Hurricane Tips To Consider

I'll do a whole after action report of the hurricane once I have power, but this was one I'd never considered in advance. Have to flush toilets without water pressure. Water everywhere that will work fine, but it's full of debris.

This worked like a champ for removing most of the junk, and keeping it out of the toilet tanks.

 

Cleaning and building guns takes time and it's soothing... at least that's what I tell my wife....

 

I was on a 30 minute rotation for many hours using one of the cars to charge up to five things at a time using an inverter and the multiple charger ports in my car. I'd relax and listen to the news for 30 minutes, engine on, then read quietly for another 30 minutes.

After an hour in the car I'd get cramped up and find something that needed doing for 30 minutes so I could stretch my legs. Collecting toilet flushing water, cleaning gutters, looking after animals, and later... battling ants. The car did quite well with the hour off, half hour on cycle, and all my cell phones, flashlights and power sticks stayed topped off.

After the first days of this I realized that there was simply no outside communication available, and darn few operational radio stations. Number 1 Son suggested that I use airplane mode to save battery and just turn the phone on for a minute or two at reasonable intervals to see if anybody had sent us a message. This was much more efficient and became my Standard Operating Procedure.

We were only five miles apart, but had no way to communicate most of the time. This was simple enough to work out. We had a time schedule. We worked in shifts, each with an expected arrival and departure time. If he didn't arrive within a reasonable amount of time I would travel his route in reverse and see where he was hung up. Neither of us had any trouble getting around the flood waters as long as we watched the tides, so for nearly a week we changed shifts like clockwork.

Seeing how absolutely useless cellular communication and land-line phone was in this situation, and with the small distances involved, I will dust off the old radios and find channels that nobody uses around here. (Most of them, last I checked.) Same drill with battery maintenance, but using the time hacks to listen for a report, I suspect I could spend far less time worrying about keeping communication devices charged.

In the end reliability always comes back to the stubby pencil, field message book and a runner for me.

Comm sucks.

 

ANTS! They got into the feed bins and were giving me fits for a while. They seemed particularly attracted to dog food. I couldn't use any of the ant spray I had on the feed, and the little buggers seemed to be all through the dog feed bin. In this case the solution was fire. My propane brush burner made quick work of eliminating ants and saving the feed. (now with a little added fried protein.)

I sprayed the exterior perimeter of the building with Ortho Home Defense and have not seen another ant.

 

We've worked together on stuff like this since he was born. We'd blend in with the static.

 

Diatametious earth can be gotten that is food grade and it will kill all insects with an exoskeleton . It is also eatable for mammals to help cleanout the digestive system with no side effects .

I have for years had learned to be creative when I'm in a position of having to wait.
I have a drawing paper and pencil , there are hundreds of things I have in progress, drawing and building and improving .
I have no dull moments .
There is nothing made that cannot be done better .
The question is ,what are you willing to invest to make it so?
If/when something breaks ,that is my license to make it better.
My late wife both hated an loved the fact I made things work well past their design, but then I was circumventing buying the latest thing. . To me the education gained in making the repair was worth it.
Water.
I long sense have resolved to not worry about maintaining perfectly clean water, as I have filters for making that happen on an as needed basis ,So even water put in 40 gallon plastic barrels is a bird in the hand I don't fret knowing that some water will go to the fish and from there to the garden that flows to the fish tank . water is lost in evaporation. filtration through dirt an fish
is adequate.
I have plenty of other stored water some treated some not . ultimately it all gets re filtered/treated .
Post SHTF and I have to go portable the drinkable water is easily identified and can be hand carried to the truck/trailer for hauling .
the same with foods .
Ideally though I think it prudent to have the capacity to use plastic buckets to transfer canned foods with both to hide the contents and the security of extra resistance to weather loosing labels or other damage due to handling , card board boxes can fall apart in rain and then what are you going to do ? handle each can individually rolling down the road ? buckets have handles and secure lids water proof.
Having this capacity, means having more buckets available but they do come in handy for a lot of other things including collecting rain.
Large roll of plastic spread out on the ground will collect better than a roof that adds contamination to the water.
Having a hose to transfer water to other things makes a difference too.
In a pinch I have taken a trash bag and opened it up and stapled it to the celling where it was leaking and like a trough draw the water to a safer location into a bucket.
If I were caught in a flood zone and no escape ,and in a house, I would not go any where in the house with out the means to break a hole in the wall or roof to get out.
If the house stays intact and the food and water preps are protected, one can survive on the roof so long as the temperatures don't drop significantly .
Though you can't know when or where things will go down, if you have a plan and know what needs to be done and know how to take charge, sometimes this person can guide others to safety, doing the best with what they've got.

 

or until the mosquitos carry you away...

They are so big all of the turkeys in the turkey houses have backed up to the walls and are looking worried...

 

In the aftermath of the storm I really came to appreciate the little packs of mustard and cups of half-and-half creamer that didn't require refrigeration. These could be barter items in longer term disasters.

I've been surprised at the number of people I've met that went without coffee during the power outage. They could boil water, but were clueless about cowboy coffee. They couldn't even figure out that on most electric coffee makers you can just slowly pour the hot water over the grounds and then reheat a cup at a time in a pan.

 

That's funny and sad .
I saw a your tube or BBC program on how people freeze up during a disaster , be it a fire or earth quake they all turn deer in head lights and literally have to wait for some one to guide them.

 

Trust me but perhaps you already know this, You have to order people into action.
Most will only stand there as the old man used to say.
One thumb up their a$$ and one thumb in their mouth and rotating every 5 minutes.

 

And now thanks to the government...

****** County Beekeepers,

I have not heard of any plans to spray with a helicopter yet, but I know some towns have decided to spray with a ground sprayer. If you live within the city limits or close by be sure your bees are registered and seek out the powers to be in town and make them aware of your location.
If any of you have bees close to the ****** County Line be aware they are starting a helicopter spray program as early as Saturday Oct. 6th.