This weekend the Mrs. was on a girls’ trip with our daughter, so I was left to my own devices and for some reason I decided to be productive. What was I thinking???
I started out simple enough, just a little organization stuff that was long overdue, then Sunday morning I decided to take a whack at our ‘extras’ closet that was LONG overdue… And the next thing you know, 6 HOURS had gone by!
This closet – really an alcove, but I threw a curtain over it and thus dubbed it a closet – is where I’ve been storing a lot of my “prepping” stuff since about 2012 and during “the Plague” years, especially early on when nobody really knew what was going on or what was coming, I STUFFED that closet with everything I figured was important should things go completely sideways.
On the surface, not a bad idea. BUT! I didn’t have anything organized and I didn’t inventory anything. If something I thought I might need became available, I bought it and stuffed it in the closet.
Fast forward a few years and Holy cow! I had stuffed every square inch of that space, had no idea what I had and couldn’t find anything without an ordeal.
On Sunday, I put an end to the madness!
On the bright side, I discovered I have more #10 cans of freeze dried goods than I realized. And I have a TON of first aid stuff, a lot more than I thought I had. On the downside, I have way too many bottles of hydrogen peroxide, and waaaaay too many kitchen sponges. These latter things primarily because everything was so disorganized I bought multiples not realizing I already had those things.
And happily I found some things I COMPLETELY forgot about!
It wasn’t fun, but it was time well spent. Time I SHOULD’VE spent two years ago! Better late than never I suppose.
Last but not least, it inspired me to get off my keister and keep the cleanup and organization going.
It’s great to have “stuff” in emergency situations, but its way better if you know what you have and where it is!
Anyhow, that’s about it for today. This year got off to a rough start with illness in the family, a rather unpleasant injury and the loss of a beloved pet, but this little project felt like my shell cracking and letting me get back to life.
My new job is VERY different from my old one, although there are a great many similarities. In an odd way, it was the skills I learned as a youth and young man working in “the Trades” that got me several Director titles, but the higher I went up the ladder, the further away I got from the very things that put me there in the first place!
When I took my first facility manager job, back in the late 90’s, the entire crew was me. Sure, I had HVAC contractors and electricians come in from time to time for big jobs, but the day to day work was very hands-on. Plumbing, electrical, carpentry, drywall and painting, roof repairs, data systems – you name it, I did it. From there, every new place I worked had an in-house crew for me to manage and while I still did some actual hands-on “real” work, my time was spent more and more on accounting and payroll, HR issues, ordering materials, dealing with bureaucrats from all levels of government, permits and performance reviews… blah, blah, blah. I had no ambition, desire or frankly, talent for any of that stuff. No love for it, certainly. At my last job, I don’t think I picked up a tool more than once or twice in 6 YEARS!!
Now it’s a whole new world for me and I found that I had to re-gear. My new role is a big mix – I still “manage” and I do a lot of customer service type stuff – meeting with clients, working with the sales people and such, but I also get to be hands-on again, which has been fun. I’m not actually building, but I’m the guy to go in “after the fact” and take care of the little detail things that may have been missed during construction.
The tools are basic, BUT since I’m going into high end, finished homes, I need to be neat, organized and clean. At the same time, I need to be very mobile, and more-or-less self contained. And still be able to carry my laptop and some hard-copy files with me… An unusual situation for me!
This was the only tool bag I found that had a laptop sleeve in it, decent reviews and didn’t (completely) break the bank. I’ll run it for a few months to check it’s performance and do a product review down the road if warranted.
First, I did a necessary mod to the bag. I do this with just about everything – I don’t believe I was born to be a billboard… If companies started making QUALITY products with NO visible labels, I’d be a customer for life, but I digress…
Now that the bag was ready, I needed to get my tools easily identifiable, since I work with a dozen tradesmen and things tend to disappear in those type of environments. Not that they’re dishonest, tools just have a way of getting mixed up and disappearing on job sites – ask me how I know! I used to engrave my initials on all my tools, but this is hard to see from across the room, or if something gets dropped into the bottom of the wrong tool box…
Once the paint dried, it was time to get loaded up! The paint isn’t pretty, it’s for positive ID purposes only. I just made sure to mask off all moving parts and anything that might mar a finish if it rubbed up against something.
Those are gonna be hard to miss!
Now, as an aside, this here would make a pretty good “homeowners” tool kit. Nothing fancy or complicated or expensive. A few of these items I had lying around (and if I’m being honest, I could have filled out this entire kit from what I already had, but I didn’t want to spend half a day digging through my ministorage unit to find it all!) and there are a few items not yet in the bag (battery drill and bits and a few other odds & ends) but what you see in the pic will take care of the vast majority of “simple fixes” around the house and excluding the bag, I don’t think I spent more than $200… And honestly, I probably won’t use more than 50% of the contents the majority of the time. I believe in being prepared, but I also don’t want to lug 40 pounds of unnecessary tools around with me all day, so I may scale this back once I get into the swing of things.
In my old life I was used to having a large toolbox at my side or a fully loaded van and a massive tool bag of specialty tools for whatever trade I was in at the time, so this is a little weird to me!
But in this new life, I think this is gonna be just what I needed!
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself…
Now I just need to figure out the whole “mobile office” thing… While I never liked being “tied to a desk”, not having one at all (or power or wifi or the usual accouterments of office life) is another challenge in and of itself!
Most everyone that knows me, and those few of you that have been reading here for a while, know that I’m a vocal and ardent advocate for preparedness.
There are a number of factors that led me there, starting with a family Patriarch that grew up in the Depression era and the Boy Scout years of my youth.
Anyhow, I started getting really serious about it around 2008 or so, and while I wouldn’t say it’s my “lifestyle”, it certainly has been a constant in my life.
There are a number of pillars to preparing for the unknown – food, water, shelter, medical and hygiene, energy and a means of self defense. The people that really go down the rabbit hole concentrate on a lot of other things too, but if you focus on the pillars, you’re going to be in much better shape than the vast majority of people, come what may.
When I first got serious about preparing, I was recently laid-off from a job, and while I found a new gig rather quickly, we were very much in the world of the working poor. Living check-to-check, no savings, nothing extra… barely squeaking by.
Nevertheless, I knew it was important and I was determined to build up food reserves, even if it was only a can or two a month.
I stuck to the sage advice I’d found online at the time – “store what you eat and eat what you store”. The idea being that you would rotate through the backup foods without them spoiling and also avoid sending your body into shock with an instant diet change, should disaster happen and you need to rely on your reserves.
So that’s what I did, a couple cans here, a couple cans there until I started feeling like we had a good start on things.
Fast forward a short while, the employment situation had improved, I wasn’t quite destitute and I started getting smarter about my buying. I would scour the weekly mailers from the 3 different grocery chains in our area and take advantage of the “loss leader” sales (big thanks to Jim “Lord Bison” Dakin for showing me that!) and then upped the ante even further with a Cosco membership so I could buy in bulk. Things were looking up in the food storage realm, to the point of needing new furniture to store it all in!
Then, as often happens in life, things change. We started trying to eat a little healthier, so we started going to farmer’s markets and avoided canned goods. And we were all working more hours and I was constantly stressed out from work so we started getting lazy and relying more and more on takeout food. When our daughter moved out, it seemed more of a hassle to cook and clean for just two so we got even lazier about cooking.
But in 2020 when “the Plague” hit, I really went off the deep end. I was buying food like a maniac, storing it away and we continued eating out as much as possible, with the thinking that “this was it” and we needed to hold on to our stored foods as long as possible because there might not be any foods to obtain in the next year… Or if there was, we might not be able to afford it. (Been there, done that!)
It seems foolish now, looking back, but the fear mongering propaganda was in hyper-drive at the time, so I was simply doing what I thought was prudent to make sure we could eat when everything fell apart.
Anyhow, that’s the (mostly) concise version that brings me up to the last couple weekends and a very important lesson that I learned the hard way.
As I said, I went off the deep end with the food buying AND we were cooking significantly less at home over the last 3+ years, and the Mrs. and I had determined that this year we were going to get back into cooking. I’m no slouch in the kitchen and the Mrs. is an AMAZING cook, plus it’s better for both our physical and financial health, so it seemed like a smart move. The problem was I had filled every nook and cranny in the kitchen, plus 6 or 7 large plastic crates and at least that many 5 gallon buckets on the periphery of the kitchen, so trying to find anything was an excersize in frustration. Keep in mind we live in a 650 square foot apartment!
It was time to clean house.
Over the last two weekends I spent close to 20 hours going through all the kitchen cabinets, checking expiration dates, looking for signs of deterioration or infestation and I threw out LOT of food. I do mean A LOT. So far six big Hefty bags, full to my limits of lifting them, have gone in the dumpster. It was painful. I felt like I was just flushing hard earned cash down the toilet.
But, I have no one to blame but myself. I was lazy about it. I didn’t bother with “proper” food storage techniques, thinking we’d use it all before we needed to bother with that stuff. As a consequence I had to throw out multiple bags of flour, boxes of pasta, cereal…all kinds of stuff that bugs got into over the years. I didn’t properly rotate canned goods, so I found dozens upon dozens of expired foods. Now, I’m not really a stickler for expiration dates, I’ll usually be comfortable with something a year or so out of date…but cans of tuna that expired 4 years ago? Canned beans with a “best by 2017”. Nah, I’m not gonna risk it.
In short, I feel like a moron. And what’s worse, I’ve been living with a false sense of security for a number of years. Thinking you’re squared away and actually, factually BEING squared away, are two different things.
I foolishly thought we had 6 months of food on hand, but after the cleanup, I’d guess we’re closer to 2 months. Nothing to sneeze at of course, but it’s a shock to the system to make this realization. I guess the silver lining is that I made the discovery BEFORE we needed to rely on it. And while I was beating myself up about the “lost” money after throwing so much away, I convinced myself to look at it as having paid an “insurance premium” and didn’t need to make a claim. For whatever reason that makes it easier to swallow.
I’m still a strong proponent of preparedness, don’t get me wrong. But take it from me, if you don’t do it with care it’s gonna cost you one way or another. Luckily it only cost me money, and you can nearly always make more of that. Much better than risking Botulism or something because the family is starving…
Right now with the world on edge and uncertainty and chaos around every corner, I feel that preparedness is more important than ever, but don’t do it like I did – be SMART about it. I’m out here learning lessons the hard way, so you don’t have to!
It is personally shocking that we’re already in September. They say time moves faster as you age, and I can attest to that!
Nonetheless, September happens to be “National Preparedness Month”, so here I am again to implore any and all readers to embrace preparedness and set aside a little time this month to work on your personal and/or family plan.
I know ” prepping” and “preppers” get a bad rap, and if you only look at the fringe elements I can see why. But honestly, it’s just a little common sense, mixed with a touch of planning ahead. It doesn’t have to be anything off the wall crazy, it doesn’t need to become your lifestyle, but there is really no downside. Think of it as an insurance policy or a savings account. Worst case scenario, you save a little money buying food you were going to eat anyway because you bought it before inflation devalued our dollars just that much more. Best case scenario, it could in fact save your life. Or at least make post-disaster a little more bearable while you put your life back together.
Let’s face it, in an emergency the LAST people you want to rely on is The Government. Nobody is going to care about you and your family as much as you are. So do something about it while you can. Even a little something is better than nothing.
I’m not going to go into all the details of what you should do – there are countless other resources for that. But for this month, just worry about the basics: food, water, shelter, first aid/medical needs, hygiene…and don’t forget to include your pets in the planning. They rely on you too!
If the whole pandemic thing taught us anything (aside from the fact that you can’t believe anything the media or the government says!) it’s that disruption can happen quickly and once something is no longer available, that’s it. It doesn’t matter how much you need it or want it or how much you’d be willing to pay. If it’s not there, you’re outta luck. That something may come back, it may not. Maybe in a month, maybe in a year. Maybe never.
There is already a lot of chatter about new “variants”, mask mandates and lockdowns. The war is eastern Europe is not going well for anyone and the house of cards in D.C. seems to be on the verge of tipping. China is having financial problems, and “activists” are turning into arsonists to show us how bad climate change is… Not to mention the usual suspects of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and all the other stuff Mother Nature does from time to time to remind us who’s boss.
Look, I know. This stuff isn’t fun. It isn’t sexy or exciting. In fact if you think about it too much, it can give you anxiety and stress you out. The “what if’s” you discover when you start going down that rabbit hole can shake you to your core – ask me how I know. People that do emergency stuff for a living look at people two ways in an disaster situation, you are either an asset or a liability. If you are squared away to take care of you and yours for a week with no outside input, that puts you in the asset column.
That’s a good place to start- put back enough that you can get by without assistance for a week…enough food and water to survive, a way to charge your phone or laptop, some basic first aid stuff and meds if you require them. A way to see and cook if there is a power outage. Simple stuff.
I feel by now if you’re seeing this message and you’re not already doing at least a little something, you’re never going to. That the people that understand are already doing it and I don’t need to keep harping on the subject. That I’m preaching to the choir. That’s OK. I gave up trying to convert people to this way of thinking a number of years ago. Prepare or don’t, makes no difference to me. After all, the emergency response people will need liabilities to deal with, lest they get bored!
But seriously, I look at self reliance in an emergency as a civic minded thing too. If more of us looked after ourselves and our neighbors, there would be even less need for Uncle Sugar and all his beauracracies.
Now I TRY to not get to wound up over “conspiracies”, but with social media lighting up over this, it kinda got me thinking they might be on to something…
Feel free to jump to your own conclusions. All I know is that things are not going well for our “leadership” at the moment, and we’re on the cusp of election season. Just sayin’…
Water, food, shelter, medicine and a means of self defense. If you panic now, you’ll beat the rush.
Plan accordingly.
Thanks for stopping by. Now go do something to prepare yourself for our uncertain future!
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m a firm believer in preparedness. I never really looked at being a “prepper” as my identity, it was just something I grew up with. First, my matriarch grandmother was a child of the Great Depression, and I spent a LOT of time with her growing up, so I’m sure that mindset rubbed off over the years. (As did religion, but that’s a story for another day).
Then I spent my adolescence and most of my teen years in Boy Scouts, who’s official motto is ” Be Prepared”. Several years working with my father added to it, as he ALWAYS seemed to have whatever was needed on a jobsite, even when you had no idea you’d need it. So in a way, it feels like preparedness is part of my DNA, even if it isn’t my identity.
After the Y2K scare came and went, I got complacent and I really stopped paying attention to preparedness in a meaningful way, and didn’t really start taking is seriously again until about 2008 or so. The big story of 2008 was the Great Recession of course, which didn’t effect me directly as I was too poor to own a home anyway, but it DID effect my employer at the time, which put the fear of the unknown into me and got me started with ” what will we do if I lose my job?” scenarios.
One thing led to another and I ended up going down a deep, dark rabbit hole regarding preparedness and survival. It became a bit of a hobby I guess you’d say, with me spending lots of time on various websites and forums, trying to learn everything I could about surviving “The End Of The World As We Know It” or TEOTWAWKI, and I’ll tell you, it was enlightening to say the least.
From around 2010 or so, the ” preparedness space” online just exploded! Podcasts, websites, forums, news aggregates with a preparedness slant, YouTube channels, a mountain of books in the topic, “prepping” was everywhere! Even mainstream TV got into the act with “Doomsday Preppers”, which honestly probably did more to damage the idea of preparing more than anything, but the fact that a mainstream media outlet would sink money into such a show just goes to show you how popular the topic had become.
But then a weird thing happened back in 2016. We got ourselves a new President and suddenly folks didn’t seem so worried about TEOTWAWKI. Ok, that’s not entirely true, a ton of people thought his election would be then end of us all, I guess they just weren’t of the preparedness mindset to start with. But I digress…
Anyhow, by 2018 or so, the online preparedness space had been decimated due to lack of interest according to several friends and acquaintances that I knew in that space. Many of the websites I used to follow either quit altogether or they just petered out over a year. The main forum I was on from 2009 til that time had far less interaction and started getting stale and boring. My YouTube feed starting having considerably fewer videos about preparedness. It was as if everyone thought “the danger” (whatever that was to them) was over and done with.
By 2020 the focus had become covid, shortly followed by the “insurrection” (don’t get me started on that load of bovine excrement!) and so on. People were focused on censorship and government over reach and again, the economy. But still, you didn’t hear much about preparedness, other than toilet paper, hand sanitizer and face masks. Oh, and baby formula.
But now here we are in Q2 2023 and suddenly the world of preparedness has once again exploded! A bunch of old faces are showing up again, along with a number of new faces.
Now, I’m not complaining. I think it’s useful and important. What’s disconcerting is there seems to be a touch of urgency bordering on desperation, which is different from the preparedness landscape in days gone by.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand it. In fact I’ve been shoring up my weak spots over the last 2 years. This latest prepper-mania has somewhat confirmed my bias toward preparedness.
I could be wrong, but it certainly feels like something wicked this way comes. And clearly I’m not the only one.
Give it some thinkin’. If everything went sideways tomorrow, can you eat? How about a week from now? Do you have cash on hand in case the banking system blows a gasket and your plastic cards don’t work? Do you have a water supply in the event your municipal supply goes offline? Medicines?
If the last two decades have taught me anything, it’s that relying on others, especially in a dire situation, is something best avoided. You are your own first responder, your own emergency service, your own responsibility. Act accordingly.
I’ve been a little quiet lately and “off my game”, feeling out of sorts and spending a lot of energy just trying not to get sucked into the vortex of darkness and doom…
It’s nothing I can put my finger on. It’s the overwhelming sense of being pummeled with bad news, destruction, lies and sheer madness. I cannot continue to believe what we see around us (and what /they/ continue to justify, excuse or simply bury if the other two options aren’t viable) is due to ineptitude. It’s too much, too often, too coincidental. But if it’s NOT ineptitude, what does THAT mean? Honestly, I can’t wrap my head around what is going on in the world right now. It appears to be a race to the bottom, and the good ol’ USA is leading the pack!
I made a promise to myself when I started this blog that I wouldn’t let it go down the path of doom and gloom, that I’d do my best to keep things positive or at least neutral. Since lately I didn’t think I could do that, I’ve simply been keeping my big yap shut. That being said, I figured I’d just share a few memes that struck a chord with me lately.
Here’s to better days ahead!
I’ll be back before long. Just gotta get out of my head for a bit (or maybe get fitted for a tin foil hat!?!). A book review is in the works, concerts on the horizon and other assorted stuff. No travel ’til Autumn due to tightly squeezed budgets, but it is almost surfing “season”, so if nothing else some beach time is right around the corner.
In the meantime, focus on food, water, shelter, medicinal needs, and a means of protection. The LAST thing anybody needs is to become reliant on this Clown Show commonly known as “government”. They do NOT have your best interests at heart. That is YOUR job.
Keep your chins up folks, sanity certainly MUST return at some point…
This morning has me facing a big reality check in my ability to deal with “unforeseen circumstances”. In short, I’m beating myself up pretty good this morning.
As I write this, we’re at about 30 hours without power. I realize that for some of you, this is nothing. For us, it is extremely unusual. I’ve lived within a 25 mile radius of where I am now my entire life and to the best of my recollection we’ve never gone more than 24 hours without power. Outages are usually resolved within 12 hours, most in less than 8. So yes, we’ve historically been a little spoiled.
But that was then… Our utilities company (Pacific Gas & Electric) has been really dropping the ball the last couple years. One of my colleagues that lives close by, but in a more rural section, has routinely gone without power for 4-5 day stretches half a dozen times a year since 2019.
Around 5:00am today – 27 hours into the failure we got an update from the Utilities stating the “expected” restoration is by 10pm TOMORROW. This is unprecedented in our area. We’ve lived in the same apartment for 16 years and have never, ever gone 3 days without power.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been a big believer in preparedness since my days as a Boy Scout back in the 70’s and 80’s. Emergency preparedness has been part of my job for the last 20+ years. I’ve been an active member of my Town’s Community Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T.), I’ve trained with County Fire Depts. in two different counties, and done FEMA emergency response training. In short, I know this stuff, and have a knack for imagining a “worst case” for any scenario.
I’ve spent years and countless dollars preparing for emergencies and this minor blip caught me with my pants down…
Don’t get me wrong. We’re not suffering or in any kind of danger, but I have never felt so unprepared in my life.
I’ll start at the beginning…
When I woke up Tuesday morning, I just went to the gym expecting that by the time I got home the power would be back on, but stopped off at a 7-11 on the way home to get coffee for the Mrs. and I, just in case. Which turned out to be a good thing, ‘cuz the power was still out when I got home.
I showered and dressed for work by battery operated lantern and got ready for a day at the office. The Mrs. happened to have the day off and was going to be home, so before I left I pulled out our “solar generator” and hooked up the TV and our modem so she wouldn’t be bored and also have the capability to recharge her phone if necessary. I left for work fully expecting the power would come back on at some point during the day. So far, so good.
By mid-afternoon, still no power and no update from PG&E on restoration. By this time, we’re getting concerned about the food in the fridge and freezer.
I left work a little early so I could stop by our mini-storage unit and pick up our “big” cooler, then detoured to the nearest Quickie-mart and grabbed 20 lbs. of ice.
I got home to find the Mrs. had distributed candles throughout the apartment and had a couple battery lanterns running as well. She’d turned the solar generator off to conserve energy – it was down to about 70% capacity by that time.
I got busy loading the contents of the fridge into the cooler, only to discover we only had cooler capacity for about 2/3 of the refer, using 2 coolers and an insulated cooler bag. Not good.
The freezer was packed pretty solid, so it acted as sort of a cold-battery. Everything was still pretty much frozen solid, but I hooked it up the to generator for a couple hours to recharge the cold, and put the small insulated bag into the fridge for extra insulation.
After all that, I ran up the road where they had power for some takeout tacos and burritos. Then we unplugged the fridge, and hooked up the modem and TV, watched a little TV for a distraction and then got ready for bed.
Again, I was expecting a resolution overnight. Turned out to be wishful thinking.
I got up this morning and went to make some coffee. First problem, I cannot find (in the dark) our kettle. We ordinarily use an electric kettle, but I bought a “camping” kettle for situations such as this. Well, I couldn’t find the darn thing anywhere. (FAIL!) No worries, says I, I’ll just boil the water in a regular pot. Now for the stove. I purchsed a single burner propane stove for emergencies several years ago. Nice little unit, never had to use it. I’ve got a dozen bottles of propane for it, which I found immediately, but again could NOT, for the life of me, find the stove. (FAIL!) No worries, says I, I’ll just grab the Esbit stove out of the go-bag. So I went to the wife’s go bag, and NO DANG STOVE!! (FAIL!) I know I got one for her, and was sure I put it in there, but I emptied the bag and it was not to be found. Then I had to dig out my go-bag, and turned one up.
I set up the stove, put the pot of water on and let it start heating. Unbeknownst to me, this little stove would NOT bring the water to a boil. Why was it unbeknownst to me? ‘Cuz I never trained with it! (FAIL!) I got impatient after the second fuel tab, and made the coffee (in a French press) with water that maxed out at 161 degrees. It wasn’t gross, but it wasn’t good either.
Another shower and shave by lantern light, then thought I should run the fridge a bit more before I left. At this point the generator is down to 12%. I was able to run the unit for about 30 minutes and then it died out at 0%.
Now I’m back at work, thinking about all the food that will likely be spoiled by the time the power comes back on.
So, a lot of lessons learned here.
I had a good solar generator BUT I had only one extension cord to plug things into it. (FAIL!)
Once the battery was dead, I had no way to recharge it since there is NO sun for the solar panels. (FAIL!)
I had a little backup battery for charging cell phones, but I’d let it die by not keeping it on the charger, so it was useless. Using that for charging phones could’ve given us a little more capacity on the generator. (FAIL!)
I wasted time and added stress looking for the propane stove, which I never found. (FAIL!)
Have you seen me?
We were both having issues with our cell phones – they were barely working without wifi. We realized we no longer have an old fashioned “land line phone”. We have the line, we just didn’t replace the last phone when it broke. And the last one was a cordless phone, which needs electricity so it wouldn’t have served us well anyway. (FAIL!)
Our “big” cooler is wholly insufficient for emergencies. Way too small. It’s fine for cookouts or weekend camping trips, not preserving the contents of a whole fridge/freezer. (FAIL!)
Also, it occurred to me that had the power been out at our storage place, I wouldn’t have been able to get to our cooler at all…
Having go-bags is GREAT, but clearly just throwing stuff into a backpack without a clear inventory is a rookie move. (FAIL!)
Having a bunch of emergency supplies is also great, but having said supplies so disorganized you can’t find what you need, when you need it, is plain dumb. (FAIL!)
We did have a couple fortunate things, our hot water is still working and we had heat in the apartment. That was especially lucky, as our furnace hasn’t worked for about 3 years, and we just got a new one a few days before Christmas. Up til then we were relying on electric heat. We’d have been sunk if that were still the case…
All things considered, this has just been embarrassing. But I have learned a great deal from this excersize and can guarantee that the next time will NOT be like this.
Most importantly I’ve learned there is a HUGE difference between “knowing” and “doing”. I know a lot about survival and preparedness but I’ve never really had to put that knowledge to the test before. Now that I have, at best a very kind instructor might give me a C-. Test your gear folks. You don’t want the first time use to be during an emergency situation, trust me on this one.
We’ve been getting some real rain in the Bay Area over the last week, which is very welcome but good grief! The forecasting has been so outta whack.
The first burst hit us on New Year’s Eve, and we knew we had rain coming, but as it turned out the resulting rainfall was 3 TIMES the amount forecast! Oops. Surprise!!
I spent most of that day stressing about the creek that forms the property line for the facility I work at. When I left Friday night, the creek had 25-30 feet to go before it breached the bank (and flooded the building I’m responsible for!), and by 4pm the next day it only had about 10′ capacity left. By 10pm it was between 5 and 7 feet.
Sunday we got a respite from the rain, the creek dropped considerably and we thought we were in the clear…
Then Monday we get flood warnings and high wind advisories from the National Weather Service. Then the “news” is non-stop with coverage on the impending horror storm coming Wednesday. “It’s going to be the storm of the century!” “Expect massive damages!” There WILL be LOSS OF LIFE!”…
I spent Monday and Tuesday battening down the hatches, clearing all storm drains and rain gutters, prepping response carts with necessary equipment, alerting all other departments, getting stacks of sand bags ready, staging our giant water barriers that will (hopefully) save our basement from flooding and keeping a vigilant watch on the creek. I put my entire staff “on call” for Wednesday night.
When Wednesday rolled around, we were as ready as we could be for this Biblical storm, everyone on high alert.
And then…not much of anything.
Sure, it rained. For a bit. There were a few pretty good gusts of wind. I may even go as far as to say is was the biggest storm we’ve had in the last 2, maybe 3 years. You know, the years California has been in a massive drought?!? Overall, it was pretty much a nothing burger.
I don’t know which is worse, the utter incompetence of the National Weather Service and our local meteorologists or the repulsive fear mongering of the “news” media.
The silver lining in all this is that we didn’t sustain any damage and it was a good drill for my team.
I’m a firm believer in preparedness, so I don’t look at this as wasted time. That being said, I could have done without the added stress that was induced by the over-hyped “news” being churned out nonstop.
We’ve got rain in the forecast on 8 of the next 10 days, so maybe something will happen but now my blood pressure should stay a little more normal, since we’re well prepared.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to diminish the adverse situations some folks have experienced during these storms – there has been some flooding, there have been some power outages, there have been some folks trapped in cars and whatnot. Mostly, we’ve lost a LOT of trees.
No, my issues is with the fools that got it all wrong. There was more distress and more problems on NYE than there should have been because they underestimated the situation, and city/county/state resources weren’t ready for what we got. Then they OVERestimated significantly, causing much undue stress and anxiety for much of the population.
In the end, we got what we desperately needed, some good steady rain and some preparedness training. I guess it wasn’t all bad…
As anyone that knows me knows, I’m a bit of a fanatic about preparedness. It started way back in my Boy Scout days, but had been kicked up to a “way of life” for the last 15 years or so.
Well yesterday I had a lapse and it came back to bite me!
Long story short, we’ve got an “extra” car that I’ve kept around for those times when a car is in the shop or for hauling duties (it’s a station wagon, roughly the size of a mini truck in the back with the seats folded down).
I’ve been “planning” to sell it, as I don’t use as much as I thought I would, but as with most things I’ve got more plans than time, so it sat for a while. Then it wouldn’t start due to a dead battery (purchased in February 2022, so it wasn’t old). I took the battery in for an exchange on Tuesday and Wednesday I decided to drive it to work (26 miles each way) to get the fluids working through the engine and transmission. The trip to work was without issue, but coming home the dash lit up with red warning lights about “low coolant” and advised me to stop the car.
I pulled off the highway, into the nearest gas station and steam started blowing out from under the hood- uh oh!
I went in to the store (this was NOT a “service station”) and bought a gallon of water to top off the coolant (yes, I know this isn’t correct, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that…) and when I went to pour it in, I discovered that my upper radiator hose had come completely detached and had spewed coolant all over the engine. D’oh!
Now, had I been in my regular ride, I would have had fluids and tools, flashlights, etc. But because this was a “spare” I planned to sell, there was NOTHING in the car. Nothing.
Luckily I had a Leatherman multi-tool on me and with it’s little screwdriver I was able to get the hose reattached and limp the car home – still low on coolant, but it never got hot on the remaining 10 miles home.
I kicked myself all the way home for leaving so unprepared. Thank goodness I was able to sort things out with a $10 bill and a multi-tool, at least to get home. It certainly could have been a lot worse.
So, let this be a lesson for you that you don’t have to learn the hard way! Problems rear their ugly heads when you least expect them, which is why you should ALWAYS be prepared. Even if all you’re doing is going to work, just like any other day…
The Boring Old Man 