Are You Ready For A Blackout In Your Area? (Vanity - Poll)

Aug 15, 03 | SLB

[SLB]

How many FReepers feel they would be ready for a blackout right NOW? What do you do that makes you feel like you are or are not? How about personal safety.

[ASA Vet]

Rats taste better than cats, and are easier to skin.

[archy]

You're assuming I have friends who partake of karaoke... It's bad enough I hang out on the web with Texans. :)

Them's fightin' words, son.

Click here, ya varmint!

Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
Tenei te ta ngata puhuru huru
Nana nei i tiki mai

Whakawhiti te ra
A upane ka upane!
A upane kaupane whiti te ra!
Hi!!

[archy]

I lived in Kansas when I was in USAF. I rode my Hardly Daviston alot. Knew where every bridge, culvert, parking deck, deep ditch, etc in SE Kansas was located.

Yep. I was at Ft Riley/Junction City and Forbes AFB/Topeka for a while back in the early '70s. I had a Triumph Bonneville back then, and developed the same habit you did.

Ive needed it twice, once in southern Illinois when I had a tailwind byt noticed road trash and debris blowing alongside the road in the opposite direction. And then the temperature dropped, maybe fifteen degrees in five minutes or less. I found cover quick.

The second was when this most recent storm hit Memphis. Same deal, when the morming sky went greenish-gray and it started getting chilly, I passed over a railroad underpass, spotted a maintenance access road under it, and figured that'd be a swell place to see what was coming. It was.

Among the interesting sights I noticed in the following 45 minutes or so: an uprooted tree bouncing down the tracks like Winnie the Pooh going bump! bump! bump! down the stairs. And most shocking to me, a grocery cart flying through the air, kind of like a wierd alien recon ship looking for a place to park. When you consider the near absolute lack of surface on a gridded wire shopping cart to act as airfoils or as wind resistance, it begins to get you wondering just how much force was in that wind. I figure something big bumped it and got it started, and from there, it was along for the ride. And I didn't care to try that meself, being on a Honda VF500 motorbike with full fairing that morning.

-archy-/-

[upcountryhorseman]

Hell yes, we're ready! We do our own power. We are not
hooked up to any utility company. Yet, we have all the
appliances everyone else does.

[archy]

Rats taste better than cats, and are easier to skin.

Per post #124? Or #64?

-archy-/-

[archy]

These a-holes on the major networks and cable news shows are so full of themselves, they can kiss my butt. They don't realize that the rest of the country, outside the major cities go through these things on a regular basis.

So long as they don't bother to pay attention to us, I see no reason for us to bother with listening to them. Seems to be a fair deal to me. And turn about is fair play.

-archy-/-

[archy]

Are You Ready For A Blackout In Your Area? (Vanity - Poll)

Yes - food, water, fuel for two day and ammo for one day.

Get more ammo, then.

Or partner up with someone with only a day's food, but with more ammunition.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Was at McConnell AFB Wichita 73-76. On Turnpike, I got passed by a tumble weed, I was doing 65 mph, like I was sitting still. I got in front truck for cover and rode 20 miles before I got to an exit and safety. Through hand signals the trucker knew what I was doing and followed me off the exit. It got real weird for a while then it was gone. No Twister just one heck of a T-storm. Bule sky then black sky.

[archy]

WOW!!!!!!!!!

I'm impressed with your preperations.

Not really, it's just the way I live, plus either a few redundancies for backup, or the use of polyvalent capabilities of a primary tool or bit of gear to perform a secondary function.

You've given me some really great ideas.

Glad to; no charge. But you're welcome to educate me on which, if any, of my thoughts are of the least use to your situation, or to anything you consider vital that I or others haven't mentioned. That might help someone else iout, too.

It's' amazing how the media has just seemed to not even know of the existence of Memphis, let alone tell anyone outside the area of the problems there.

Yep. Look for a lot of that. Though our local media did some pretty fair reporting on the situation, there weren't a whole lot of folks watching TV that first week...and newspaper deliveries were spotty with trees blocking many streets. Radio was the big voice, though somehow, the TV folks forgot to mention that detail, even though some of the stations that did particularly good jobs were affiliated with the TV broadcast media.

-archy-/-

[archy]

I have a bug-out kit packed for fires and the like. Interstate 15 is 5 miles away so it would have to be a pretty big toxic spill to bother me. The Union Pacific line is about 8 miles away.

Close enough for concern, but nothing to be overly worried about. Though one particularly nasty rail spill caused evacuation of residents from a six-county area.

An underground shelter with filtered air might be another possibility. I'm really begnning to pay attention to earth sheltered homes. And garages.

-archy-/-

[PoorMuttly]

Muttly ALWAYS ready for a blackout in his area. Ready for a lot of other things, too.

He is a "Good Scout," and always keeps his official Raccoonskin Cap nearby too.

Muttly a Safety Expert (maybe that's why my owner makes me wear a collar, chokechain, harness, muzzle, and blinders when we go on our walks. At least Muttly gets to wear his hat...some compensation for having to pull that wagon full of rocks, too. Muttly like red wagon...not rocks so much, though. Muttly allowed to carry his TOYS though...but by State law, they must be unloaded and cased. Oh well.).

[CholeraJoe]

I have the underground shelter (root cellar). Just need to figure out how to filter the air. Would a HEPA filter work?

[meanspirit77]

We live off grid and have been generating our own power for near 20 years.When the diesel tank is full, have enough fuel to run for 18 months. So black outs not a problem.

Have two good wells and a spring that puts out about 300 gal. water per hr. Pure cold clear water.

Have a garden that puts out vegetables during the summer and chickens that put out eggs whenever they feel like it. Our family does not eat much meat but if the store closes down we have deer, bear, and squirrel aplenty around this place.

All our heat comes from a wood stove and it burns five months a year.Two and a half cords the winter.We don't have a/c as we don't need it.

Not many would like to live isolated the way we do but when I go down to the big city(three times per year)I never like what I see and am always thankful to be leaving fast.

[MainFrame65]

Each of the two duplex outlets, protected by a 20 amp circuit breaker, can actually provide 20.2 amps, or just over 40 amps total, according to the manual. The duplex outlets are heavy duty, so either socket of each duplex pair can actually supply the full 20 amps, but you need to use 12 guage wire to carry it. Most extension cords are the smaller 14 guage wire, which is rated to carry 13 amps, not 20. You can use these for smaller loads. The T-B unit comes with a 230 volt cord set which I could not use.

It includes wheels, and a quart of oil to get you started, but you should consider switching to a synthetic oil good at all temperatures instead of the 30w, that can only be used above 40 F. You will need to change the oil after the first few hours of operation. It does NOT include a couple of useful features that you might find on another unit - an idle control facility that drops the speed to idle when the load is removed, and a low oil/oil pressure sensor that shuts off the engine for either of those conditions.

One other IMPORTANT item. If you are connecting this kind of stuff, you MUST attach your generator ground connection to a good Earth ground. You can find your existing ground stake close to the electrical service entrance. Check its diameter and distance from the generator. You can buy heavy duty ground wire (green insulation) for 11 cents a foot at Home Depot, and a ground clamp that fits your stake for another dollar or two.

I bought 50 feet of 12 guage house wire, a pair each of heavy duty plugs, duplex sockets, boxes, cover plates, and wire clamps, and built a pair of long extension cords, since the assembled ones were sold out. If you do this, you should follow wiring standards - green or bare wire to ground/case, white (neutral) to the large blade, and black (hot wire) to the small blade, on both ends. Then I used multiple extension taps to provide enough connections.

Most of what I plugged in required grounded plugs, so I needed to use grounded extension cords and taps. My homemade extension boxes came in near the refrigerator and freezer, and with a tap for each box I connected one to each, with the microwave on the refrigerator side (opening the refrigerator door stopped its compressor.) It also had a compact fluorescent (25 w) lamp, the solar water heater pump (1/8 horsepower, less than 100 w) and one other kitchen appliance.

Besides the freezer, the other socket had an extension to the living room (TV, lamp, laptop computer, and fan) and another extension to the other computers and networking, plus 2 more fans and lamps.

I was careful to determine the load of each item - some by actual measurement, some from the label - to insure that I was within limits. But I came close....

[MainFrame65]

By the way, since the crisis is over here in Memphis, and Lowe's will not take used generators back, I suspect that a lot of these will be available around here slightly used, at bargain prices.

[Servant of the Nine]

What's so difficult indeed? Those of us who live in rural areas take that kind of preparedness for granted.

So does anyone in hurricaine or tornado country.

So9

[TaxRelief]

The hardest part is filtering the air. There are a few effective ways.

[FITZ]

What's so difficult indeed? Those of us who live in rural areas take that kind of preparedness for granted. It's the Disneyland / entitlement / girly-man metrosexual mentality of the blue-zoners that refuses to even consider such things.

That's true. A black-out only means you've lost electricity for a while ----- if you have a well, you don't have water but you can get some of that from a river or lake. Candles work pretty good and you don't have to worry about batteries working. The only preparations I have is I keep some candles and matches around. I don't bother with generators or anything special. I almost don't mind a blackout now and then, it's nice when the constant hum caused by electricity goes quiet and you can really enjoy the silence.

[Squantos]

LOL........I won't even ask how warm ya got while at her house !

Stay Safe !

[mtbopfuyn]

Only thing that worries me is having the pipes freeze

Turn off your water connection outside. Turn on the water inside and let the pipes drain completely. No water in the pipes means they won't burst. Of course make sure you stock up on your water needs before doing this.