Disaster Plan/Prepardness

In addition to a month's supply of non-perishable food and water I have a small array of solar panels and a battery bank to provide quiet energy.   The panels on a sunny day generate around 10 amp hours per hour over a six hour exposure.  I can  run  a couple of peltier coolers with it, computer, and cell phones.    Of course I have a gas grill, and in addition  I have played around with several solar cookers, and am in the process of building one using a small satellite dish.  Preliminary test are good, as I can generate temps up around 400 degrees with it.  I have a solar still to purify water.  These are easy to make.   I keep several gallons of chlorine bleach for cloudy days.  I have the camping gear needed.     I have had  jungle and desert survival training.  Still have the skills that is required of a scout/sniper.   For the past few years I have had a small garden, growing fresh vegetables.   I always have a seed supply.

I have the fire power to defend all of it if needed, and the training and experience of several deployments. As mention, I hope never to have to use them.

I'm not a survivalist in the traditional sense or do this for religious reasons, I'm just a former Marine who's seen the not so nice corners of the world. 

Um, I don't even know where the batteries are for the flashlight.

Guess I better get to it!

This is us also!

Just a reminder about beer and gasoline.  The light American lagers have a very short shelf life.   If you wants a beer that lasts, then the highly hopped ales and the dark German beers are the best for that.  If you need to store gasoline for a month or more then a stabilizer is needed.

I prefer India Pale ale.   Been know to dabble a bit in zymurgy.   Have the equipment.   Yeast is the important thing to keep in supply.  One can use bread yeast in a pinch, but who wants to brew beer or wine that taste like bread.  

Standards must be upheld, even in an emergency....

I hate to be  a killjoy, but none of those supplies would do you any good under 6' of water or if your neigbors house is now sitting in your living room.

Don't stress out about things that are out of your control.

I am just amazed how well the building withstood an 8+ quake. If that were to happen in NYC the whole city would be leveled with very few surviors.

Exactly what I came here to say.

If your area experienced a true disaster, all of the preparedness in the world will do you no good. Your food/water/generator supply would be wiped out with the rest of the area.

I live in "tornado alley" and first, the chances your house will be hit by a tornado strong enough to flatten it are very slim. Second, if your house IS flattened, everything would be gone save for the basement, assuming you have one. A FEW supplies are smart to keep in a basement (but not a month's worth, that is just overkill IMO) such as emergency medication, first aid, etc... but response teams will likely be at your nonexistent door within the hour.

When the city of Greensburg, KS was literally wiped off the map by an EF5 tornado in 2007, response teams from the entire state and surrounding states were there within hours. You're not gonna starve in your basement if a tornado hits.

Having an "outside contact" is always a good idea too - someone who lives in another part of the country whom you can contact to say you survived - then THEY can update everyone else via phone calls, emails, facebook, whatnot. One less thing for you to do, as you likely will have other things to focus on.

I lived in an active earthquake zone for a few years, and had a good earthquake kit - various items stashed throughout the house (under my bed, in the closet, a kitchen cupboard, the garage, etc) ... I could have survived for a month without outside help, *IF* I had been able to access all of it. Unfortunatley in an earthquake (or tornado, or whatever else mother nature throws at us) you never know what part of the house is going to fall down, and what you'll be able to retrieve. The best I did was have on hand what I would have needed, and then left the rest to fate.

Although I will add good gloves and sturdy boots onto the list - in case you have to dig through rubble or walk through shattered glass. Also a facemask is never a bad idea.

The only thing we kinda think about and prepare for is to be able live without electric for 3 days or so.  That means candles and lighters/matches, which we always have either out or in the Christmas bin in the basement, flashlights with batteries,  and firewood to burn in our woodburing fireplace for heat if wintertime.  It has come in handy twice during the 25 years I've lived in MN, both times in the winter when heavy, wet snow/ice had us without power for 2 days.  Our pantry/freezer/fridge always has probably a weeks worth of food at a minimum if one isn't too picky.

I agree that with a true disaster that might strike us (fire, tornado or very unlikely flooding), emergency services would be available within hours following the initial disaster and that anything I might have on hand would probably be ruined or gone anyway.  I have bins of camping/backpacking equipment if we ever did need them.

If this happened in my town specifically I would now have beach front property. They would be evacuating my town, as I live about 5 miles from a Nuc plant. I would have walked  to my sisters in Southington by now (if I had to), assuming her house is standing.

The only preparedness I have in my house is a couple of cans of tuna and soup, oh and some bags of chips. The thyroid blocker caps are sitting in a drawer somewhere in my kitchen.

Agreed, we have a "Tornado" box.  It has a radio, candles, matches, flashlights, batteries and blankets, paper, pens, pencils, cards, uno and 5 dice.  In addition we have a small generator (1500W) that has already been used twice (6 days after wind storm and 3 days after ice storm).  Don't forget that your hot water heater contains likely 50-100 gallons of fresh clean water that can be used for drinking water.

I agree with some others in that the "ground zero" of a major natural disaster (flood, landslide, tornado, hurricane) there would be little or no home standing. A stash of canned goods, water, and fuel would not do me much good scattered over a half mile and buried under mine and my neighbor's "homes" which are now piles of scrap wood. However, in something like a hurricane or major ice storm, many people are left with little or no damage to their homes, but are looking at days/weeks/months without power or clean water. Thankfully we were only without power for 4 days following hurricane katrina (I live 1.5 hours inland) and we had a supply of food, water and propane for cooking. 

Hello

I live on the SC coast so we kind of have a hurricane plan.

So today I did it. I ordered a water purification system and I am planning on getting 2 more cases of MRE's.  If I survive an earthquake/tidal wave we should be set.  I figure  if we have water and a limited supply of food we (wife & I) could survive for a couple of weeks until help arrives. 

Kevin

For those who don't want to keep a month's supply should at least keep a 72 hr emergency kit that will fit into a backpack.   It's portable and can be kept in a hall closet or trunk of a car.

Those of us who lived through Katrina and it's effects know not to depend on the government for a quick response.    I remember living 60 miles inland from the Misssissippi Gulf Coast as  a kid and experiencing Camile.      We were without electricity for 12 days.  Clean water was scarce.