A question? Preppers in the Sandy area. What worked and what didn't?

I've just gotta say ... there's something I'm missing here.

Ok if your house was damaged, you were injured, or if it's sub-freezing weather and you have no heat ... I'm not talking to you!

But for the rest of you, those who are saying "3 days without power was rough." Seriously? Doesn't anyone go camping any more? You know, camping:

Sleep on the hard ground. Freeze your butt off. Wake up wet.
Eat half-cooked stew out of a pot with soot and ash in it. Find that it tastes delicious.
Tell stories. Sing songs.
Look up at the stars. Wonder at your smallness.
Poop in a bucket. Dump it in the woods.
Go to bed when it gets dark. Get up when it gets light.

Three days? Ok I must be missing something here. Right? Someone please tell me I'm missing something here.

four days without electrical services or heat. Word of Warning! I live in an over 55 community. When the power went out about 9 the night of the storm, we were abandoned by the personnel who normally run the place. People were in need of oxygen and were placed in hallways where generator power kept light in the halls and the elevators running. 2 days later, the personnel did a scant check on things and made calls for service. We did not get any for another 2 days.
What worked: An old Pepsi-Cola ice chest. Stocked with ice, it saved ALL of my food. Others in the building were told to pool their food into a communal soup and other meals, but the people working it wanted donations. By the 3rd day, they had run out with over 100 people in the building. The rich people up on the hill who have individual cottages came down after they heard there was food and wanted to be served by what the others had cooked. They were thrown out! Used "canned heat" with a burner holder to make breakfast each day of Turkey bacon and an egg. An Old drip coffee maker for coffee worked! A few Candles, etc. for some hours at night, I highly recommend "COAST" lanterns, it lasted on 4 "C" batteries the entire period and is still good. I had an Emerson radio that ran on 4 Double "A" batteries that lasted also.
A lot of people left the building to go with relatives because it was too cold inside. GAMES came in handy to pass time. Phones were dead, cable TV according to some in the building was still out even after restoration. I don't have cable. Drove a car out to see how bad it was. Many homes smashed, trees down, Power polls pulled out the concrete sidewalks and thrown into the street with all power lines attached. People just hanging outside of homes, garages open, no food, no heat, no help. 4 days! Area: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

You have the elderly, children, and people who are sick in the hospital who aren't prepared. Camping alone in the woods is different than camping with the rest of your neighborhood in an urban environment not knowing when things will return back to "normal". It's not vacation camping trip for some people.

You have the elderly, children, and people who are sick in the hospital who aren't prepared. Camping alone in the woods is different than camping with the rest of your neighborhood in an urban environment not knowing when things will return back to "normal". It's not vacation camping trip for some people.

I was out of power/cable/internet for 3 days. Food was not a problem. One thing i noticed is we had no water(water pump wasn't working or so we thought). On the third day of having no power/water "we" decided to buy a new water well pump(one that goes about 100' deep). New pump and control box cost us about $850. After all the working pulling the old pump out and replacing it with a new one, the rest of the day was spent messing around with the relay/control box. After a full day spent messing around with it all it was figure out that the control box was not gettinenough power from the generator(meaning $850 down the toilet). Ended up running a 220v line, hardwired from the generator to the control box and bam it worked! Then... pretty much 2 hours afterwards i went to shut the generator off for the night and went to go switch the main breaker(grid-switch) on. As soon as i laid in bed the power/cable/etc.. came back on.

3 days in the darkness wasnt too bad, even tho i didnt prepare beforehand... we were very well prepared. Had enough gas for the generator to run it 2+ days. It was a definite wake-up call because we heard it could take up to 2 weeks to get power back but that was all just an estimate. On the other hand... If the power went off and never came back... completely a different story. I know of a local family that lost their house due to a fire because of their generator(don't mess with a generator if you don't know what you are doing... you will burn your fucking house down).

Overall no damage done to the house/property but as for my town, it's a different story.

You know you guys. One day its going off and not coming back on. The power. I hate to say it but its a real possiblity. Those smart meters for one can all be turned off remotely. Mother nature can make it permanent ...

Even a simple garden has its challenges. You need to know what your doing in every respect. Its life or death if you don't.

What you say is true. I have a 4000 watt surge, 2000 watt run inverter hooked up to 2 of the largest deep cells I could find, and the batteries have a trickle charger to keep them fully charged for when the time comes. During power outages the generator can run for a couple hours to run the big stuff and cool the fridge and freezer while it also charges the deep cells. The inverter is set up on 2 circuts in the house and powers some lights, computers and tv when the genny is off. I'm looking into getting the same set up hooked up in my shop but with a small wind generator to keep the batteries charged.

I'm a sucker for generators and inverters and have multiples of each in different sizes, and could easily pull the batteries out of my vehicles and have a couple of other inverter power sources at hand.

LMAO Dimwit

Would you use a noisy gun when a silent slingshot would suffice?

i have cross bows and learn how to use them.
just stock up on arrows...don't need the expensive one....you only need it once.
they are very deadly and very quiet.
some even have sights and are pretty small.

But if you're running the gen to cool the fridge and freezer and also charge up the batteries, then using the energy in the batteries while you have the gen off, isn't that the same energy consumption as running the gen all the time? The energy you save by keeping the gen off is not necessarily more than the extra it took to charge up the batteries. Meanwhile you are connecting stuff, disconnecting stuff, and wearing out the batteries at least a bit.

I believe a generator uses more fuel when more load is attached. Am I wrong?

Yo check this out, I'm in Belmar,NJ right now on an iPhone. This shit is so fucked up. I have to show the National Guard ID to get to my house. They just flashlight searched my neighborhood for looters. Gas is impossible to get. Canned food sucks. Cigs are scarce. Alcohol is plentiful. If you dont own a generator, get one. I'm lucky to still have a house right now.

Get an LP (propane) multi fuel generator, stock propane instead of gas.

1) it's cheaper per btu (I pay $2.20 per gal)
2) if the cylinder is intact, it stores for years, no rotation or additives nessicary.
3) when all gasoline was out, I could still get plenty of LP, no lines for that.
4) burns much cleaner
5) you can't cook with gasoline or diesel, thousands of kits to cook, cool, heat and generate using propane. Any rv shop will have what you need.
6) it's possible and safe to get a BIG tank, 100 gallons of gas is a major hazard and could be used to deny a HO insurance claim if it went up, in NY you are limited to 5 gallons of gas for storage
7) if you have large amounts of diesel set back, it will be confiscated for use in military vehicles.
8) it's scaleable, start off with a few gas grill tanks and build up your capacity every month by adding a new tank. Use 20 lb tanks or smaller, they are easy to move with one guy and a car, and can be filled by yourself without a costly delivery service.

With a suburban 100 gal tank you can heat, cook and run a genset for a long time from a cylinder the size of a refrigerator... And you can get a power free propane fridge too.

Hope this helps, I just live in a cabin in the woods, tried hauling gas and different fuels and nothing is nearly as versatile as LP

A question of Preppers In the sandy area what worked and what didn't ?

You have to feed the motor fuel no matter if there is a load or not. It takes fuel just to spin the engine, even at low loads, and most generators have to run at 3600 rpm to get the 60hz of AC power needed. At low load the motor does not slow down and idle, but needs to stay at 3600, or in some cases 1800rpm. You basically have a motor spinning at high rpms even at low load and this takes fuel. Generators are much more effecient at high loads because of this.

Not once have I heard anybody say BICYCLE. BICYCLE. BICYCLE. Where are all the people with bikes. With baskets. With tow trailers. Come on people. Add bikes back into your lives. Go to the gas station with your bikes. Go buy bikes. You could leave the state with a bike. Go to the store with a bike. Go to work with your bike. Go ride a bike.

If you have some big chunks of coal... how do you get it "started", and would a big iron kettle be a good thing to burn it in ?????

Just thinking ahead. LOL

And another one!!!!!


A few things learned during Sandy from a central NJ farm.

1) The structure integrity of a tubular steel Hoop House is not adequate to withstand hurricane force winds. While vertical load bearing design was good, diagonal shear load design was extremely poor. Recommended to strongly re-enforce the cross members of a standard design unit for horizontal forces.

2) Having a lot of extra rope is a good prepping item. It can come in quite useful when securing up things like Hoop Houses from collapsing like an accordion.

3) Having a tractor (named Georgette after a famous Texas blogger) is also a good item to help support the butt end wall of a Hoop House.

4) Remember that we forget the incredible force of mother nature when she is pissed off.

5) Move those things most valuable to “ultra” strong secure areas. A few thousand pound trailer housing 150 chickens was flipped on its side killing 30% of the birds.

6) Having extra tarps and roof patch sitting around is a good idea. Remember extra rope to tie down the tarps. We are missing 100 sq ft of roofing shingles over one of the bedrooms.

7) While you may be a good prepper, your prepped position can decrease quickly and dramatically in one night. 50% of our deer fence dropped, 30% of our birds died, our main entrance allowing emergency vehicle access (unneeded this time) was blocked by a 150 year old fallen oak, a few trees missed the house, electricity supply is out for a week (generator was started within 10 minutes).

8) We are lucky as all this damage can be replaced within a few weeks in the existing economy. If it was truly a long term grid down situation we could have been in a very difficult position to rebuild from. "

Lol, right, fucking David back here hates technology.

Can this waterbob be reused? Or are they a one event type of thing. I can't imagine using it more than once, but that one emergency would be worth it's weight in gold.

Do not forget the lowly slingshot and glass marbles, as they are silent but effective.

i know ....
for some odd reason my block in brooklyn did not lose power...we did not have 1 tree fall....heck we did not even loose anything more then big twigs????
1 block in any direction had large branches falling on houses and cars...even whole trees ripping up sidewalks and streets!
why spare us, my block?
just be thankful!

Here's a tip I got from my aunt. Get a DIESEL generator not gasoline. Her stored gas went bad and she didn't have much anyway. Diesel lasts 3-4 longer than gas and is much safer to store in quantities. Anything is better than nothing but keep this in mind if you haven't already purchased one.

Also duh! Rotate your fuel! It's easy to forget to do that.

Whack it with a hammer. If you look closely you will see raw chunks of coal break into thin layers. Small thin pieces are much easier to light. once lit, add more. There are coal starters you can use that look like hershey kisses that stay lit for a long time to help get it started. A small blowtorch works wonders though. The one I have uses regular cheepo lighters as an insert. So you don't have to buy fuel for it just insert lighter. I have slowly collected tons of them.

The burn bucket I have is made for cooking with coal, or other combustibles. It has a insert grill thing for the coal to sit on with an air pocket underneath and a small cut out on the side for airflow. Good combustion needs airflow, so whatever you use, figure out a way for the air to get at it.

But doesn't the fuel consumption vary with the electrical load? If you run enough energy to keep the fridges and freezers cool, why would it matter if you do it in 15 minute spurts or gradually as the appliances demand the power?

And compared to refrigerators, things like computers use very little power. So how much are you saving with all this self denial?

Serious question, I don't know the answer.