there is nothing I need more in my life if not more ways to potentially kill or maim myself. Sounds perfect. I'll take three!
The scary one for a friend of ours was the sump pump... power goes out a lot in her area so she put in a full-house natural gas generator, but then proceeded to hydroloc it when she topped up the oil by putting in as much as she could before it overflowed out of the oil fill. Had zero idea what a dip stick is. Probably needed 50ml of oil, she put in 4L. First time the thing tried to autostart (set to weekly to ensure it's all running fine), it blew the fuck up as pistons bent and mayem ensued. Then she went 3 weeks for a replacement, during which they had the longest outage yet... due to heavy rains... all while her basement filled with water. She was so embarrassed about what she did she didn't call and ask if she could borrow my generator... they got manual water pumps and her and her 2 kids spent hours manually draining water out of their basement. It was nuts.
Arlington just shut down all restaurants and bars due to the boil notice. Unless the food is prepackaged (like lunchables) they can’t sell it. So many people are without water right now, these spots were boiling and donating water to help the community. Just overall failure.
I have a Troy-Bilt 5550 generator. I had an electrician wire the set-up for me. I use the 240-V 4-wire connector from the generator into a similar plug that is mounted just below my breaker panel. I switch off all the breakers, start the generator, connect the plugs, then flip on the breaker for my well, fridge, and a couple outlets for lamps. ETA: I got the generator and wiring done 15 years ago. The only thing I'd do different now is get a dual-fuel generator so I didn't have to rely on using gasoline.
My parents' house is at the bottom of a hill with inadequate drainage. There were definitely a few occasions pre-generator where my dad had my little sister filling 5 gal buckets from the sump pump, he was running them over to me, and I was chucking them out of the window well, trying to stay ahead of the basement flood. I also always insisted on getting to use the shopvac because that was the "fun" post-basement-flood chore. When they got a generator we thought all our problems were over, until the backyard flooded so badly that the window wells filled with water and instead of the nice, predictable, gradual rise you get from the sump pump outage, we got a veritable firehose of water shooting in all over everything on that half of the basement. Wheee! I would still 10/10 prefer my natural disasters in the summer. Being cold sucks, even if it means the world is your refrigerator and it's easier to keep perishables.
The thing I learned from Peace Corps and disaster response (like the first 96 hours, post-incident) is you want to invest in the capacity, rather than the solution. Ie, filters and generation, rather than bottles and batteries. You'd do just as well with some UV filtering/heating and a capful of bleach per 3-4 gallons. Some stuff that just doesn't work, like: you're not going to farm. But most of the effective plans and oh-shit kits have a time frame in mind. "I need this capacity at this scale for this many hours/days. Exceeding that, I am probably going to evacuate or bring another option online. What's the cheapest/easiest way to achieve that?" The scary part is almost always the rural folks: the difficulty in reach, access and restoration of services means they suffer disproportionately.
yeah I already have several life straws, sawyer filters, that kinda thing. Purification tablets were just for convenience. Worst case is, water from the creek and boil it with an abundance of fuel. Overall, I am actually astonished how well we did given how isolated we are and to the extent and length of said isolation. I didn't have to touch anything truly "emergency supplies" for any uncomfortable length of time, just make some very redneck repairs, under the duress of not only "I can't afford to get this wrong and if I fuck it up then we're fucked" but also "I'm still actively struggling with COVID recovery and labored breathing so this extra sucks." I was eating dense, dense caloric food non stop and still down 7 lbs since Sunday. Last night I got a few interrupted hours of sleep and that's the best I've done in days. Today, I might allow myself to take a nap. What this did though, was highlight, very clearly, any holes are that I needed to plug up. So the next time (and there will be a next time) something happens, I can actually be comfortable, physically but more important this time, mentally, and just know that I have it on lock. Overall, we did really fucking good and I'm actually quite proud of myself. Gave me a lot more confidence in my own abilities, which I think will be the ultimate takeaway from this personally. I just need to let it sink in. Plus, I didn't have to go to the hospital for anything this time!!!
I just really want to stress that for those who live paycheck to paycheck or below poverty, this is an exceptionally challenging thing to do. Canning vegetables and soups kept us fed when I was a kid, during the months that extra money needed to be spent to heat the house, or when we lost power. Mom and dad NEVER had electric stoves for this reason. Properly canning and storing food is a survival skill. For those who live in the country and have animals, keeping feed and bedding on hand is a necessity, but damn is it expensive. Preparedness costs a lot of money. I think I didn’t realize how much until very recently.
It's an investment. It can pay off in decreased reliance/increased independence. I find the folks who don't have the money for preparedness invest in relationships and community that helps them through tough times. Until EVERYONE is going through the same tough time...
It's easier to ask your neighbor for a generic favor (cup of sugar, watch your kids, jump your car off) than to buy sugar, a babysitter AND jumper cables, and vice versa for your neighbor. Sure, if you've got the money, it's nice to never need to ask for a favor. But, at a certain point, especially when something unexpected happens, the idea that you can be a completely independent member of society is a dangerous myth. That whole "we are better together" thing. At work, we can trace clearly and definitively a decline in civic engagement and social capital alongside an increased need after disasters, and reliance on federal aid and outside donations.
I grew up in a Boston-area Catholic Church. So suffice it to say our collection plate offerings weren't going so much to help neighbors, but more toward "paying the legal fees of Father Touchy."
Oh see. Southern Baptist here. Off and on as a kid but more so as my mom got older. and I’ll say - when mom had cancer and was going through surgery and then subsequent treatments the church did amazing stuff for my parents. They sat in the hospital waiting room with dad, made meals for a few weeks, and did anything and everything they could to make life easier on them. But that’s kind of the point DND was making - individual vs community wide catastrophe.