Hurricane Rita Live Thread, Part VIII

Category	Wind Speed	Barometric Pressure	Storm Surge	Damage Potential
Tropical Depression	< 39 mph < 34 kts			Minimal
Tropical Storm	39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts			Minimal
Hurricane 1 (Weak)	74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts	28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more	4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m	Minimal damage to vegetation
Hurricane 2 (Moderate)	96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts	28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb	6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m	Moderate damage to houses
Hurricane 3 (Strong)	111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts	27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb	9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m	Extensive damage to small buildings
Hurricane 4 (Very strong)	131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts	27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb	13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m	Extreme structural damage
Hurricane 5 (Devastating)	Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts	Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb	Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m	Catastrophic building failures possible

Sitting out on the porch playing board games and cards with my young daughter.

Cherish this blessing. I enjoyed the time that I got to spend with my family this past weekend.

Glad y'all are safe!

Nita, thanks for posting that. It makes me sick every single time I hear of another person dying from CO because that can be prevented. We learned that the hard way.

A newer worry is people burning charcoal in confined spaces or a fireplace; it too releases carbon monoxide.

I know I am hard about CO detector -- regardless of what kind of gas is used -- and at times I am irrational about it; I just don't want what happened to our family to happen to anybody else.

Does anyone know how long 30 gallons of propane will last?

I would say about 70 hours but that depends on how big your generator is and how much you are running off of it. A moderate load like 1000 watts will not be much different than a light load but if you plug everything in the house, air conditioner, hair dryer, toaster, into it, it will consume more fuel. Best thing to do is keep a close eye on your gage. If you have a propane bbq grill with any fuel, you can also use the smaller tank from it.

backhoe, I saw your trick for dead batteries using the Epsom salts, That one is safe but if you got nothing at all after 30 minutes of charging, your marine batteries are most likely not going to respond and not worth wasting your limited fuel on. The only way to bring back a battery like that is not very safe. This method involves reverse charging the battery, back and forth, several times. It can generate sparks and lots of hydrogen gas, not a good combination and not recommended.

Hmmmm... is there any way to use a generator to charge the marine batteries?

If your tractor battery is any good and your if generator has an electric start, you can charge a battery by connecting jumper cables to the generator battery terminals.

While there are some major lines down, I read that a whole lot of trucks and crews are on their way so hopefully it won't be that long. Good luck and I hope you win at least a few board games.

"There are no empty Tabasco Sauce bottles" - Mason Williams

Mason Williams was wrong.

The Tabasco Sauce factory survived the storm. The ultimate catastrophe has been avoided.

I'm relieved to hear your home came through okay. But I just can't imagine trying to exist without power for a month. It's still hot as hell in Texas.

If you have a propane bbq grill with any fuel, you can also use the smaller tank from it.

Thanks for clarifing that- it's been so many years I was not sure.

With the roads blocked, getting the main tank refilled looks like it's a problem-- around here, all the hardware and building supply stores have racks of Bar-B-Q sized cylinders- "Blue Rhino" is the local brand. That might be one way to keep the powerplant running in a pinch. Granted, finding any would be one problem, and transporting them yet another to be solved.

The only way to bring back a battery like that is not very safe. This method involves reverse charging the battery, back and forth, several times. It can generate sparks and lots of hydrogen gas, not a good combination and not recommended.

That old trick had slipped my mind- you are certainly right about the potential hazards. If you do it, move everything out into the open air, make sure the connections to the battery are tight ( to minimize sparking ) and be sure to kill the power at the source before disturbing the connections. Hopefully, it won't come to that- it's better avoided.

I am glad you posted them here..God bless you, Nita and your neighbors..I am such a ninny when it comes to being without electricity..I have thought of getting a generator..It may be time..A fan beats nothing in the kind of heat we have been having.It was 108 here Monday.

I do believe neighbors working together can do so much.
I am still at home in Waco and will go backs to the Woodlands area later..

As Entergy has so much destruction..I wish my daughter would come back here to Waco.
Her medication is so hard to get..she had to go home to get the prescription filled.

Hope this wasn't already posted.

Situation in Jasper 'desperate'
By Christine S. Diamond and Bronwyn Turner
The Lufkin Daily News
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

JASPER — This is a city without power and in peril, rescue workers said Monday, citing a worst-case scenario of two months without electricity for the town nicknamed “The Jewel of the Forest.”

The curtain of trees surrounding Jasper became her enemy when Hurricane Rita roared through. "We sustained hurricane winds of about 100 to 120 mph for about a nine-hour period, so we have thousands of trees down within our city," said Jasper Police Chief Todd Hunter, who paused during a hectic day to sound a shrill note of alarm. "Our city is without gas. We have no gas except to run emergency vehicles, This city is without food. There were some MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) brought in yesterday, but it was not enough.

"People are becoming desperate. They've been three days without water. They weren't prepared," he added. He asked people to call their state representatives and senators and "try to encourage them to get our food and get our water to us, because we're desperate and we need them now. People have been without all basic needs for days."

Denise Kelley, Jasper's acting city manager, warned the emergency cannot be quickly resolved. "We are told it could be anywhere from one to two months before we get power again," said Kelley, speaking outside the city's Emergency Operations Center. Jasper's electric provider is based in Beaumont and — until Beaumont is up and running — all the repairs in Jasper are useless. "We never thought we'd get hit this hard being this far inland," Kelley said.

Without power, the city was left incapacitated.
Without power, the city's water wells stopped pumping, leaving 15,000 residents and evacuees without running water for three days, according to Hunter and Kelley.
Without power, grocery stores closed, and the perishable food left within them has spoiled.
"We are at the point now where everything is melted," Kelley said.
Several stores had offered to provide their food to the emergency command center at Jasper's central fire station, Kelley said. And restaurant owner Robbie Lovett of Elijah's Cafe had promised workers at the command post two hot meals a day until supplies ran out, she said.

"Right now must of our businesses are shut down for lack of power," said Tom McClurg, executive director of the Jasper Economic Development Corporation. "Businesses would like to open but can't."

"We have no power — generators are just now getting here," Kelley said.
Only two years before, McClurg and other city leaders had spoken of the city's economic boom. Now, with an extended power outage in the future, Jasper will see a "significant loss of sales tax value, and many employees without vacation benefits will have hours lost at work,” McClurg said.

Without power, refueled gas stations have no way to transfer gasoline to customers' vehicles, Kelley said.

"There is no gas except to fuel emergency vehicles," Hunter said.
Jasper, Hunter said, was never intended to host Hurricane Rita evacuees.
"Most of the Rita evacuees had to keep going north," McClurg said.
But when those fleeing Rita ran out of gas and found themselves stranded in Jasper — which ran out of gas itself on Friday afternoon — the city was forced to absorb the newcomers in addition to the 800 Hurricane Katrina evacuees who had arrived almost a month earlier, according to McClurg.
To make matters worse, those who did reach safety north of Jasper are trying to return to their homes only to be turned back, stranded without gas, food or money in Jasper, she said.
"People need to stay put," Kelley said.

Dwindling resources
Outside the command center Monday, a young mother of three was given an emergency fuel-up by Ricky Rogers of Spring. His company, Roland Robert Distributor Inc., had just purchased the fuel tanker to help with Hurricane Katrina but was instead diverted to Jasper to help with Rita victims like Dana Trammell.

Out of gas, with two children to take care of, Trammell was overwhelmed. Her husband, who had uncontrollably high blood pressure, and her 3-year-old son, who was suffering seizures, had been taken by helicopter to a hospital beyond her means' reach.

With 16,000 people to feed, the city was in desperate need of food, even MREs, Hunter said.

"I need people to call state representatives and senators to get water and food to us," he said.

Drinking water and ice are also on short supply, Kelley said.

"We've issued a boil water notice because there are so many water leaks," she said. "Thirty-foot pieces of water pipe were jerked out of the ground."

Kelley, the city's financial manager, said when she was named as the acting city manager she never thought she'd be “dealing with a hurricane."

Standing in the shade of the converted fire department/cafeteria holding a plate of food, Kelley's strong facade broke as she spoke of her own home, barricaded by so many uprooted trees that her husband had to cut her a path with a chainsaw.

"Everybody is exhausted. You know how it is when you don't sleep and you're tired and hungry," Kelley said.

"We have had some looting but we are not taking reports unless essential," Hunter said. "I have an 18-man police force that has grown in size two times by volunteers from other departments.

"When we get food, people are going to get desperate.”

McClurg said they hoped to put the city back together as soon as they could. In the meantime, he said, “We are thankful for outside assistance."

Broken home
"We started out with one house and ended up with two," joked Sandra Sheffield about the hole left in the middle of her family's house off state Highway 63 just north of Jasper.

Behind the house Sheffield grew up in and returned to with her husband four years ago was an open-air camper and the new trailer home where her mother-in-law now lives. While Sheffield and her mother-in-law, Mildred, holed up in the frame house during the first part of the storm, it was the other two structures that were left unscathed from the storm.

"We decided the cooler was the coolest place we own," Sheffield laughed.

Sheffield and her husband, a minister, had spent the last 30 years away from Jasper and decided to come back when a chaplain position opened at Goodman Unit, a state prison. That's where her husband spent the duration of Hurricane Rita.

"The storm came through and my mother-in-law and I were at home alone," Sheffield said, estimating that the storm arrived about 3:30 a.m. Saturday. "I got scared of the weather and moved my mother to the floor by a supporting wall."

Not long after that, the first tree fell. Not waiting for what would happen next, the Sheffields got in their car and "made a new driveway to the neighbors' house. We rode the storm out there."

There were already 14 people at the neighbor's home, but when headlights cut through the horizontal gusts of rain and the Sheffield women appeared on the back porch, they were quickly made welcome.

Later, a second tree fell on their severed home.

Like many homes and store fronts in Jasper, a large taped-X covered the Sheffields' front picture window. A few feet away from the unbroken window, the wood frame house bore a gaping hole as if something had taken a bite out of it. An insurance company saw to the removal of the two giant pine trees on Sunday, Sheffield said.

"In a couple hours they got the place looking a lot better," she said.

On Sunday, a journalist with Good Morning America who had been staying at a motel in Jasper arrived at the Sheffields' home for an interview that aired Monday morning. After the interview, knowing the journalist's motel lacked water and electricity, 81-year-old Mildred offered the young man a cold shower in her new trailer.

"Really, we all are during pretty good," Sheffield said.

Powerless
Margie Warren, of Port Arthur, said her grandmother's Jasper home might be without electricity for three weeks.

She and her sister had evacuated their Port Arthur homes, as they always do for Category 3 and 4 hurricanes, and sought refuge in Jasper, where they grew up.

"We left (Port Arthur) at 4 a.m. Thursday and got here about 7 a.m.," Warren said. "We got stalled in Kirbyville once."

Port Arthur police told Warren to call back in three to four days to see if they could return home.

Behind her on the porch, Warren's mother, Mamie Warren, spoke of the perilous storm they weathered together Saturday.

"It started pounding on us real bad from 2-7 o'clock," Mamie said.

"It sounded like a freight train. The rain wasn't so bad," Warren said. "We opened the door and saw all the trees going down."

From their shaded spot on grandma Mary Ella Grant's covered porch, high above the street, Grant's prodigy could view the massive destruction Hurricane Rita wrought. Several century-old trees that had once adorned the city park lay on their sides split in gnarled pieces, their exposed giant rootballs still intact.

As they recounted their storm saga, Warren's sister, Patricia Broxton, walked up, her arms extended passionately as she proclaimed, "I had to go and see if it was up. Lufkin is wide open! I bought kerosene lamps, batteries, flashlights, candles, cigarettes — whatever money could buy!"

I'll think twice next time
With temperatures soaring near the 100-degree mark, the family gathering behind another small Jasper home resembled something of a Labor Day holiday affair.

But the group assembled on Ronny Billingsley's back patio Monday afternoon wasn't on holiday. They should never have been there at all.

Jasper, Billingsley said, was under a mandatory evacuation Thursday. Most of those resting in the shade, drinking water from aluminum FEMA-issued cans, came to the Billingsley home from Vidor and Pine Forest —communities in the path of Hurricane Rita.

So why did Billingsley, a justice of the peace, ignore the warning? "We had too many people coming up here to take care of," he said. "I'll think twice next time there is a Category 4 storm coming in, though.

"We are 120 miles from the Gulf and you don't expect this kind of damage from a hurricane," he said, looking over at his neighbor's broken home. "We've never had a Category 3 storm come through like this. People didn't know what to expect. But we do next time."

Billingsley's guests began to feel the beginnings of the hurricane about 11 p.m. Friday.

"You ought to have been here," said L.M. Hock of Pine Forest.

"It wasn't bad 'til 11 o'clock, when the winds picked up to gale force," Billingsley said. "About the time you'd think it was through, it would get worse."

Huddled in the dark with flashlights, the Billingsleys were soon joined by the Sheffields. Without power they were dependent on their son, a senior at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, to keep them apprised of the hurricane's progress based on information he saw on the weather station.

"He would call us every 45 minutes or hour and give us an update," Billingsley said. "That was the only way we knew the worst wasn't over with."

Shingles were blown off their roof and their well-mown yard was covered with broken limbs. Otherwise, Billingsley said, they were doing well with operational phones, running water and some power supplied by a generator.

"We are just all so relieved that nobody got hurt, and no real property damage. We feel real lucky," Billingsley said. "As far as the daily grind and daily business, we are at a standstill."

The one thing they do have is time, he said, with no jobs to go to because everything was shut down.

"There were garbage trucks running this morning,” said John Britt of Vidor. “I couldn't believe it.”

With power out for so long, the focus had shifted to cooking the contents of a defrosted freezer.

"We had a whole bunch of ground meat," Billingsley said. "When we are through with that, we have venison we'll fry up. And when that is gone, we'll take what fish we got and fry that up."

"We have plenty of canned goods,” Hock said. “We all brought some.”

Billingsley, bare-chested in the Texas heat, sat up straight as he announced he had one thing to say about the weekend ordeal.

"The people in East Texas are what I call survivors," he said. "They are going to figure out what to do. They'll cut what they need to cut. They'll get by on what they got."

On Sunday, the group had gone to town, where they had heard on the radio that FEMA was handing out water and MREs.

"If I had nothing else to eat, they'd be great,” said Derek Billingsley , the Nacogdoches man who spent Sunday trying to dodge police roadblocks to reach his family in Jasper. “Anything is better than nothing.”

Thank you for that report. From the major news media, one would never know the suffering is so intense as from that story. They've gone from the area evidently.

"Thank you for that report. From the major news media, one would never know the suffering is so intense as from that story. They've gone from the area evidently.

There are several small towns in the same shape as Jasper. Silsbee, Woodville, Kirbyville, etc. are all in bad shape. I emailed the Jasper story to all of the alphabet networks, not that it will do any good.

The ONLY difference between the victims of Rita and Katrina is that many of the Rita survivors still have a roof over their head. But that's all they have.

When the basic infrastructure of a community is destroyed, when there is NO water, NO electricity, NO emergency services available, NO food on the shelves of the local grocery store, and NO gas at the gas station, it's a DISASTER. Where the hell is Anderson Cooper? Where is Geraldo Rivera? Where is Brian Williams? Where is Shep Smith? Sorry, can you tell I'm angry and frustrated? It just seems like the MSM has taken Cindy Sheehan's view of Rita...it was just a little wind and rain.

I don't blame you for frustration with the MSM - even with Fox - I share it. Tom Delay et all have taken the place of the suffering of the Rita victims. I suppose when people start dying they will come back. I hope it doesn't go that far.

I hope everyone reading your post is paying attention. Losing electricity means no water, no refrigerated food, canned food disappearing from stores twice as fast as a result, no gasoline, because pumps can't bring it up out of the ground, and because there's no gasoline, no deliveries of food or medicine or other necessary supplies.

From what I've seen in the aftermath of these two hurricanes. most Americans simply are not set up to survive without electricity, and this worries me, because our electrical grid is wide open to a terrorist attack.

If we can't defend a 1000 mile border with Mexico, how can we possibly defend ten thousand miles of transmission lines? Any group of idiots with a crate of hand grenades can do to the country at large exactly what we see happening in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and it seems to me that survival in the absence of electricity falls into four main categories.

1. Water. You can survive for 3 minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. You need a dead minimum of 1 gallon of water, per person, per day. This will only meet survival needs if no water is used for flushing toilets or for bathing. The average person may not drink a full gallon everyday, but by the time you factor in cooking and cleaning needs, one gallon per person is cutting the supply very thin.

Water storage takes up a lot of space, and it can be a fragile resource. Most containers of store bought water will break down over time and leak, they are designed to, so that they will biodegrade. Two liter soda bottles seem to hold up for much longer. So do water jugs purchased for camping. A family of four will need a minimum of 40 gallons to survive ten days. That is eight 5 gallon camping jugs or 80 two liter pop bottles full.

Far better is a sustainable supply. With the proper preparation, a creek or lake will keep you and your family alive for a long time. You need to be able to filter out particulate matter and you need to be able to kill germs and bacteria to use this water, especially since the chances are that others will be using these sources for waste disposal in the event of an emergency.

Water filters for backpackers can be purchased for around $50 to $100, but without filter replacements, they are limited to 100 to 200 gallons before they clog up.

A large scale filter can be constructed from a pair of large tupperware containers or buckets, some playground sand, and some fist sized rocks or driveway gravel. Cut half inch holes in the bottom of the smaller container and fill it two inches with gravel. Fill it another four inches with playground sand. Place about two inches of gravel in the bottom of the larger container, and then place the smaller container inside the larger one. Unfiltered water goes into the inner container, and filtered water is drawn off from the outer container. Be careful not to contaminate the outer container when pouring unfiltered water into the inner one.

This will remove mud, sand and grit, but it will not purify the water. Purification can be accomplished with ordinary Clorox bleach, 5.5 percent sodium hypochlorite solution, no perfumes or softeners. Use 8 drops of bleach per gallon of clean water, or up to 16 drops of bleach per gallon for water from suspect sources. The colder the water, the longer it will take the bleach to kill the bugs. Let the bleach do it's thing at least half an hour, I prefer to let it stand overight before using it. This will allow you nearly unlimited reserves of water without consuming fuel for boiling.

2. Food. Canned or boxed food, anything that does not require refrigeration, will disappear from stores overnight or sooner in the event of an emergency. You cannot wait until disaster strikes to stock up. You need breakfast, lunch and dinner for each person to function in the long term without electricity or outside aid. Foods requiring only boiled water require less water for cooking and cleanup.

Oatmeal or cream of wheat will suffice for breakfast. Canned fruit can improve the taste and nutrition value. Sugar may be required for flavor. Powdered fruit juice mixes can be served cold. A mix of powdered fruit juices and powdered gatorade will serve multiple purposes in warmer climates. Tea or coffee will improve the morale of adults.

Peanut butter, jam and crackers can serve as a basis for lunch. Powdered soups may supplement. Discount stores sell ramen noodle soups with vegetables by the case for less than 2 dollars. Beef jerky, peanuts, and M&M's can provide a change of pace. Canned tomatoes and elbow macaroni make a tasty hot dish. A little bit of onion or garlic seasoning go a long way to providing variety and improving flavor.

Dinner options are limited. Canned chicken or fish is most readily available. Bulk can be achieved with canned vegatables, canned fruits, and rice/macaroni. Foil pouches of hamburger do not require refrigeration and taste ok for tacos or spaghetti sauce. Spam and armor treet do not require refrigeration. Canned beef stew, beef hash, and spoaghetti/lasagne products can be purchased by the case from discount houses. Canned ham is readily available. One can of vegetable and another of fruit will keep from lunchtime to dinnertime, allowing for less waste and more balanced servings.

Liquor can serve as trading stock, and in some cases, fuel. A surplus of spices can serve as trading stock.

Don't forget the can opener, manual type, and a backup, plus a couple of P-38 style emergency backups.

3. Sanitation and human waste disposal. If water is readily available and sanitary sewers are functional, unfiltered water can be used to flush toilets. Dedicated containers make this process easier. Be sure to differentiate between containers used for filtered and unfiltered water and do not mix them up, or flushing requirements will skyrocket.

If sanitary sewers are not functional or water for flushing is in short supply, solid human waste should be deposited in 5 gallon buckets and burned in 30 or 55 gallon steel containers. Some fuel (kerosine works well) will be necessary to get the fire started. Burning containers need ventilation holes punched around the bottom rim for good combustion. Note wind direction before burning waste. A standard toilet seat will fit onto a 5 gallon bucket for better balance. Provisions for privacy will do a lot for morale. Don't forget to stockpile toilet paper.

A solar shower can be purchased for less than $10 at discount houses. In an emergency one can be constructed from a black garbage bag, but it will not function as well or as fast as one designed for the purpose, nor will it serve as a sprinkler head. In cold or cool climates, the ground or the hood of a vehicle will act as a heat sink and speed heat loss and prolong warm-up times. Insulation under the shower bag will counter this effect. On cloudy days, or whenever warming does not happen fast enough, take what you can get from the sun and enhance it with water warmed on the stove. This water does not have to be filtered, but it should not be swallowed or used to brush teeth if it hasn't been purified.

One adult can shower with as little as 1 gallon of water, although 1.5 gallons is a more realistic estimate.

Don't forget soap and shampoo. Clothes can be washed in a tub, sink or other container, using the friction method. Don't forget a suitable detergent. Dishwasher soap and automatic laundry detergents are poor substitutes for the manual variants. Clorox will act as a good disinfectant.

4. First aid. The major injuries you can expect after a disaster are cuts and broken bones. You need a way to stop bleeding, to clean and disinfect wounds, and to dress them so as to avoid infection later on. You can never have too many four by fours, 4" square gauze pads. You can never have too much duct tape. A well made dressing does not require surgical tape, since the tape does not touch open or abraded skin.

Duct tape and splints will stabilize broken bones. Be sure to pad splints if they will be used for an extended period, or ulceration will occur.

In an absolute emergency salt water will kill germs, and a ziplock bag with a pinhole will serve as an irrigation aid. Better yet is to stock up in advance on commercial disinfectant ointments. Rubbing alcohol and/or hydrogen peroxide are inexpensive in quantity but suffer some of the same drawbacks as salt water. Rubber tourniquets are worth their weight in gold, for a lot more than medical emergencies.

In addition to being ready for cuts and broken bones, a well tuned first aid kit will contain apsirin, antacid tablets, and antihistamines. Cough drops are a plus. Heavier pain medications may be useful if you have a prescription. Surgical masks, disposable rubber gloves and scissors are very useful to have.

If you purchase a surgical suite, or include needle and thread in your kit, be sure to include a weighty medical reference text along with it. Emergency appendectomies look good on TV. Your mileage may vary.

These are the four basic considerations in a situation where electrical service is interrupted for an indeterminate time, water, food, sanitation, and medical emergencies.

Heat or cold temperatures will require forethought and some sacrifice. Layers provide better insulation that one thick coat. Artificial fabrics next to the skin will wick away perspiration and greatly improve your survival chances in cold weather. Cotton holds moisture and kills people in cold environments through hypothermia.

In hot environments you need steady water intake to survive 4 hours of sweating. If you feel thirsty, you have waited too long. After four hours of heavy perspiration, you will need to address electrolyte balance. Powdered gatorade will deal with this, as will other sources of potassium such as bananas. Ordinary salt might not hurt, but it won't help as much as gatorade. One quart of gatorade will allow an adult male to perspire heavily for 8 hours without significant effect. Dinner and breakfast can be used to replete electrolytes after the workday is finished, preserving and extending gatorade stockpiles. An ordinary headband, handkerchief, or ballcap will keep sweat out of your eyes while working, and will go a long way towards improving your effort and its beneficial effect.

Emergency lighting is necessary, but not always advisable. LED headlamps provide hands-free emergency light for working, and preserve battery life up to 100 hours. Flashlights require a hand to hold them and use batteries much faster. Whale oil lamps can soot damage a dwelling very quickly if not properly adjusted, but will last longer than candles and will provide more light. Most oil lamps are cheaply constructed, get familiar with their inner workings before you need to depend on them. A small needlenose pilers and small screwdriver are essential for servicing these lamps. Oil for lamps can spontaneausly combust, discard wicks and rags outside, away from flammable materials after use. Any combustion consumes oxygen. Proper ventilation is a must.

Displaying light after sunset will call attention to your dwelling and may invite unwanted attention. Changing to a sunrise to sunset schedule will preserve resources and enhance security.

Security is a matter of personal choice, especially involving firearms. The uninitiated will be best served with a 12 gauge shotgun, which requires minimal practice to serve as an effective deterrent. During an emergency is a bad time to learn muzzle and trigger discipline, not to mention markmanship. An assortment of #5 or #7 birdshot, double ought buckshot, and deer slugs will allow you to double the utility for both defense and for small game hunting. Weapons should always be kept immaculately clean and should always be considered to be loaded.

That's enough for now, it covers the basics and doesn't add more detail than is necessary. In my opinion, it is only a matter of time before large segments of the American population are subjected to moderate or prolonged periods without electricity. We will either be ready for it, or we will not. The choice to prepare ourselves rests with each of us as individuals.

Your advice is good enough and sensible enough that I've copied it, and will pass it on. I thank you.

Just a thought but when I was in the hospital and was bedbound for an extended period of time, the hospital had a bonnet type contraption to wash your hair and to which they added very little water. Actually it looked like an oversized shower cap with a terry cloth lining on the inside. It contained a non-rinsible shampoo and did a pretty good job in getting your hair clean. Put it on your head and use your hands on the outside of the cap to rub/scrub your scalp. Hair is wet so you'd need a comb to take out tangles but it sure feels good to have decently clean hair after 9 days without.

Baby wipes or the soap hospitals use on bedbound patients rinses off quicker than alot of other soaps and even if you don't get it completely rinsed off it doesn't irritate like regular soap.

A bucket along with clumping cat litter can also be used with each person being responsible for cleaning their own clumps up. These can be buried in a designated hole in order to alleviate smell in the case burning isn't an option.

I'm looking ahead to possible ice storms which can happen here in Oklahoma and leave you without electricity for an extended period of time.

I appreciate your pointers and will be printing them off as a guide for the coming winter.

Broths and canned soups can provide nutrition as well as something hot to eat. I've fried many an egg along with bacon and toast on a plain old fashioned charcoal grill. Makes decent coffee too if you have the camp type coffee pot.

Thanks for the suggestions!