Posted on 03/23/2018 11:52:20 AM PDT by cll
That's good to know ...
Our Irma experience was almost painless though it hit us dead on, it had been slowed down by you. Thanks.
Great post, cll, Thank You!
Ten years ago I had a friend from Connecticut who was working in San Juan. He was in a high rise and had never been through a hurricane but he imagined it would be like a Nor’easter. He bought some beer and was going to watch it happen on the weather channel in his 17th floor apartment.
In the first hour, the power failed. No weather channel. No A/C and no cold beer. Then the building began to sway. Oh, no elevator either. Shortly, his balcony’s sliding glass door blew away...
People think we preppers are weirdos. Until you have cold beer!
I have to say, I was surprised at the problems in PR... in my mind, everything is built out of concrete, and they get hit every year, so it should be no big deal to them.
But you point out that, in actual fact, they get missed most years... still, I’m surprised that the power grid isn’t built for life in the hurricane zone. Though, like you say, how do you prepare for two Cat 5 storms back to back...
Bookmark for later.
I know my Harvey, Rita and Ike experiences likely don’t come close to what you went through.
“We’ve been criticized by “hardcore” preppers and survivalists for whining about being without power for so long or for any length of time. They say that temperatures in the 80s are mild and perfectly adaptable to. Well, if you are a hardcore trooper maybe, but to the ordinary citizen, especially the old, the newborn, the bedridden, the infirm, the handicapped, it is hell. 80s in the Midwest, for example, is not the same as 80s in the Tropics. It’s the humidity that kills you, to use a cliché. The heat index (opposite of wind chill factor) is more like the 90s. Food spoils faster, bugs go out of control. Walls, bed sheets and clothing become damp and moldy. And to aggravate this you have hundreds of gasoline and diesel generators being fired up at the same time to add fumes and noise to the misery.”
I don’t worry so much about food or water for the short term (say, 6 months), but the WEATHER will impact our daily lives more than anything. Winter will make it hard to work outside and getting wood without a chain saw and log splitter - who knows if we can even do that, being in our 50’s and all - and not having the equipment. Summer, like this article says, would actually be worse. I might be able to grow stuff in the garden, but without refrigeration, it wouldn’t last long.
So much prepping to do, so little time. (or not, who knows?)
“Diesel, gasoline or gas, which is better? In our case, the supply of gasoline and diesel became critical immediately after the storm. Only propane and natural gas were immediately and widely available. But propane burns a lot faster than diesel or gasoline. So you have to make a choice, or come up with a combination of sources. In my case, my plan is to buy a whole house gas generator which I intend to use only overnight, and then have my two little gasoline generators as back up, at least to run the fridges.”
Propane burns faster? Do you mean it doesn’t produce enough energy or does it too quickly? I had no idea. We have a propane-powered whole house generator, and a 500 gal tank. But I don’t want to get complacent and think that’s all we need.
Diesel does store a long time, doesn’t it? We have some of that, for the truck and tractor and mule (a little 4WD thingy). Those vehicles will be a lot more useful than the Prius and mini-Cooper, LOL!
“I test run my generators a couple times a year. “
We try to once a month. Don’t usually make it though. I have a whole list of things to check on the first of the month - and the list keeps getting longer.
Ours used to auto-start when the electricity kicked off. That feature doesn’t work any more, and we can’t find anyone to work on it. At least the rest is ok - for now.
Thank you so much.
L
Our 500 gal propane tank lasted 40 hours of continuous use on a 22KW Generac generator. We had to install a second one.
Great job all around.
We have used a little pto generator coupled to our little JD / Yanmar 20 hp diesel tractor that fairly sips fuel at about two quarts an hour at light load and runs for hours. Since it mows every week in the season it is always in operating condition. The generator is 10 to 12 kw and handles enough load. We shut down at night. The longest run was abt 2 weeks during Ike.
We have a whole house switch and disconnect at the main with the generator and tractor feed into a panel in the barn.
I would love a listeroid but did not get one before epa
banned them.
Chinese engines are generally junk.
Having lived on the Gulf Coast all my life, we always started stocking food in January (plus candles / batteries, and when they became available battery operated fans), that way we didn’t have to “bust the budget”. We checked the dates on food we’d previously bought, what was good stayed - bad, well you get the idea.
Water the same way, looked for weekly sales, bought at least one pack also bought a water Bob.
Have a generator that needs repair, but seriously looking into a Generac as I’m getting to darn old to keep it filled up (5 gallons runs about 10 to 12 hours, depending on the load)
Gasoline, during Hurricane Season do NOT let the tank get below half, and when the local news starts “looking at something” fill up the gas cans for the generator, which if we don’t need it, goes into the Lawn Tractor.
Preparing for a storm, especially on the Gulf Coast is a way of life, or it should be. Family recently moved down from North Carolina, and pushing them to “prepare” but you know how the younglings are, they had snow, days without power so they know it all.
ouch, Sounds like I need more propane then! I haven’t done any calculations, so thank you for sharing that information.
Thank you for an excellent post on prep, the experience, and aftermath. My son and family who live in Guaynaba were without water and electricity for a number of weeks. It took almost a week for my other son and me to make contact (living in mid Atlantic area). My son was managing a large condo building with absentee owners and his wife worked in a large government building so they were able to do laundry almost immediately. The most unpleasant thing he reported was having to empty all the condo refrigerators after a week or two rotting, and no bicarb anywhere to deodorize. They live in a 3 story concrete building on the ground floor. There was rain blown under the door but other than a wet floor no significant problems inside. The trouble with housing is that especially outside of cities and towns, so much housing was wood and tin roofs. See what I found when Googling: Images, Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria.
For many years I have tried to have at least a 2 week supply of non perishable food. When I was caring for my late husband as he slowly died of Alzheimers, I built up more like a 3 month supply as I did not know how long he would be bedridden and me with only rare help so I could go shopping. Traveling in Central America 50 years ago, I learned that you could put a drop of iodine in a glass of clear water, let it sit for 30 minutes, and would not get the trots from contaminated restaurant water. Ever since, I have always kept a bottle of iodine at home. You can also use original Clorox, not the new fancy variations. “2 drops of Regular Clorox Bleach per quart of water, 8 drops of Regular Clorox Bleach per gallon of water, 1/2 teaspoon Regular Clorox Bleach per five gallons of water. If water is cloudy, double the recommended dosages of Clorox Bleach.”, also from Google. In addition if the water is dirty, filter through clean cloth before adding iodine or Clorox. Years ago as I cowered at home in a big riot torn city after MLK’s assassination, I filled my bathtub with water in case there was a fire. Other areas were burning. If the water had gone out it would have been good for toilet flushing, cooking, and water purifying for drinking.
I will send this post to my son in PR and see if he has new information to tell me which I will post here.
My business generator auto-runs (exercises) for 15 minutes every week.
My gasoline generators I run once a month.
If you notice, most of the “destructed homes” have something in common: an original one story concrete house with a later addition of a wood/zinc house on top of it. People make those to accommodate relatives, for rental income, etc. Those later additions - most not up to code - were the ones that blew away.
“According to the Doctors, PR tossed a lot of roadblocks into the importation of backup batteries. Many homes for instance had solar panels, inverters and such, but no batteries. If you wanted a backup system you could charge without killing the generators, there were no batteries”.
I don’t think it went down like that as far as the importation of backup batteries. There’s no such prohibition (interstate commerce clause). The problem was that several companies who hawked solar systems where only interested in selling electricity back to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, and used all these homes as their generators. They didn’t care about or installed any backup or storage systems. It was a scam, if you ask me.
So the concrete part on the bottom fared OK then? Right?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.