.

    Take care. xxxx

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    1. Thanks for your concern! Will definitely let you know when all is said and done. The pics I posted, you walked right by that area when you were here. Even not in the dark it looks quite different now!

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  6. i hope it's not as bad as they are predicting, and that you have a great few days off from your usual routine if it is.

    Your kit looks perfect. I don't really have a kit, but we store some of our camping gear (including the excellent headlamps!) in the pantry so if we did need it, it's there.

    I remember shopping for a NYE party on Dec 30, 1999 and wondering why the store shelves were so bare - but luckily nobody else was stocking up on pink grapefruit juice and little cocktail swords, so we were fine.

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    1. ah, the alcoholic-beverages-and-fruit-on-little-sticks disaster kit. My favorite! Yes, I'll admit I did stock up on those provisions this time around hehe!

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