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Your hurricane threads have been absolutely wonderful. They helped me make the decision to send my son to SW Houston during Rita instead of sending him to East Texas to stay with his Dad. Instead of him enduring days without power, he endured days of a large batch of spaghetti my sister made in prep for the storm.

I fell asleep while reading this thread and then continued to read it after I woke up. (I have chronic pain and often don't sleep much at night.) Anyway, I woke up thinking about how some of the tips and ideas found on your hurricane threads could also be used in the case of a bad ice storm. There are still areas of Oklahoma where large forested areas were destroyed by the weight of the ice. Not to mention, people were out of electricity for days while waiting on repair crews to fix downed lines and transformers.

Tonight my hubby-to-be and I are going to discuss prepping for an ice storm where electricity is out for several days. Some of the things we'd need to do in preparation would be different than what y'all in hurricane prone areas would need to prepare for but many of them are just plain common sense that people who are panicky tend to overlook.

I don't want to hijack your thread because you've done such a wonderful job in keeping people aware of location, things needed in case of no electricity, helping people locate shelters or people offering a place to stay in their own homes, helping people with how to prepare for a hurricane and so much more. Heck, like I mentioned, your threads helped me know where best to send my son to safety.

I guess I'm going to semi-hijack your thread and ask for ideas to deal with a 'no electricity after an ice storm' situation. We have several elderly relatives and friends who might not survive if things were bad enough.

First, we do have 2 kerosene heaters which do work but the adjuster knob on both don't work so we get full fledged heat with no way of modulating how much heat is put off. (I hate the kerosene heaters because I'm afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning! Plus they smell!) No fireplace. One built in gas heater like is found in older homes in bathrooms. (I don't think those types require any electricity to operate, do they?) The central heat requires electricity to blow heated air. My Mother-In-Laws stove is gas but won't work without electricity and I don't know why it won't.

Needless to say we'd make sure we had full tanks of gas for the cars, cash, extra medication as a precaution. I'm guessing a generator is in our future where we can heat up food and have that all important beverage called coffee.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate hearing from them. I'm relatively certain hubby-to-be and I could weather the storm. Heck, with a large lab, another smaller dog and a cat, I'm relatively sure we could bundle under the animals and blankets to stay warm. I'm more concerned with helping some of our elderly.

Sorry if my post seems a bit disjointed, I'm not one of those who wakes up with all brain cells firing. Takes me awhile to get fully woken up.

NN, I want to thank you again for all of the help you and your threads have given!

How to survive ANY kind of minor disaster: first, read Dean Ing's The Rackham Files, from Baen Books. Also, Lucifer's Hammer, by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.

After Hurricane Hugo came through and flattened much of central (yes, I said CENTRAL) South Carolina, I ran speaker wire from the battery terminals of the car in my carport in through the cracked-open window to the chandelier over the dining room table, and hooked up the backup light I removed from the car. Some of the neighbors came over to see why WE had light. Shortly thereafter, there were lights on up and down our street.

My new gas stove has electric, rather than the older styp piezo-electric igniters. It needs about 4 watts of power to keep the clock and igniters working. Once it's on, the fire will continue to burn. I have a couple of spare auto batteries on trickle-chargers, and two different uninterruptible power supplies. One is 300VA, the other is 1100VA, and both will let me light my stove. The big one will even run my small microwave for 30 minutes or so. I have a crimp tool, spare wire and crimp-connectors, so I can jury-rig connectors to hook the big batteries up into the UPS to keep them going longer. I also have a 5-watt solar panel from Harbor Freight to keep them topped up, if necessary. Not to mention the cars, of course. If you have a car, you have all kinds of electricity available, if you need it badly enough...

I am, of course, still adding to my collection. I have a Ryobi 18V powertool set that I'm expanding, and one of the things for it is a 1-hour charger that runs from 12V dc. Spare cigarette lighter sockets are a good idea, too.

My large electric blanket draws about 400 watts. I've also got a 400watt inverter to hook up to the batteries. I've got a 12v coffee pot, too. Works great for cup-of-soup, and tea, as well. propane camp stove, propane barbecue grill, 20# cannister, and adapter hose to use with both. I can also refill disposable cylinders from the cannister.

We're in tornado country now, so none of this stuff may be here when we really need it, but preparation is an attitude as much as anything.

Oh, and my computer is a laptop...