The Great Heat Wave and Power Outage of Late June, 2012

[Joe H]

Reston Town Center is still without power. This includes perhaps 20 or more restaurants and businesses which include perishable food and wine. At this point with the power having gone out around 11:00 on Friday night it is now 38+ hours as I type this. Dominion Power & Pepco are forecasting for up to 10% of their "customers" not to have power until next weekend.

It is also 96 degrees as I type with 100 forecast...again. We have power and are extremely thankful for this, especially for the bottles of wine that I have in our basement. Still, I worry that without power the temperature might go over 80 degrees for an extended period of time. What happens in a restaurant or liquor store or grocery store if power is gone for a week? At what temperature does wine spoil? It looked hot inside the stores at Town Center.

[zoramargolis]

All one can do is hope that their insurance will cover the losses.

[thistle]

Interested to hear what everyone's storm experience was...we lost power for 24+ hrs, Friday night to Sat night-while it was uncomfortable, it wasn't unbearable. The kids both bailed to friends that had power, leaving J & I & the puppies to hold the fort. The house only really got miserably hot Sat night. I didn't open the frig in the garage, & I think most items are salvageable. The inside frig, I threw a few things out, but not bad. When I went on the Mt. Vernon patch, I found a link of food items to keep & toss, & one that threw me was fish sauce/oyster sauce-I've never refrigerated mine.

I really feel for folks who still have their power out, 1 day on one of the hottest weekends of the year was enough for me to be exceedingly grateful when power was restored...

[weezy]

I was out for 49 hours. It came on about an hour ago and I'm just waiting for the AC to cool the house enough so that I can get some decent sleep. I threw out everything in my fridge and freezer today except my vacu-pak of milk (kept for emergencies) and an unopened jar of pickles. Probably erring on the side of caution for a few items, but I really didn't want to suffer for guessing wrong on keeping an item. What I heard on the radio was 4-6 hours fridge, 2 days for a full freezer unopened, 1 day for a half-full freezer unopened.

[Destruya]

The "Fairfax County" part of Vienna is still out. It's pretty safe to assume at this point that all my perishables have perished because some asshole thought it'd be a good idea to run above-ground power lines through dense tracts of forested park land.

As for restaurants, I think I'm going to wait at least two weeks before patronizing one that I know lost power for any length of time. I like to be trusting, but at the same time, I also know what some restaurants will do to try to recoup lost profits.

[dcandohio]

All one can do is hope that their insurance will cover the losses.

I have a family member in the biz in New Orleans. After Katrina, they had a catastrophic loss of wine due to the power outage. Insurance covered some, not all. Insurance not able to adequately compensate for increasing value of rare wines. It was sad. I really feel for the people affected by this disaster...I've been there after hurricanes in the south...it's awful.

My peeps in Ohio (I am DC and Ohio!) are also dealing with power outages from the same storm. The University is making all gym and rec facilities available to all employees for showers, cooling in the pools, etc. The last time we had a serious outage from hurricane Ike, and Columbus lost power for 5 days, my college brought in coffee and breakfast every day for a week for any employee who wanted it. Nice to know that a big institution can be caring in difficult times.

[Nick Freshman]

We lost power at the restaurants for just under 24 hours. We had to close Friday night at about 10, and we never opened Saturday. That's a lot of money on the table. We kept the walk ins shut tight and losses to food were minimal. When the power goes, everything in the walk in gets covered in ice. They are very well insulated and you'd be surprised how long everything can stay safe. That said, we certainly threw product out. The wine at Eventide is in an insulated fridge as well. It's fine. Frankly, the food losses pale in comparison to lost revenue, but it's part of doing business; stuff happens. We got power back at 10pm Saturday, but at that point we couldn't open for the night--no ice, nothing prepped and so forth. Another impact is on the staff. An unexpected weekend off isn't a good thing when most of the front house crew makes their money in tips and the kitchen crews are hourly.

The worst part? Siting there in the hot darkness, hoping the power would come back, watching the bar across the street(Mad Rose is attached to the DIA building, go figure) and around the corner shine

like beacons with all the light and a/c they needed...and all of our customers.

I've never seen Clarendon without power for so long in 14 years in the business in that area. Usually, it's no more than an hour.

[Joe H]

I am 65 and was born here. I have never seen a power outage like this. 1.25 million "customers" translates to half of the 6.3 million metro population at peak. Even the forecast for late Friday-one week later- with power restored to 90% means that 10% will still NOT have power one week out. Actual number is 648,000 customers @ 1:00PM Monday, sixty two hours after the storm ended. That's still one out of four customers who do not have power.

I believe this will also be a giant step back in our reliance on the internet and anything electric or digital. (How's that for a comment from left field?) A strong reminder that we still have to know how to do an awful lot manually.

[astrid]

The 24 hour outage we experienced was a great vindication for purchasing this. (Actually purchased for long vacations, but it a great relief to have backup power for our cellphones during the 24 hours of uncertainty).

[DanielK]

I believe this will also be a giant step back in our reliance on the internet and anything electric or digital. (How's that for a comment from left field?) A strong reminder that we still have to know how to do an awful lot manually.

Sorry, if anything this has shown that people are getting more creative in how to get juice for all of the electronic devices. Charge in your car, go to the mall, find a coffeeshop that has power and recharge devices. Some restaurants and stores have power but no phone service, so they're using websites, facebook, and twitter to update customers.

[Destruya]

The biggest thing in regards to phones was that at the height of the hysteria, the cell networks were overloaded and circuits were busy for hours. Verizon just got a real-world case study into the strength of their DC area network.

EDIT: 9:45pm 7/2 - yay, mine's back on! Now to go throw out all my rotten food.

[Joe H]

I answered some of my own questions with a trip through Reston Town Center this afternoon: a number of restaurants (i.e. McCormick and Schmidt's, Uncle Julio's...) had refrigerated trucks parked at side or back doors.

I also learned that in a house with a basement, two days after the power went out, the temperature did not go above 80 degrees in the basement although it might have been ten or more degrees hotter above.

We feel extremely fortunate that we did not have to do first hand research on this.

[Ericandblueboy]

Our local Safeway lost power and apparently didn't have a generator. Every freezer was empty today, with the doors open to clear the air. I don't even know how much food was wasted.

[DonRocks]

Our local Safeway lost power and apparently didn't have a generator. Every freezer was empty today, with the doors open to clear the air. I don't even know how much food was wasted.

It could have been loaded onto refrigerated trucks and transported back to distribution.

[lion]

I answered some of my own questions with a trip through Reston Town Center this afternoon: a number of restaurants (i.e. McCormick and Schmidt's, Uncle Julio's...) had refrigerated trucks parked at side or back doors.

I also learned that in a house with a basement, two days after the power went out, the temperature did not go above 80 degrees in the basement although it might have been ten or more degrees hotter above.

We feel extremely fortunate that we did not have to do first hand research on this.

Luckily we had power except for a few minutes on Friday night.

We went to the Reston Town Center for lunch today, and definitely was surprised by the power outage. Walking back to our car, saw the chefs at Jackson's bringing in supplies in ice.

Ended up in Tysons II for lunch and shopping at William Sonoma and Sur La Table.

Talking to people tonight, a lot of people in the area still are without and some are holed up in hotels.

[goodeats]

My whole street lost power since 10:30pm on Friday night and didn't come back on until 6:30-ish pm Monday night. I am thankful Tuesday is trash day in my neighborhood, as the air certainly reflects the massive clear outs folks are having.

I found the Twitter feed for WTOP radio and Dominion Power really helped A LOT! I felt really updated between Twitter and FB on what to do with food.

I also found out that some renters and home insurance companies will cover food spoilage, minus a deductible.

Many of the hotels are booked, based on tweets, and Arlington County has setup cooling centers to help folks recharge their electronics. Land lines/cell receptions/cable services/internet connections are all sketchy between the various providers.

I went into Falls Church Target today in hopes to find a car charger, only to find that they had a small generator that supported the bare minimum: a small grid of lights, some check out stations that offered credit cards and that was it. No a/c, no food. The Goodwill center and all the food places in that shopping center, as far as I could see, were closed. Driving down on Route 50 encountered a slew of lights without power. The police "coned off" the in-betweens so no car can turn or cross through. It was still a bit scary driving.

As of this afternoon, my local Harris Teeter was still out of power. I am very grateful to the hard-working folks participating in clean up -- it is tough.

Fairfax County and the City of Falls Church have advised boiling your water. Arlington states its water is safe to consume without boiling, and that is the latest I have read.

The storm reminded me of the typhoons I was in back in Taiwan.

[Joe H]

There are remarkable trees which have been uprooted in Reston. The largest I have seen (from walking five miles each day through different trails) is on a path off of Glade avenue about thirty yards from the intersection with Soapstone. On one side of the intersection is the Glade pool and several tennis courts. The path the tree (s) is on runs directly away from this down the hill on the far side of Glade. About 50 yards in you'll see several uprooted trees to the right. Just beyond this there is an 80-90 foot tall, three foot thick trunk which has been ripped up out of the ground taking three other larger trees with it. The circumference of the dirt base and roots which has been ripped up is approximately 15 feet (NOT an exaggeration). I measured this standing virtually next to it. The overall feeling of these four fallen trees each with their base sticking up on their sides is that some kind of bomb struck the area. They were also all healthy at the time they were struck. It is likely that when the largest starting falling its mass in combination with the downburst caused the others to fall.

Still, a remarkable sight. The path was cleared late yesterday afternoon but the trees are off to the side where all can see them. Next time I walk there I'll take a camera and post the photo on here.

[JPW]

Got power back at about 2:30 pm yesterday. A lot of eating out in downtown SS which, thanks to the HQ for Discovery, has underground lines and close to the most reliable electricity in the DC area. Spent most of the weekend in Montgomery Mall with the rest of the power vultures looking to plug in somewhere. Slept on an air mattress in the family room (coolest room in the house). Listened to a lot of WTOP.

Worked yesterday from the Starbucks and Panera in Cherry Hill. The people at Starbucks were great. The folks ("customers", not employees) at Panera were among the biggest asshats that I have ever run into in DC. I say customers in quotes because half of them didn't even pretend to buy something to justify squatting at a table for multiple hours. Tossed about $100 worth of food and haven't yet cleaned out the downstairs fridge. Really not looking forward to tossing the baggies of frozen homemade chicken stock.

[Tweaked]

Trials and Tribulations of Port City Brewery and some other DC area businesses. Save the beer!

[Pete]

It looks like the boil water advisory has been lifted.

We happened to be out of town all weekend and got back yesterday morning, knowing that our power had been out all weekend (we live in Vienna). Early yesterday evening I dumped the contents of our fridge and freezer into the trash (which will thankfully be picked up today). The soy sauce, liquid smoke, and some freezer pops (which somehow were still frozen) were the only items that I didn't pitch (yet). Even though it was double-bagged, the stench from the wedge of grayson cheese in the fridge was overwhelming, and borderline nauseating. We packed up a couple of days worth of clothes and headed to my mother-in-law's house in Fairfax Station since she has power.

I got a call from our alarm company last night at 9pm indicating that the gas sensor alarm was going off and 7 fire trucks were outside my house. This definitely was an interesting way to find out that we had power! I raced home and, fortunately, the gas sensor was just a false alarm. After the fire trucks left, I checked the contents of the downstairs freezer, and saw that most of the homemade stocks were completely thawed, and a whole chicken was almost completely thawed. A couple of ribeye steaks still seemed frozen; however, after almost 72 hours without power I will probably pitch everything. The instant read thermometer indicated that the temperature in the freezer was about 44 degrees.

There are many tree limbs down in our yard. We lost several hundred dollars worth of groceries (we had just done a big Costco run last week....ugh!). However, seeing the destruction and hearing the horror stories of others, we count ourselves lucky.

[Soup]

We've had other strong storms go through this region but this one seem to have been worse then most and I am not sure why.

As for the loss of food, it can be replaced.

I worked for the ma bell systems (remember the guys that made you rent phones from them). I don't ever recall the phone not having dial tone. My phone didn't have dial tone for two days. I guess all that redundency was replaced out for new technology and efficiencies. Too bad.

Seems like the last reliable delivery to home and business is natural gas. That didn't go out.

[Ilaine]

Our power was out for 60 hours, and we've thrown hundreds of dollars of food away. Some things in the freezer that were packed in solid did not thaw.

It was just too hot for my husband to grill the things that were thawing, it was over 90 degrees in the house and no cold beer, but I admire the people with strong constitutions who did that. Judging from the way the neighborhood smelled (no smoke), nobody else was out there, either.

We have an old fashioned copper line to the house, did not think to check that. I grew up in hurricane country so have always wanted to keep a copper phone line just in case. Soup, is your phone line copper or fiber optic? If fiber optic, no surprise that went out but if copper now you have me worried.

I do have a battery operated cell phone charger but there was no cell phone reception at the house for at least a day, and could not get internet on my fully charged iPad, either. Funny, after we lost power Friday night, the iPad could still get internet but in the morning, no.

We drove around Saturday morning charging the phones, looking for coffee and gasoline. Found both early at the University Mall in Fairfax. Everybody at Saxby's was very nice. The people in line at the Sunoco were very well behaved.

I do have a question about what to save and what to throw out -- miso. We have half dozen different kinds of miso, which we have saved, but wondering whether it is safe. It is all the artisanal, non-pasteurized, long-fermented type, and I think it is probably still good. Found this on Food52:

Good long term fermented (2 years and more) and non-pasteurized miso has a pH of 4.6 - 4.8, relative humidity between 48% and 52 % and a salinity rate of 8 - 11 % : these conditions make it suitable for very long conservation. At least 3 years in the fridge and 6 months at room temperature (the official labs says that "it is non potentially dangerous!"). For such a long period as 8 - 9 years, it may have dried, darkened, gotten stronger and the taste may be quite more acidulate. You may smell and taste it and see if you still like it. If white or blue mold has developed on the surface, just scrape it away, smell again and taste. Miso is safe food.

http://food52.com/ho...ng-does-it-keep

I am kicking myself for wasting a nice container of roasted beets -- I should have poured vinegar on them. And the cucumbers and the celery. Pickled beets and giardinaria. I will think of it the next time we lose power.

Probably going to trash the nice big jar of China Moon hot chili oil, it has garlic in it, and no vinegar, so I fear botulism. Refrigerator looks strangely empty.

http://seattletimes....80_chili25.html

[Barbara]

We've had other strong storms go through this region but this one seem to have been worse then most and I am not sure why.

It's because there was almost no warning. People in hurricane country know how to prepare and usually have days to do it. This was one strange storm system which cropped up near Chicago and then sped right toward us. While it was not a tornado, the damage was similar in many ways. Since Dame Edna and I live in the middle of the City, our power lines are underground and we never lose power--unless there is some sort of accident or explosion. I count twice in 36 years almost never. I heard the guy from PEPCO talk about how it would cost billions (cue Carl Sagan) of $$$ to move the lines underground, but it astonishes me that it can't be done in new construction or while the streets are being dug up for some other project. It seems that, around here, you can have a tree canopy or reliable electricity, but not both. Seems like a third-world system to me.

[iolaire]

As of this afternoon, my local Harris Teeter was still out of power. I am very grateful to the hard-working folks participating in clean up -- it is tough.

I picked up a few bags of ice for free from the Harris Teeter on Glebe, I was very appreciative. They obviously got the ice trucks heading up here early and were making an effort to assist the community. At times I think they were also giving away dry ice.

There were various corporate looking “suits” in polo’s standing around that appeared as if they had come up from some HQ location.

[RWBooneJr]

One good aspect of this crazy storm was getting to see people come together and help each other out (thank you again, monavano, for the generous offer). My part came Sunday morning when a friend who normally roasts his own coffee was forced to drink Starbucks for the first time in many years. I could almost hear the pain in his early-morning text when he asked me if he could come over and roast some beans to tide him over until his electricity returned. I also had the pleasure of hosting his lovely wife's three-legged lizard for the night (this, sadly, is not a euphemism). My friends are great.

[Sundae in the Park]

We were driving home from Tysons after trying to see a moive (it was insanely packed from the heat-fleers and the opening of Magic Mike) when the storm hit. The trees were coming down as we crawled home but we made it there safely after offroading a bit. Our power was only out until Sat. morning, so we luckily didn't have to pitch anything. We had a bunch of friends stop by for the rest of the weekend to juice up and cool down. My office came back online Sun. night but we still know quite a few people in MoCo and pockets of FFX county (FFX City, Burke) that don't have power.

[Destruya]

For when this happens again - and it probably will, there are three pretty fool-proof places to head for hotels:

1. Crystal City - tons of hotels, and the power grid feeds multiple DoD structures, including the Pentagon. Couple that with businesses whose downtime is measured in the millions per minute/hour range, and you've got a pretty dependable spot. Pentagon City was a designated cooling center.

2. Tyson's Corner (Galleria Side) - again, tons of hotels, banking branches, business HQs and satellite office buildings. The non-Galleria side is partially fed by Vienna and Dunn Loring's power grid and will go down at the drop of a hat (and did, for 2-3 days). The Galleria side's power links into the holiest of all local grids that feed the houses of the super-rich, the Site E tower, as well as juiced-in corporations like SAIC, MITRE, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the CIA. This grid does not and can not go down, and all the wires and cables that snake under Tysons is the reason why the Metro is being built above-ground.

3. Herndon/Dulles/Loudoun County - the only "wide open spaces" left in the DC Metro area, the power lines out here are either buried or nowhere near trees, which reduces breakage in lines and also makes any damage that occurs much easier to fix. Also, something like 90% of the data center traffic in the Eastern US is routed out of gateways and datacenters located in this area because of its proximity to MAE-East (a big internet routing hub - http://ithistory.org/blog/?p=204). If you wondered why Amazon and Netflix weren't working very well (if you had power), this is why.

[squidsdc]

Finally, we have power! I'm not going to try to calculate the number of hours we were out this early in the am. Been out since 9:45 pm Friday night, and Pepco was projecting that power would not be restored until 11pm July 6th. No Pepco trucks had been seen in our entire neighborhood, with several trees down on live wires and a main power junction in to the community was down as well. On the street around the corner from us there was a huge tree that split a utility pole on its path down, and was resting on the power wires--it hadn't hit the ground yet. Residents used makeshift items to block off the road since no officials seemed to be aware of this danger. I tried to report it several times myself, but it just got lost in the fray.

Neither of us have smart phones, so we were only able to see emails and such at work, with not much time to get away to do so. But thankful for so many others in the community who wrote letters, sent emails and complained about the total lack of attention to our neighborhood. Apparently one of the VP's of Pepco even lives in this neighborhood, but that didn't seem to be a factor. I heard that Channel 4 was reporting yesterday afternoon from that unblocked street, so who knows if that was the final kick in the ass we needed to get some attention. I know several other areas had similar situations, but at least the trees were being removed so traffic could get through. From the emails I had seen, there were at least 4 streets blocked by trees, including the very dangerous one around the corner from us, that had not even been assessed for damage or attempted to be cleared.

I was very hesitant to be hopeful when the revised restoration estimate was for 7:30pm last night, and was unfortunately not really surprised when that time came and went.

Suffice it to say that the kitties are eating normally again, and we are in the process of cooling down the house. Very thankful to have just completed our project of insulated siding and new doors and windows! We could feel a significant difference. And this is the first time I can say that I am happy our kitchen sits on a slab, as it was much cooler than the rest of the house.

Oh,the food? Well most of it is a goner. But we did cook some items on our BIg Green Egg early on, brought some defrosting frozen deli meat and bread to work to share, and kept some condiments and such on ice. But most of the stuff is trash. Just waiting on the fridge to get back to temp--last time I looked it was at 66 degrees, so we have a way to go.

And on tap for this weekend...we were so excited to finally find the Maui Brewing Coconut Porter and picked it up last Friday before we got home. The project for that weekend was going to be making the Chocolate Cococnut Porter cake that was featured in the Washington Post...so we'll do it this weekend instead! (And I promise to report back on how it turns out)

[porcupine]

When we moved to our current house we decided that maybe the whole-house generator we'd left behind had been kind of overkill and that we wouldn't add one to the new place. They are kind of pricey. But a few months later the twin blizzards hit and we were without power for five days (at least I could bury freezer contents in snowbanks). As Mr P likes to say, there's no kill like overkill, so we got the generator after all (and a wood stove). Still no power here, but the propane tank gauge is reading 60% full. Been living comfortably enough. Trying to be frugal with the electricity but boy are we going to pay for it when it comes time to refill that tank.

Other than wasted food, 'tis much, much better to be without power in summer than in winter.

[Xochitl10]

We live near downtown Silver Spring and lost power almost as soon as the storm hit us (about 10:30 pm on Friday night). Power came back on around 9:00 pm on Monday night, thanks to the hardworking people at Chain Electric from Hattiesburg, MS replacing damaged light poles and the downed wires across our nearest major street. Azami and I kept the blinds and windows closed during the day and were quite pleased with how well the house stayed relatively cool during the day (the joys of a small, south-facing brick Colonial). We'd made the call on Sunday morning to take our frozen stashes of green chile over to a friend who had power, so we saved the most valuable stuff. Azami hadn't done much shopping, so we didn't have a whole lot of spoilage. We did, however, enjoy a nice conversation with a complete stranger in the frozen food aisle of the Giant over the relative merits of frozen ravioli versus boxes of pot pies as freezer packs for the refrigerated items that we'd stashed in the freezer along with our remaining (mostly melted, at that point) ice.

[SeanMike]

I felt very popular. My power blinked but didn't go out, so folks kept visiting, used my empty freezer to store stuff, and I ran an extra power strip because we had so many devices to charge. I was just happy to help, and even happier that helping meant staying at home and having friends come to me.

[Destruya]

A smartphone is a godsend during power outages. It was a smartphone that allowed me to check Dominion's outage details the second the power went out and notice that they had over 600,000 customers without power and climbing statewide, at that point ~350k in the NoVA area alone. Within 20 minutes I had a bug-out bag packed with essentials and I was out looking for a hotel, because whenever most people lose power at night, they go to bed thinking it'll be on the next morning - I'm glad I wasn't one of them.

[bookluvingbabe]

I need Food Police help.

The little guy and I were out of town when the storm hit while Mr. BLB was here. Power went out at 10:30 on Friday night (DVR cut out in the middle of recording an Inspector Morse I had never seen...) and came back somewhere between midnight and 6 am Sunday morning. So between 26 and 30 hours.

Despite relatively clear instructions from me (toss everything in the fridge but booze and condiments and take the stuff out of the freezer that had started to defrost and cook it/eat it and leave stuff that was still frozen solidly in the freezer...) I came home to a pretty empty fridge (he did save the booze) and a freezer that wasn't touched. So anything that started to defrost has refrozen and I have no way to know what did start to defrost and what didn't.

Do I toss everything? I've got a pork shoulder in there, beef heart plus other assorted meat products. There is cooked chili, lasagna and other cooked leftovers.

Sigh...

Thanks!

[Destruya]

You're inside the 48h window, so you should be alright. Just so long as you can confirm from him that he never opened the freezer, you might be in the clear.

It is a risk, though.

[Ilaine]

The question is the Dirty Harry question.

You have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky?

Well, do ya?

[sparkycom]

I had to toss everything three days ago. For the 6th time in two years in Arlington. For the record, I'm now in the market for a generator. Advice appreciated.

[monavano]

I had to toss everything three days ago. For the 6th time in two years in Arlington. For the record, I'm now in the market for a generator. Advice appreciated.

Best to look at what you definitely want to run when the power is out (including a window a/c), make a list, and then go to Home Depot or the like and have someone determine what your needs will be. It's not as easy as just grabbing an available generator on the shelf and taking it home. They are several hundreds to thousands of dollars to invests in, so buy the right one.

Here's a template from Lennox:

http://www.lennox.co...gcalculator.asp

You also must have sufficient outdoor space to place the generator away from your home while it's running.

eta: even if you feel storm and hurricane season is over and you can breathe easy for a while, that's when generators are stocked up, so pull that trigger!

Just talked to Mr. MV and he said that we ordered our generator from Power Equipment Direct. It's a Briggs and Stratton and so far has worked like a champ. I think it's a 5500 watt with a 7500 max surge watt (or something like that )

[sparkycom]

Great advice, thanks!

[monavano]

I also wanted to add for anyone looking into alternative power sources during an outage-- inverters are also a consideration.

[thistle]

After the recent incident, I'm rethinking my disaster plan (yes, like it or not, that's what this was, if only a trial run). I had plenty of water stored (thanks to athletic kids, who require endless water bottles), but need a better way to store bulk water & rotate it. I plan to pick up a couple of battery operated fans, managed ok w/ the food on hand, fortunately had a full tank of gas & cash on hand, & I realize that w only 24+ hours w/out power, this was a dress rehearsal. Maybe some solar chargers for the phones, but I used the car chargers....if I had to face a real disaster, I'm afraid I'd be screwed....

[thistle]

I guess I'm thinking a little more about personal preparedness since my son is going camping at Pohick Bay tonight-bringing a tent, sleeping bags, pads, flashlights- of course, they won't be there that long, as much as I'd love to send him off w/ everything he needs, he doesn't want that, they're sort of flying by the seat of their pants....it's only one night, they'll survive..

[dcandohio]

One of those crank radios is useful. Mine also charges phones. I also bought a bunch of those "fake" tea lights that have tiny batteries in them, just for emergencies. Safer than candles. For anyone who still has a land line, keep or find that old-frashioned phone that doesn't require electricity, and works by just plugging into the phone jack. During our last power outage it was nice to have the land line working.

[ol_ironstomach]

Going camping - the kind of camping that requires you to cook - teaches you what you need and what you don't. As does sailboating for several days. You can probably assume that your home will still function as shelter, but do understand that being indoors creates other safety issues if combustion is involved. You probably have canned and dry food. You need water, and lots of it. You may need to be able to survive excessive heat and cold.

Don't waste your time buying MREs (unless you have access to French ones). Prefilling a bathtub gives you a supply of nonpotable water for flushing toilets and other minor washing duties. Have several gallons of potable water around, and cycle through them regularly.

Although I have an assortment of backpacking and base camp stoves, my suggestion to everybody is to pick up a cheap butane cassette burner from your local Asian grocery. They are cheap at something like $20, and work great for single-burner tasks. I used to tote a spare in my chuck box; when the next encampment of 20-ish people forgot to bring some critical parts for their big camp stove, I loaned them one so their camp cook could still manage to keep everybody fed for a day or two.

Electricity is the big question mark. Because I need to power a CPAP, I take a solar panel and deep cycle battery with me when I do extended camping without electricity and where generators are prohibited. When I had a cheap-o 15W panel, it was sufficient for my needs, but just barely. With a 40W panel or larger, you can start to power a few conveniences like a laptop for a couple of hours per day. I got a pretty good Craigslist deal on some big panels (85W ea) from a fellow who no longer needed them for his sailboat. But for most of us, we'll want to power a fridge/freezer, and maybe unplug it to operate a microwave for a few minutes, and/or some bigger lights. Your garden variety cheap standby generator will provide occasional convenience power, but will be loud and fuel thirsty, and generally isn't designed for sustained nor continuous duty. TV crews at pro sporting events rely heavily on portable genverters, normally the Honda EU series, but with a few Yamahas thrown in. Only 110V and relatively expensive for their rated capacity, but efficient, very quiet, and utterly reliable. Efficiency turns out to be fairly important, as it may be several days before you can buy more fuel. No, they won't power a central A/C, nor most well pumps, but during Snowpocalypse my Honda powered my fridge continuously, plus several fluorescent lamps and a pile of computing gear, and I even managed to alternate between powering my chest freezer and my central gas heater (110V blower motor) and thermostat, so we didn't have to huddle around an impractical modern fireplace for marginal heat. In a summer outage, we'd run a window A/C left over from when she lived in NYC.

In a major outage, gas stations can't power their pumps so you will need to store fuel, which poses a hazard in itself. I use NATO-type "jerry cans" because they are seam-welded steel and leakproof - the actual NATO cans with the cam-type cap, and not the screw-top American-style cans. Maryland's environmental laws have required vapor-tight fuel cans for the past several years, so new plastic ones sold in the state are also generally adequate. Rotopax cans (popular with ATVers) are also a good choice, if somewhat esoteric. In any case, you will need to add a fuel stabilizer such as Sta-bil, because stored gasoline tends to lose its volatile fractions in 1-3 months. Stabilizer stretches that to one year, maybe two. Even if your nearby station is functioning, credit-card processing networks may not be operating, so have some cash on hand.

[DonRocks]

Electricity is the big question mark. Because I need to power a CPAP, I take a solar panel and deep cycle battery with me when I do extended camping without electricity and where generators are prohibited.

Friend,

When camping in primitive conditions, it's better to need to take and power a CPAP, than to need to take a power CRAP.

I wish you the very best,

Kirock,

Medicine Chief,

The Flying Fojol Brothers of Amerind.

[ol_ironstomach]

When camping in primitive conditions, it's better to need to take and power a CPAP, than to need to take a power CRAP.

As all former Scouts know, taking a power CRAP in the backwoods is pretty easy. You improvise a latrine with the little orange shovel loved by backpackers everywhere. You use the TP that is item #1 on your packing list - and which obviates the need to memorize which leaves are from poisonous plants and therefore unsuitable as ersatz wipes. Done.

In my next installment, I'll explain how you can start a fire even with frozen icy deadwood under a blanket of snow, using a 15 minute road flare.

[goodeats]

I sense a $50+ Tuesday event coming up--I'm a visual person so I would love if ol_i or someone can help me equip in case something else happens. I read this and other things and find myself overwhelmed. Rt now I have lanterns and two flashlights that helped but not enough. Would this be a good shopping event, anyone?

[thistle]

A great event, especially if you get crazy like me, & start checking out emergency prep websites, but really you can walk that fine line & not overdo it-Tom came back the other night, & said, "If I ever want to camp again, remind me how much I hate to camp", apparently he had to fend off a raccoon, who wanted their graham crackers in the middle of the night, & didn't want to leave...

As far as MREs go, I would never buy them, but my husband brings them home, regardless-it would definitely have to be a natural disaster for me to eat an MRE, I'd rather think about water...

To get more serious, I've signed up for CERT training in the fall, I do want to know how to prepare & be able to help my neighbors, in case of emergency...the small things you do now, like flashlights/water/some sort of a plan are going to be basis of your family emergency plan...

[bookluvingbabe]

A great event, especially if you get crazy like me, & start checking out emergency prep websites, but really you can walk that fine line & not overdo it-Tom came back the other night, & said, "If I ever want to camp again, remind me how much I hate to camp", apparently he had to fend off a raccoon, who wanted their graham crackers in the middle of the night, & didn't want to leave...

As far as MREs go, I would never buy them, but my husband brings them home, regardless-it would definitely have to be a natural disaster for me to eat an MRE, I'd rather think about water...

To get more serious, I've signed up for CERT training in the fall, I do want to know how to prepare & be able to help my neighbors, in case of emergency...the small things you do now, like flashlights/water/some sort of a plan are going to be basis of your family emergency plan...

See I always think it is my father's latent Mormon heritage coming out when I start getting in to full on prep mode. But yes, I'd love to get more organized, figure out the water think (I really want a Berky filter) and talk through this things with real people not just the folks on the prep sites on the internet.

[lperry]

If you have a serious worry about water, I have one of these that has been used in the field all over the world with 100% success. You can fill a bottle for drinking and brushing your teeth pretty quickly, and you don't have to boil the stuff in the stifling heat. No power necessary other than a little elbow grease.

Edited to add that I've had the same filter for more than 20 years, and it still works great. They are built to last.

[astrid]

Anyone else read this and get really freaked out?