This past week was just a test and some of us were lucky and barely suffered while others were really tested to their core. Although you could go forward mad, that is not what intelligent people would do. Study the problems that arose and work towards a solution so that this situation does not happen again. The biggest one was power to run our homes. It has been estimated that up to 40% of the state was without power and supposedly we were within minutes of the whole states power grid collapsing. As upsetting as this is, going forward we can plan accordingly and at least invest in a small generator that can run a small heater and some lights at a minimum. I had been looking at large scale generators at Lowe's that will power the whole house, which at worst would cost $15,000 to $20,000. The problem with this is we don't have gas coming to our house so I need to look into the possibility of installing a gas storage cylinder of some kind out in the yard, My folks have one of these, it is about 10ft long, looks like a submarine and it would get filled a couple times a year back when I lived home and the water heater, stove, oven and a large heater in the living room ran off this tank. The other option would be to get a smaller generator that runs on gas, which if we have our cars in the driveway, we could always plan on filling and siphoning that gas as needed along with some 5 gallon containers, but that would not power the whole house. Certainly, the freezer and refrigerator need to keep running in an emergency, my siblings and folks all lost what was a good amount of reserve food due to sitting without power for 2.5 days.
The next thing is to set up a shelf or closet with survival gear as I saw on some Tiktok videos. This event is making doomsday preppers of us all, but we should have alternative cooking methods. I did buy a couple bags of charcoal to burn in my regular grill had the power gone off, but two bags would have only cooked two meals. I am going to plan a few larger bags of charcoal with possibly a newer smaller grill to cook more efficiently along with ordering some of these butane cook tops I saw online that run on butane or propane disposable cylinders. These can be used indoors to heat up simpler meals. Along with these, I am looking at lamps that run on oil. They sell the oil for these lamps by the gallon and larger containers, I will be getting a few gallons of this. This fuel type does not expire as long as it is stored in a cool dry place. I like the idea of batteries and flashlights, but they do good bad over time.
Thirdly, I believe we need food that can sit on shelves, whether it be peanut butter or freeze dried foods, the more variety the better. I know powdered milk kind of sucks, but if it can sit on a shelf, I am getting some along with powdered egg stuff. I knew we had some eggs, but I only bought one extra 18 pack before the storm arrived. This became a staple in the morning and they went within the first three days. We were lucky that I buy a few packs of sausage breakfast and link every time we go to the store because we made some every day and we still have a few of both kinds in the freezer. A bag of potatoes was also very helpful, Wife mixed in 1-2 potatoes to every breakfast and it made the meals go a long way. Coffee is another thing I should plan better. It just so happened I was on the tail end of my big box of Kuerig pods, but I did not run out.
We fared well, we were only without power for less than an hour, but my family back in Crystal went through a hard time, an alternate heat source would have been great for them in this situation. I am pretty sure we will all be investing in at least a small generator to keep the fridges running for next time.
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