I was strolling through one of my old blogs yesterday. At one time, they were public, but I've since made them private - they were never my best writing, but I still enjoy going back and looking at what was going on in our lives at that point in time. I found this story - which was originally published 5 years ago today. I had completely forgotten about this until I read it - and then the memories came flooding back. What a day that was....
We had a quick moving clipper move through our
area and dump 4 inches of snow on us. Normally, that's not a big deal.
Unfortunately, the storm was not predicted. Our road crews were sent
out on other assignments, and once the snow hit, they were stuck in the
snow just like the rest of us and were unable to make it back to their home base and pick up the salt
trucks.
This was the day that prompted my being more
prepared for the snow in my car. It's the reason why I keep a snow supply box - with food, blankets, water, and kitty litter in the trunk of my car.
I
was stuck out in the snow. I made it most of the way home with no
incident, but then came the last mile. No matter which road you travel
to get into our neighborhood, you have to go down a steep hill, around a
tight corner and up another steep hill. The "back" way into our
neighborhood goes through a ravine - the turns are even tighter and
steeper on that road.
I came in the front way, and a
school bus had spun out on the road and was blocking both lanes. I
backed up the hill and turned around to go the back way into our neighborhood.
That was where I made my mistake. I crowned the hill at the top of the
ravine, and my van began spinning out of control down the snowy
roadway. I did everything I was suppposed to do - and still, I kept
spinning. It felt as if the van was in danger of tipping and rolling
over. Finally, after three complete spins, I came to rest against a
curb. After I gathered my wits, I backed the van the rest of the way
down the hill and made it up the next hill. I finally got onto the road
behind my house, only to find cars at a complete standstill. There was
a five car pile up, and two school buses full of children had spun out
on the road, and were stopped, perpendicular to the roadway.
I gave up all hope of getting home in my car. There was an empty
field off to my right. I pulled my van into the field, and walked the
rest of the way home. I only had three blocks to go. Because the road
surface was so slippery, I walked through front yards. I watched,
horrified, as a motorist left his car and attempted to walk down the
road. Another car, attempting to get around the pile up had pulled to
the side of the accident and lost control of his car. He was headed
toward the pedestrian, and there was no way the collision could be
avoided. Somehow, the pedestrian managed to get out of the way of the
car, but it was enough to convince me to stay far away from the
roadway.
The kids usually get out of school at 2:30.
My daughter gave up on the bus and walked the mile and a half home. The boys school is
farther away from the house. The buses did not deliver them home until
7:00 that night.
Now that I've had time to reflect on the incident, what lessons have I learned?
First, I have prepared a box of items in my
trunk just in case if I am stranded again. If I had been stuck in my
car for any length of time, I would have been in some serious trouble. My box has blankets, non-perishable food, water, kitty litter, hiking boots, a flashlight, kitty litter (for traction), and a small snow shovel.
Second,
I put snow chains in the back of the car. I have all weather radials
on the van, but they were not enough to handle the slick snow that we
had. Even more important, I learned how to put the chains ON the tires.
Third,
I make certain that I have my winter coat in the back of the car when I leave the house. I
don't wear my coat when I drive- I don't feel like I can handle the car
well when I am all bulky in my coat. However, walking home three blocks
in my Keds and a sweatshirt through a snow storm was enough to convince
me that NO MATTER WHAT, my coat is always in whatever car I am
traveling in.
Stay warm this winter!
Showing posts with label Emergency Preparedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emergency Preparedness. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Thursday, February 6, 2014
In the Aftermath of an Ice Storm
The East Coast was hit with a massive snow and ice storm yesterday. Here in our neck of the woods, we saw ice. Lots of ice. Preliminary estimates are coming in at 0.5 inches. Half an inch of ice doesn't seem like enough, but it's enough to bring trees down - on power lines, houses, and cars.
Our neighborhood was fortunate. We live in an old subdivision. (As in 50 years old.) The neighborhoods around us have been in place for 20 years or less. I believe we are on a different circuit than the new neighborhoods, as we usually have power even when they lose power. Even though our lights blinked on and off yesterday, we never once lost power. There are some advantages to living in an older neighborhood!
The big disadvantage to living in an old neighborhood? Our trees are big. They are very big. They are old. And they fell. Yesterday morning, I awoke to the huge flash of light that was a transformer exploding somewhere. (5:30 am) Not sure how long our power was going to last, I hopped into the shower and then moved to an area of the house that would not be impacted should a tree fall down.
I went outside around 7 to take a look at the damage, and I could hear the sounds of tree branches cracking, breaking, and ripping followed by a loud "thud" as the branch hit the ground. I watched as the neighbor down the street from us lost all of the trees in his yard in a 3 minute period. Rip, crash, smash, branch after branch came down, and then the trees themselves split down the middle to the ground.
We could still get in and out of our neighborhood to the main road yesterday, but most of the streets to the neighborhoods were blocked with downed trees. As soon as the ice stopped falling, people were out in our neighborhood with chain saws. Since most of us use wood stoves to heat their houses, the wood was quickly cut down and added to woodpiles for next season.
Unfortunately, the damage north of us was significant. Daughter and I drove up there this morning and had our breath taken away by the damage. An entire Christmas Tree farm was wiped out. The trees were destroyed by the ice. A big wooded area close to the road had lost most of the old growth trees. Live power lines were still down, and road crews and police officers were manning the ends of the roads, keeping people from venturing down the road. Power is still out in large chunks of the county, and most of our schools are without power. Those schools that have power are being used as shelters. SO, we had no school today, I'm not sure if we will have school tomorrow or not. The kids have been to school one day this week - Tuesday - and they went in as a 2 hour delay.
I've heard that those who are without power up North of us have moved food outdoors - to the north side of their house and buried it in the snow. Some have put their milk and orange juice into their snowy bushes on the North Side of the house to keep it cool.
Remember I had said yesterday that I had filled my freezer with water containers filled with water? The purpose was to keep the freezer as cold as possible so that I wouldn't face this situation. We also have a generator that we can run every so often in order to keep a freezer full of frozen food cold. I think I would be worried about critters breaking into my food supply outdoors, buried in the snow. I'd have my food in a cooler, filled with snow if it were me. With all of the snow and ice, the critters are starved, and just a tarp or the packaging is not going to stop a hungry animal from digging into my food.
One last thought about ice storms. We do have a grill and a propane stove. We have a sheltered area outdoors where we cook. It has a little roof so that we can use it in inclement weather. We've used it before when the power has been out. We went to the trouble to make it sheltered and with a roof so that we could cook outdoors. Cooking indoors on a propane stove is bad. When you cook with propane, (or kerosene), you build up carbon monoxide in your house Carbon Monoxide kills. If you are without power, and need to cook, DO IT OUTSIDE.
Be safe!
A few pictures from our ice storm:
 |
| This tree is old. I'm not sure how old, but we're estimating close to 100. It's been here since this neighborhood was farmland. This tree was one of those trees that the farmer plowed around. I took this picture at daybreak on Weds, a couple of hours after the storm had started. You can already see the branches starting to pile up under the tree. |
 |
| Icicles on the clothesline. |
 |
| The berry bush in front of my house. |
 |
| This is my tree this morning. Take a look back at yesterday's picture and today's picture. There's a lot less of the tree up in the air. Look at those branches on the ground around the tree. |
 |
| Branches on the ground. You can't see it, but there are still several more, dangling overhead that have not yet dropped. |
 |
| This was a big branch. I'm 5'5" tall, and this branch is a good 6 or more inches higher than I am. |
 |
| That birdhouse was up on a post under the tree branch on Tuesday. Compare my hand to the size of the branch. That was a big branch. When we cut the branch down this weekend, I want to count the rings and see how old that branch was, so I can get a better idea of how old the tree is. |
 |
| A better view of the branch, looking up towards the end from where I was standing by the split. |
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Hurricane Sandy
This time last year, Hurricane Sandy decimated the East Coast.
If you don't live in one of the areas directly impacted by the Hurricane, you might not realize that the damage still exists, and that the devastation is still heartbreaking. Boardwalks have been repaired, and the public face of communities that draw in the tourist dollars have been spiffed up. However, go a few blocks away, and the damage to homes and families is still phenomenal. I was in Jersey City this summer with middle son, and I was astounded at the damage that I saw - damage that was still present, and had not yet been addressed - months after the hurricane. But, the national news had found new things to move onto, new stories to cover, and they've left the victims alone to muddle through with whatever resources they might have.
Many people who lived farther away from the coast were prepared for the storm, with bottled water, propane tanks, generators, and canned food.
Many were not prepared. I remember seeing stories of people who lived in lower Manhattan who had stocked their refrigerators and freezers with food to see them through the storm. I never did find out how they fared after their power went out, but I think it's safe to assume that things didn't go as they had planned.
This leads me to a question for you: Are you prepared?
Winter is quickly coming upon us. In the Mid-Atlantic, winter storms throw us into a panic mode, with store shelves stripped in hours, and cars gridlocked on the road as people fight to get home.
As a family, each of our cars is equipped with the basic needs for winter: A bag of kitty litter for traction, a snow shovel, chains for the tires, and a couple of blankets. We also keep a big case of water, and a plastic container full of granola bars, tuna, crackers, nuts, and other things that will keep us going if we get stranded on the side of the road for any length of time. (I grew up in the Mid-West, and winter proofing your car was something everyone did around Halloween.)
I always keep enough groceries on hand in case if we are snowed in for any length of time. I'm currently shopping sales and clipping coupons to restock what I normally keep on hand. I depleted our stock during the recent furloughs. We have several hand cranked LED lanterns for light, a couple of radios- one is hand cranked and the other is battery powered. We also have a wood stove to keep the house warm, as well as a propane stove and a gas grill that we can use outside to cook should our power go out.
We have been snowed in for more than a week before. When Snowmaggedon wracked the East Coast a few years ago, we would dig out of our neighborhood just in time to get snowed in again! Fortunately, I had made a huge COSTCO run in the week before the snow storms hit, so we were well prepared for a lengthy stay at home.
The parking lot for our grocery store got gridlocked the night before the first of the storms were to hit. The police were called, and it took them well over 3 hours to get the lot cleared. People were parking at the high school and walking the half mile to the grocery store, only to leave with much less than they expected.
The day before Hurricane Sandy was supposed to strike Maryland, I ran to Wal-Mart to see my friends and neighbors, and see what things went first.
I did pick up extra trash bags, and I picked up some batteries. Somebody had moved the condoms next to the batteries, and the store manager was having a cow while I was there! I ran into a lot of my friends, and we had a great time catching up with each other!
The funny thing I noticed was that the frozen/refrigerated foods were the first to go.
The really odd thing is that we live in a rural area. Power always goes out here during storms.
Why were people stocking up on refrigerated and frozen food?
In the days after the storm, people were complaining that they'd lost hundreds of dollars in frozen and refrigerated foods. Hmmm....
We do keep a freezer, and it is filled. A power outage does hit us hard, but when the power goes out, we treat the freezer as a giant ice chest. It is already filled with several bottles of water that are hard frozen. If we feel we are in danger of the power going out, we will fill our ice chests with food that we think that we are going to use, and fill it with some of the frozen water bottles. And then, we keep the freezer closed. We will then use the generator once every few hours to power the sump pump, the freezer, and charge our phones. If we're going to shift anything else over to the ice chests, we will do it while the generator is running, so that the freezer can bring the temperature back down after we open it before we turn the generator off for a while.
(This requires that we keep gas cans on hand in the shed. We do that anyway, since we have a big yard, and we use it for our lawn mower.)
In memory of everything that the good people of New Jersey and New York went through last year, ask yourself, "How prepared am I for winter?"
If nothing else, make certain that your car is prepared for the coming winter weather!
If you don't live in one of the areas directly impacted by the Hurricane, you might not realize that the damage still exists, and that the devastation is still heartbreaking. Boardwalks have been repaired, and the public face of communities that draw in the tourist dollars have been spiffed up. However, go a few blocks away, and the damage to homes and families is still phenomenal. I was in Jersey City this summer with middle son, and I was astounded at the damage that I saw - damage that was still present, and had not yet been addressed - months after the hurricane. But, the national news had found new things to move onto, new stories to cover, and they've left the victims alone to muddle through with whatever resources they might have.
Many people who lived farther away from the coast were prepared for the storm, with bottled water, propane tanks, generators, and canned food.
Many were not prepared. I remember seeing stories of people who lived in lower Manhattan who had stocked their refrigerators and freezers with food to see them through the storm. I never did find out how they fared after their power went out, but I think it's safe to assume that things didn't go as they had planned.
This leads me to a question for you: Are you prepared?
Winter is quickly coming upon us. In the Mid-Atlantic, winter storms throw us into a panic mode, with store shelves stripped in hours, and cars gridlocked on the road as people fight to get home.
As a family, each of our cars is equipped with the basic needs for winter: A bag of kitty litter for traction, a snow shovel, chains for the tires, and a couple of blankets. We also keep a big case of water, and a plastic container full of granola bars, tuna, crackers, nuts, and other things that will keep us going if we get stranded on the side of the road for any length of time. (I grew up in the Mid-West, and winter proofing your car was something everyone did around Halloween.)
I always keep enough groceries on hand in case if we are snowed in for any length of time. I'm currently shopping sales and clipping coupons to restock what I normally keep on hand. I depleted our stock during the recent furloughs. We have several hand cranked LED lanterns for light, a couple of radios- one is hand cranked and the other is battery powered. We also have a wood stove to keep the house warm, as well as a propane stove and a gas grill that we can use outside to cook should our power go out.
We have been snowed in for more than a week before. When Snowmaggedon wracked the East Coast a few years ago, we would dig out of our neighborhood just in time to get snowed in again! Fortunately, I had made a huge COSTCO run in the week before the snow storms hit, so we were well prepared for a lengthy stay at home.
The parking lot for our grocery store got gridlocked the night before the first of the storms were to hit. The police were called, and it took them well over 3 hours to get the lot cleared. People were parking at the high school and walking the half mile to the grocery store, only to leave with much less than they expected.
The day before Hurricane Sandy was supposed to strike Maryland, I ran to Wal-Mart to see my friends and neighbors, and see what things went first.
I did pick up extra trash bags, and I picked up some batteries. Somebody had moved the condoms next to the batteries, and the store manager was having a cow while I was there! I ran into a lot of my friends, and we had a great time catching up with each other!
The funny thing I noticed was that the frozen/refrigerated foods were the first to go.
The really odd thing is that we live in a rural area. Power always goes out here during storms.
Why were people stocking up on refrigerated and frozen food?
In the days after the storm, people were complaining that they'd lost hundreds of dollars in frozen and refrigerated foods. Hmmm....
We do keep a freezer, and it is filled. A power outage does hit us hard, but when the power goes out, we treat the freezer as a giant ice chest. It is already filled with several bottles of water that are hard frozen. If we feel we are in danger of the power going out, we will fill our ice chests with food that we think that we are going to use, and fill it with some of the frozen water bottles. And then, we keep the freezer closed. We will then use the generator once every few hours to power the sump pump, the freezer, and charge our phones. If we're going to shift anything else over to the ice chests, we will do it while the generator is running, so that the freezer can bring the temperature back down after we open it before we turn the generator off for a while.
(This requires that we keep gas cans on hand in the shed. We do that anyway, since we have a big yard, and we use it for our lawn mower.)
In memory of everything that the good people of New Jersey and New York went through last year, ask yourself, "How prepared am I for winter?"
If nothing else, make certain that your car is prepared for the coming winter weather!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Derecho Wind Storms
Last week, we had a pretty phenomenal weather event roll through the Mid-Atlantic: A Derecho Wind Storm.
Winds of 70 mph destroyed homes, trees, and our power grid.
I'm sure that by now, you've seen pictures of the damage around the Mid-Atlantic region, and seen the close up pictures of how bad the damage was in and around the DC Metro area.
Our power is up and running now, and I have a few observations I'd like to share:
1) Gas runs out quickly. If you are fortunate enough to have a generator and a garage or shed to store gas in, keep the tanks full. Fill a new can as soon as you use it up.
2) Generators make life bearable. Keeping the refrigerator running and the fans moving the air made life not quite as miserable.
3) Sleeping outside in tents or screened in porches can get downright chilly. That's right. When it's miserable in the house, it gets downright cold overnight in a tent. We live in the outer suburbs, and felt quite safe sleeping in a tent. Many of our neighbors spent the night outdoors, also. It was a great bonding experience!
4) Solar Powered LED lights are a thing of beauty. I have solar powered garden lights. Put them out in the morning, they charge in the sunlight. Bring them in at night, and they lit the house without danger of fire. The only problem we had was that we couldn't shut them off!
5) Hot showers are a wonderful thing.
6) Cooking can get tricky when the power is out. We used our grill. I experimented with our solar oven. We have a propane camp stove that we used. We also have a fire pit and cast iron cookware that we used. The best thing about this is that we used it outdoors. Yes, we have a gas stove, but we didn't really want to heat up a hot house by using a gas stove.
7) Food at the store runs out quickly. Since I am a home canner, we have a lot of food that was safely stored in the basement, ready to be heated and eaten. I heard that the lines at the grocery store were long, and that they'd had to throw out everything from the freezer and refrigerated sections due to the power outage. I stopped by the grocery store this afternoon, and a lot of the aisles are still very low. According to the store manager, they've been wiped out. They just can't stock the shelves fast enough.
8) This was an awesome time to meet the neighbors. Spending time out of doors, trying to stay cool, heading down to the lake to fish, we ran into a lot of people we've only ever had a waving acquaintance with. Nice to actually learn their names and talk with them for a while!
9) Solar Powered cell phone charges have moved to the top of my "must have" list. My birthday is at the end of the month, and that's now the ONE thing I want. Yes, we could charge it with the generator, but we had to pull a fan out in order to charge the phones. Next time, we'll have a solar charger.
10) A hand cranked emergency weather radio is a very nice luxury. Ours came from L.L. Bean. It has an LED flashlight on the end, and gets bulletins from the NWS, as well as all AM and FM stations. Just a few cranks would power the radio for quite some time!
I hope everyone who reads this is safe and sound. It's been an interesting week in the Mid-Atlantic. Stay safe!
Winds of 70 mph destroyed homes, trees, and our power grid.
I'm sure that by now, you've seen pictures of the damage around the Mid-Atlantic region, and seen the close up pictures of how bad the damage was in and around the DC Metro area.
Our power is up and running now, and I have a few observations I'd like to share:
1) Gas runs out quickly. If you are fortunate enough to have a generator and a garage or shed to store gas in, keep the tanks full. Fill a new can as soon as you use it up.
2) Generators make life bearable. Keeping the refrigerator running and the fans moving the air made life not quite as miserable.
3) Sleeping outside in tents or screened in porches can get downright chilly. That's right. When it's miserable in the house, it gets downright cold overnight in a tent. We live in the outer suburbs, and felt quite safe sleeping in a tent. Many of our neighbors spent the night outdoors, also. It was a great bonding experience!
4) Solar Powered LED lights are a thing of beauty. I have solar powered garden lights. Put them out in the morning, they charge in the sunlight. Bring them in at night, and they lit the house without danger of fire. The only problem we had was that we couldn't shut them off!
5) Hot showers are a wonderful thing.
6) Cooking can get tricky when the power is out. We used our grill. I experimented with our solar oven. We have a propane camp stove that we used. We also have a fire pit and cast iron cookware that we used. The best thing about this is that we used it outdoors. Yes, we have a gas stove, but we didn't really want to heat up a hot house by using a gas stove.
7) Food at the store runs out quickly. Since I am a home canner, we have a lot of food that was safely stored in the basement, ready to be heated and eaten. I heard that the lines at the grocery store were long, and that they'd had to throw out everything from the freezer and refrigerated sections due to the power outage. I stopped by the grocery store this afternoon, and a lot of the aisles are still very low. According to the store manager, they've been wiped out. They just can't stock the shelves fast enough.
8) This was an awesome time to meet the neighbors. Spending time out of doors, trying to stay cool, heading down to the lake to fish, we ran into a lot of people we've only ever had a waving acquaintance with. Nice to actually learn their names and talk with them for a while!
9) Solar Powered cell phone charges have moved to the top of my "must have" list. My birthday is at the end of the month, and that's now the ONE thing I want. Yes, we could charge it with the generator, but we had to pull a fan out in order to charge the phones. Next time, we'll have a solar charger.
10) A hand cranked emergency weather radio is a very nice luxury. Ours came from L.L. Bean. It has an LED flashlight on the end, and gets bulletins from the NWS, as well as all AM and FM stations. Just a few cranks would power the radio for quite some time!
I hope everyone who reads this is safe and sound. It's been an interesting week in the Mid-Atlantic. Stay safe!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
When the Power Goes Out
I was reading a very disturbing article in the paper this weekend. We
had a very heavy snowstorm last week, and branches came down over the
power lines, knocking out power to several thousand people.
The person who was being lauded in the article for his "resourcfulness" was cooking indoors on a kerosene stove. A kerosene camp stove, with the cylinder of kerosene attached to the side.
Let me repeat that: cooking indoors on a kerosene stove.
Any kind of combustion produces carbon monoxide. Kerosene, propane, natural gas, wood stoves. That is why they all call for ventilation. Wood stoves have a chimney that directs toxic fumes out of the house.
Kerosene, propane, and natural gas should be used outdoors unless if your house is properly vented for an appliance that uses one of these fuels. Every year, we hear of people who have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Some of these people were running a generator inside the house. Some turned the natural gas on the stove on high to heat the house because their electricity went out. Some are heating indoors with an enclosed kerosene heater. Even cooking indoors can cause a build up of toxic gases.
So, what should you do? Shovel off your outdoor grill and cook outside. Put your kerosene stove out on the picnic table and cook. Put your generator outside of the house. Attach a chain and lock it to something sturdy, but keep it outside!!
If your electricity does go out and your house is getting cold, here are a few things to remember:
1) Find one room for your family to hunker down in. Seal the exits to the room. Hang blankets over the door, but know that this room is going to be your home base for a while. Bring in your blankets, your extra clothes, games, knitting projects, whatever. The body heat of several collective people will warm the room some.
2) Fireplaces suck heat right out of a house.
3) The electronic ignition on pellet stoves and natural gas stoves will not work without electricity. Many models have a battery back up. If you have extra batteries for that stove, pat yourself on the back!
4) Wood stoves will put out a really hot heat. Make certain you open the damper before you build your fire. Hopefully, you have used your woodstove before the power goes out, so you know how to regulate the damper and vents in order the keep the smoke drawing up the chimney and get the most heat possible out of your wood.
5) If you are on a well, and you don't have a battery back up, know that you can melt snow to provide water. You can use this water to drink, to cook with, to brush your teeth, and to flush your toilets. Trust me, you want to flush those toilets.
6) Unplug all of your major appliances as long as the power is out, especially your electronics. The power surge from the lines suddenly coming back on can fry sensitive electronics. Also, the power drain when the electric company finally gets your power back on and it is suddenly powering ALL of the major appliances in the neighborhood can cause the electricity to go back down again....
Stay safe and warm during these cold days!
This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Thrifty Living" blog. I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place. I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date. If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!
The person who was being lauded in the article for his "resourcfulness" was cooking indoors on a kerosene stove. A kerosene camp stove, with the cylinder of kerosene attached to the side.
Let me repeat that: cooking indoors on a kerosene stove.
Any kind of combustion produces carbon monoxide. Kerosene, propane, natural gas, wood stoves. That is why they all call for ventilation. Wood stoves have a chimney that directs toxic fumes out of the house.
Kerosene, propane, and natural gas should be used outdoors unless if your house is properly vented for an appliance that uses one of these fuels. Every year, we hear of people who have died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Some of these people were running a generator inside the house. Some turned the natural gas on the stove on high to heat the house because their electricity went out. Some are heating indoors with an enclosed kerosene heater. Even cooking indoors can cause a build up of toxic gases.
So, what should you do? Shovel off your outdoor grill and cook outside. Put your kerosene stove out on the picnic table and cook. Put your generator outside of the house. Attach a chain and lock it to something sturdy, but keep it outside!!
If your electricity does go out and your house is getting cold, here are a few things to remember:
1) Find one room for your family to hunker down in. Seal the exits to the room. Hang blankets over the door, but know that this room is going to be your home base for a while. Bring in your blankets, your extra clothes, games, knitting projects, whatever. The body heat of several collective people will warm the room some.
2) Fireplaces suck heat right out of a house.
3) The electronic ignition on pellet stoves and natural gas stoves will not work without electricity. Many models have a battery back up. If you have extra batteries for that stove, pat yourself on the back!
4) Wood stoves will put out a really hot heat. Make certain you open the damper before you build your fire. Hopefully, you have used your woodstove before the power goes out, so you know how to regulate the damper and vents in order the keep the smoke drawing up the chimney and get the most heat possible out of your wood.
5) If you are on a well, and you don't have a battery back up, know that you can melt snow to provide water. You can use this water to drink, to cook with, to brush your teeth, and to flush your toilets. Trust me, you want to flush those toilets.
6) Unplug all of your major appliances as long as the power is out, especially your electronics. The power surge from the lines suddenly coming back on can fry sensitive electronics. Also, the power drain when the electric company finally gets your power back on and it is suddenly powering ALL of the major appliances in the neighborhood can cause the electricity to go back down again....
Stay safe and warm during these cold days!
This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Thrifty Living" blog. I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place. I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date. If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!
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