On Tuesday (19APR22) morning, I was sitting in front of my computer reading the news and drinking a cup of coffee, when at 0811, power outages hit my area (a note on the time later).
The NOAA had us on a Winter Storm Warning, and we got about 6 inches of snow last night. The heavy wet kind. So, a power outage? Meh, no big deal. I can see a few downed trees out the window. Not uncommon for our area. I wrote an article about preparing for a power outage in the past detailing just how common these are where I live.
Then a thought crossed my mind that made me chuckle:
What if this was a cyber-attack on the grid?
West/US relations with Russia have not exactly been stellar of late. The Russian ambassador, in a recent interview with Politico, says he cannot get a meeting with the Biden admin, and there has been increasing rhetoric about possible cyber-attack on the US grid as of late. A few minutes later, the power came back on. After powering up my box, logging in, and starting to write about the snow, the power outage, and my cyber-attack thoughts, at 0829, the power went out again.
Now, I am just laughing.
I went downstairs to get some firewood for the woodstove. Even though I have a headlamp on, out of habit, I still flipped the switch for the basement lights. We have an electric wood splitter, so I looked around and found the backup: an ax. I split two logs into kindling – enough to keep the fire going for a bit. Of course, just as I get back upstairs, the power comes back on.
(If this hits your area, will you have enough food? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to what to eat when the power goes out.)
I got the fire going anyway.
I sat back down, took a sip of coffee and booted up my box – again. After logging in, starting to re-write my observations about the power outage the lights went out – again.
And at 0855 the power was out – again.
I did not know it at the time, but the power would be out for an hour and a half. In the meantime, I went to my hobby room to continue tweaking an air rifle of mine. But in the back of my head, I got to thinking about what if this was a cyber-attack on the grid? How would we know? The Internet is out. The radio is out. How would we find out?
I do have a small solar and hand-crank radio, but would radio stations even be up? During 9/11, I recall classic rock station DJs reporting the news as it came available, and that was vague. How long before even the government knew what was going on, let alone news outlets? And when would they start reporting on it? Would they even report on it?
The GridEx VI simulation
In a recent article, TOP pointed out that the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) conducted a two-day simulation called GridEx VI, an attack on the electrical grid, telecommunications, and natural gas. During the simulation, the attacks would be conducted both in cyberspace and physical space.
Think about that for a moment: Without some kind of information source, at what point in time do I begin to really think this might be something more than a simple power outage? 24 hours? 48? 96? A week? How does that affect my decision-making process? Would it be too late to go into town to stock up for more groceries?
Would I find the local Wally-World ransacked and burned down? How would I know if it was safe?
There is a saying: We are nine meals away from chaos and anarchy.
Consider the Arab Spring. Recently Iraq, Peru, and Sri Lanka have already had civil unrest due to food inflation. Who says it cannot happen here?
Note, one of the conclusions the GridEx VI exercise comes to is it would be, “Two weeks and beyond: the western interconnection is restored, and customer load is eventually reconnected, but energy and capacity margins are tight for the foreseeable future.”
Having a friend down in town with radio comms between the two of us would be a good source of information. At the same time, I would not want them to put them in harm’s way for information.
The habit of turning on lights when there is no electricity made me consider how much we Americans take a stable electrical grid for granted. Heck, even my wife flipped the switch when she went into the bathroom.
The log splitter is a convenience. Having to use the ax to manually split wood is truly the “norm.” I did have my portable speaker hooked up to the charger, so it had a full charge to listen to music on my tablet, but my tablet was down to 41%. I have a small set of solar panels, but how much charge am I going to get on a day like today, snowing/raining/overcast?
My headlamp uses a rechargeable battery. It also takes AAA backups. Same with one of my flashlights. We do have a supply of batteries. How long would those last under more constant use in a grid down situation?
“Just run the generator.” For how long? At what point do I decide to limit running it or just powering essential devices?
Even something as simple as keeping time would disappear.
Something taught to us in the Marines was to note the time when something of significance occurred (obviously, return fire first or render first aid). I still do it to this day. I have a Casio Pro Trek watch. It has a solar-powered rechargeable battery.
Most people I know don’t wear a watch anymore (they use their phone), or the ones that do, it is some kind of smartwatch requiring USB charging. Now, we could go really old school and say, “Bob, I will meet up with you tomorrow, sometime in the morning.” How efficient is that? Even my Amish neighbors have simple pocket watches, which they consider very valuable. This is something to consider if the grid was down.
What do you think? If you had a power outage, what would you do?
Just assume it is weather-related? Or something more insidious? What things do you rely on that you would suddenly have to find an alternate for like an ax to split wood? How do you entertain yourself without YouTube?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
About 1stMarineJarHead
1stMarineJarHead is not only a former Marine, but also a former EMT-B, Wilderness EMT (courtesy of NOLS), and volunteer firefighter.
He currently resides in the great white (i.e. snowy) Northeast with his wife and dogs. He raises chickens, rabbits, goats, occasionally hogs, cows and sometimes ducks. He grows various veggies and has a weird fondness for rutabagas. He enjoys reading, writing, cooking from scratch, making charcuterie, target shooting, and is currently expanding his woodworking skills.
We tend to have frequent power outages here. Lately I have wondered when the next outage happens how will we know if it is a hack or something bigger. Obviously if we just had an ice storm or something obvious I wouldn’t be concerned but ours will go down at times for no clearly seen reason.
Hi Colleen,
Things that make you wonder, eh?
Indeed, we have plenty of enemies who wouldn’t mind taking over our property! Russia, China, a smattering of Middle Eastern nations, all interested in taking ownership without having to deal with those nasty guns in civilian hands. And as you point out: several natural causes can be responsible as well. Look at the recent once in a century ice storm in Texas. People were without power for at least one week and power bills skyrocketed because of how their grid is run.
Since I work via the Internet on a computer that requires power, yeah, a lengthy power outage would seriously suck. I do have solar panels that can keep batteries charged but my freezers would be toast, along with the food in them. My Apple Watch is in a drawer though. Give me a good, old fashioned Timex any day!
Amy,
“Give me a good, old fashioned Timex any day!”
Thank you for the laugh!
TOP had an article about the deep Texas freeze, with more than a few commenters from down that way posting of their experiences. Very interesting.
Indeed. Survivalist Boards also has a lengthy thread on it, also with people from the area posting. Great time to analyze successes and failures, and see the holes in our own arrangements.
That’s exactly how we knew the holes in our plan, when the lights and water went out for a week during the winter storm down here in the good ole Country of Texas. We actually didn’t suffer much and were able to help a few neighbors out. We saw exactly where are solar generator and panels were failing (no sun to charge them with a foot of snow outside) as well as our water filter system (NONE). We bought a Big Burkey gravitational fed water filter, charged ALL solar stuff and put in faraday cages, and husband is looking at building a smoke house this week for when the lights go off permanent. We also had our big gas generator but my husband said that’s only going to last us 3 months tops, when SHTF because where to buy gas, ya know. Also, our rain barrels froze up, so they were useless. We’ve been looking for ideas for this to not happen again.
When I lived in the DC area, we could lose power for up to a week due to hurricanes (even without a ‘direct hit.) Mostly we only lost power for a day or two from them. OTOH, my neighborhood power transformers were probably not really able to handle the day-to-day usage given them, and every 6 weeks or so would blow up and we’d lose power for a few hours.
Being, well, us – we didn’t break out the generator for any of them, since city water kept flowing. We’d light the wood stove if needed, and we didn’t need the computers running and TV on all the time – there was always plenty of reading for our home business we could catch up on when power was down. And I knew which dry ice providers had backup power so I could get that for the freezer.
Here in the Blue Ridge Mts, just outside of a town of about 1100 people, the power grid has been far more stable. However, our water relies on an electric powered pump.
My plan for information, such as it is, will be daily walks of a couple of miles each way to City Hall and the Fire Station for updates on news in case of serious power outages.
Fern,
“. . . daily walks of a couple of miles each way to City Hall and the Fire Station for updates on news in case of serious power outages.”
Now that is a interesting idea, and good outside the box thinking.
Thank you for that.
Indeed…that’s an excellent idea. I’m going to take a drive this weekend and find out how far away the nearest fire station and city hall are from our house.
We also have bicycles, which we use daily, mostly for exercise (avg 15 miles/day at a strong pace). We have recently started using them for short errands, including picking up some food products at local stores and other things….something my wife and I always did as kids, but got out of the habit as adults.
Why are there weather-related outages? One word: “renewables”
A freak storm hit Texas back in February 2021. It brought strong winds, snow, ice, and bitter cold temperatures (it was 6° in Houston). Power started failing the next day, first to certain areas of the state, then more as other problems happened. We were without power for two days, and we were the lucky ones. My brothers in Austin had no power for six days, and no water for five (melted snow for toilets because they didn’t stock up on water).
The wind power farms could not generate because the winds were gale force, which is too high for operation. They dropped off-line. Solar farms were covered in snow for days. At this time several gas generating plants were off-line for maintenance (disassembled generators). Of note: 28% of Texas power comes from “renewable” sources. Swell…
California has rolling blackouts during the summer because of their “renewable” sources, when they aren’t importing natural gas (or power) from Texas’ grid.
Rather than use stable forms of power generation, too much of this country has to rely on unstable forms. That’s most of our problem.
Next issue is our aging power distribution infrastructure. After that is the problem of our stations being hackable and our substations being sabotaged.
Bill in Houston,
Good observations.
IF (big IF) money was not an issue, I would like to have a solar array, and a wind turbine (the horizontal kind, we can and do get some serious winds up here).
But as you point out, storage (mo’ money), and what do I do under overcast skies, and the wind not blowing?
While I was in Afghanistan (if you ever want to see what post-SHTF looks like, vacation there for a year like I did), only 5% of the country had a stable electrical grid. The rest was no grid at all or it was intermittent. 6 hours here, 11 hours there maybe. That was their normal. They would just shrug and go about their business.
A friend of mine uses a “ladder” analogy when comparing 1st and 3rd world countries. The USA is very high on the ladder, where Afghanistan is on the bottom rung. Take away the power, the US has a lot further to fall.
For me, the question “How long will it last?” reminds me how important it is to have one of those radios with a crank that will work no matter how long the power is gone. Because one thing you want is news to know as soon as possible if it could go on a long time. And if it looks like it’s going to go on for long, does your best option look like hunkering down, or going somewhere else?
Doly Garcia,
“How long will it last?
I spoke to a woman at length about her experience after Hurricane Hugo. It was six (6) weeks before they had power restored.
Thanks marine – super good article – makes me think. On your solar question (how much charge am I going to get on a day like today, snowing/raining/overcast), we built a solar array that’s about 8kw, and it works great in good sun, but in thick clouds it drops to 10% +/-. We did a lot of record keeping when we first put it all in and it was shocking to see the difference from full sun to clouds. We also put in 2 wind chargers, and though good in a windstorm, they are otherwise not overly impressive unless you get them up really high. Storage is what’s critical, but with the price of the LiFePO4 batteries we have stayed on AGM. We have adjusted our lifestyle to use most of our electric when the sun is giving it to us. Adjusting is probably good practice, like Selco talks about; having to adjust to changes is the only thing that is constant in a crisis.
Blessings
db
Hi db123, we live in Ireland, one of the worst sunlight places ever, but nice when it does shine here! We run of Solar (10kWh), now great in spring summer.. winter days however need a generator (7.5 kWh) back up, feeding its excess back into inverters i.e. charging batteries back up on excess power from generator.. thereby finding a nice balance. No need for fancy Lithium batteries unless you need to save space or waste money.. other deep cycle batteries work just fine, just get more if needed. You are right, adjustment is key, and not too difficult, something Europeans cannot do easily.
You bring up some really great points, many, as another former shock troop, I have considered as well.
Flashlights- I have a blend of really great recharge-ables, and some pretty good, AA and AAA versions, but not enough to last forever.
I recently bought a tiny, cheap, SW, Weather, AM/FM battery powered radio; Nothing fancy, just cheap and functional, as a “first source” to decide if it’s a normal outage, or something bigger.
For entertainment- Books, lots and lots of books; old school, paper, various useful topics, i.e. field manuals, history of warfare, practical carpentry, trauma first aid. Pretty much all are reference, or facts, very little fiction.
Also, boxes and boxes of emergency, 9 hour candles.
Anything really significant, will outlast my charged or uncharged “stuff”, and eventually, my battery supply. Semper Gumby!
DrRock…We are voracious readers in our house, and have accumulated a pretty good book collection – including ‘how to’ reference books covering a variety of topics….which it looks like you have done. We have enough books for entertainment that we joke about giving family and friends ‘library cards’ if they want to ‘borrow’ something.
The article below mentions the history of disaster simulations regularly preceding the actual disasters. Such a simulation of a mass pandemic in the fall of 2021 only preceded the official outbreak of Covid-19 by a few months. Such culprits as the WEF (World Economic Forum oligarchs), Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and the Rockefellers (whose poorly tested vaccine killed some 50-100 million people worldwide circa 1918 [including more German soldiers than WWI combat] and has been covered up to this day as the “Spanish Flu”) are the frequent offenders.
https://alt-market.us/cyberpolygon-will-the-next-globalist-war-game-lead-to-another-convenient-catastrophe/
In the summer of 2021 the Cyber Polygon simulation was carried out to explore the effects of massive power grid shutdowns. The real thing hasn’t been committed yet so we might wonder why. Is it possible that the WEF crowd is waiting for the US government to force a changeover from the physical and depositible US dollars we all use to the all-digital cashless-economy system? A shutdown of all three US power grids (eastern, western, and Texas) would shut down that kind of a money system instantly. Even crypto currencies [whether US government sponsored or the thousands of competing cryptos] would be inaccessible in any country so affected.
It boggles the mind trying to imagine how long the WEF tyrants might choose to prolong such catastrophic grid shutdowns in their desire to maximize the damage.
–Lewis
Lewis…it seems like that would be one way to force a global ‘reset’.
Battery-powered radios, particularly with shortwave capability. That should at least keep you somewhat informed. That and battery-operated ham radios. Plus plenty of spare batteries. The power lines in my area are primarily, though not exclusively, underground, so if there’s a power outage in my area, it’s a big deal, and I’d be breaking out the radios to see what’s going on.
We have a generator that will run for abut 2 weeks on tanks. We also own a gas generator that I have had for years (If you have anything gas fire it up at least once a quarter) I looked at the Yeti 3000 and others with solar panels.
I lived in NH where it was common to lose power, pipes freeze and other problems, if you live somewhere that cold be ready even to protect the home from damage.
Chuckling I too live in the NE Area where overcast days and Nor’easters can shut down the grid power for more than a few days. My longest so far has been 11 days. Had to run generator occasionally to keep the fridge safe and recharge stuff. It’s a good idea to have a power center to when you fire up the generator you can just plug in that power center and all your rechargeables are getting charged at once. Generator uses about the same power full on or idling I noticed.
My wind-up alarm clock was very useful for scheduling the generator running’s but getting up at O’ dark 30 for a gen run is annoying but needful.
Thanks for the reminder about a good watch. Not sure where my old one is.
I found that if you can stay in the proper voltage the larger solar panels will still generate enough power on overcast days to recharge most rechargeables.
The wood stove is a great thing. Keeping a decent amount of kindling and firewood is nice because Mr. Murphy is apt to twist my ankle while I’m trying to chop some and my beloved isn’t that physical anymore. That way the house stays warm while I heal up enough to figure out more firewood 🙂
Thinking about a coal rack and some pea coal as it keeps fire all night.
Looking at my homes plumbing I can do a really good job draining all my plumbing as I use a garden hose as a syphon to clear the last bits. Better than freezing damage and flooding later I figure.
Whenever I have a power outage FIRST, I check my cell phone to see if I have service. Trees down wouldn’t affect that. Second IF the cellphone isn’t getting a signal, I’d turn on my emergency radio. If I cannot get a radio station across the bands, I’d be assuming something really bad has occurred.
I keep a spare radio in the faraday cage. I pray I never need that one.
In any case checking with my neighbors is done. I’ve good neighbors. We’ve shared generator time and fuel before.
We have 3 gen sets but prefer not to use them. Once running, everyone in the county (sarc) knows you have one and that it`s most likely portable. We use a small battery bank of 480 amp hours with additional 480 amp hours on standby. Power is thru a small 600 watt sine wave inverter/charger with a 2.3 kw on standby but not connected. Recharging the battery banks without the grid is done by idling one of the vehicles or alternately, running a 5 hp gas engine connected to a 100 amp delco single wire alternator. It`s a tad noisy too but does not have to be run at 1800 or 3600 rpm like a generator does to maintain frequency and so doesn`t sound like a generator to someone who might need one. The inverter generators I have tried are quiet but tend to have trouble starting a large load like an air compressor. We have run a little solar (400 watts) but I view it somewhat unreliable due to weather and solar tracking, and then there`s the issue of where to put it. Still, solar is quiet and does work even if marginally in my case.
Sandbags or straw bales make a nice acoustic wall to quiet that generator or your DC homemade version.
How did you set that up, I’ve been thinking that useful for my battery bank when solar needs help?
Good idea on the sand and straw, thanks.
Guessing you mean the 12 volt charger. It`s a 5.5 hp horizontal shaft that used to be a marginal snow blower. I removed the blower portion but kept the handle, trans and tires. I figured the weight of the engine alone was more than I wanted to move around so I kept the chasis. Fabbed a small platform to the front where the alternator is attached. Had to get a double pulley for the engine so could run both the trans and the alternator. Tapped the alternator output to a 100 amp key type switch and from there to heavy gauge jumper cable. Ground is to the frame with the neg side jumper cable. Just need to start the thing before turning the key or the engine is hard to start. The single wire alternator has an internal regulator so wiring is pretty simple. I use a clamp meter to check the charge rate but could wire an ammeter if one wanted.
All the batteries are individually fused and feed a bus bar that feeds the inverter and a volt meter. There are two charging lugs connected to the bus bar with the positive also key switched. The above charger is connected to those lugs or you can jump from a vehicle using those lugs. You probably already know but others may not, If you do something like this be sure to check your battery(s) maximum charge rate just to be safe. Some deep cycles are picky. Need to consider any ventilation needs of your batteries too, especially while charging Our setup limits the individual lead acid batteries to 30 amps charge or discharge.
The location I live in has very few power outages. It is a concern when it happens.
Generator backup, Solar panels and lots of spare batteries. Several 100lb propane tanks and other methods of heating and cooking.
One of the best things was the addition of Automatic watches. I have several so I can hand them out to family as needed. No need to worry about knowing the time again with or without power. Yes more expensive, but worth it to me.
great article and comments. we’re in our 70s, in hurricane country, so we’re prepared with generators, course they use gasoline. when the power grid goes down, we wont have backup of any kind…hubs doesnt think something like that will happen…me, I want to be as prepared as possible. since money is tight, supplies are getting scarce, can anyone suggestion any backup, solar, something easy and cost effective for me to handle? have candles/flashlights/lanterns/kerosene for them/solar yard lights. have food/general supplies stocked, just concerned about power and water (have a salt water pool?) anything appreciated, want to do it now….time is tight…..
I try…. TRY…. to exercise wisdom and learn lessons from other people’s mistakes. Cheaper and less painful i’m to understand… Haha! ????
One thing i digested long ago? Backups to your backups! 2 solar generators, one 10,000 watt gas generator and an unholy stash of treated gasoline. Gas genny is primarily for friges and freezers, although solar units can now run them as well.
The gas genny is also to run window AC units in the aummer and electric radiator heaters in the winter.
Got a couple of cords of wood out back for heat generation and possible cooking as well.
I tell ya… I was shocked when i learned HOW MUCH smaller table appliances suck up in power!!! Electric cooking burners, toasters, microwaves, COFFEE MACHINES, deep fryers, hair dryers, etc. All of em kucked in at a minimum of 1500 watts!!! Solar gennies can handle it, but you drain em dowm in 1 to 2 hours. Did a rotisserie chicken using a new Ecoflow Delta 1300.
Good news! Did the job!
Bad news? It drained the unit down in an hour and 10 minutes.
A great thing about solar gennies? If the units are drained and the weatjer sucks outside, you can charge em using the gas genny instead of the solar panel array.
Back up your back ups. Oh yea. During hurricane Irma, my neighbors generator failed; got another, that failed. He then packed up the family went to his brothers house who had power. I
Power outages are common where I live. I have a 1500VA UPS that runs my laptop, a 27 inch screen, a small lamp and a 10 outlet USB extender. I have a second 1500VA UPS (same model) that powers my Internet router across the room. My power went off a 1:00 am Monday. My CPAP is not on a UPS so I woke up instantly. The UPS running the router said it had 419 minutes runtime. I turned on my laptop and 27 inch screen and I had 189 minutes runtime. I switched off the big screen and it too said I had over 400 minutes runtime. Then I booted the power company app on my cell phone and notified the power company that my power was out. Then I looked on the power company website and pulled up the map page that show all the power lines and it showed that 619 customers were effected by the outage that hit me. Then I knew it wasn’t a cyber-attack or a EMP. Power was back on 90 minutes and I went back to bed.
Interesting. Surely in a different latitude, but approximately same time. Maybe a solar flare generated the power cut?
I should point out that I deliberately bought such long lasting UPS so as to have time to determine if a disaster had happened and perhaps a bit of last minute research on the actual disaster. Also, perhaps some last minute comms to friends and family and perhaps some last minute orders (that may or may not arrive).
“At what point do I decide to limit running it or just powering essential devices?”
immediately.
“entertainment”
a whole bookshelf full of books.
“rechargeable battery … How long would those last under more constant use in a grid down situation?”
had solar lawn lights with AA’s that lasted four years of daily winter/summer on-off.
“I have a small set of solar panels, but how much charge am I going to get on a day like today, snowing/raining/overcast?”
keep recharging items on recharge every day, even on cloudy days it builds up. keep a supply of up-to-date recharged items. have a stash of regular batteries for if/when ALL the rechargeables are down.
1stMarineJarHead – One lesson I learned in my career with the USG/DoD was “defense in depth”, have a “Plan B”, also C, D, E…
We live in Western central MD where we sometimes get clobbered by sloppy wet “Nor’easter” storms. Loss of power is an issue.
If our commercial power goes out, our 18kW natural gas powered generator can carry our needs. If the natural gas goes out, we have plenty of drinking water in stock. (we’re on a well). If the drinking and flushing water runs out we have a 30,000 gallon in-ground pool and water filtration capabilities for drinking water. Our property borders a river that flows year round. Several cords of split wood and kindling on hand under cover. I could re-purpose computer and network UPS to spin the fans on the wood stove. (Engineering side note: if your UPS won’t spin a fan, plug the fan into a power strip along with a low wattage incandescent lamp. The resistive load of the bulb will take the sharp corners off the square wave A/C from the UPS). Propane gas grill and propane 2 burner stove top. Lots of propane on hand. Wood-fired smoker that can double as a grill.
I have battery powered AM/FM/SW radio, also a hand cranked AM/FM/SW. A crystal radio kit somewhere around. CB in one of the (4WD) cars.
Plan an “in depth” and redundant defense.
You can also buy a couple if “Eco fans”, Marc M, that generate good amount of wind by setting them on top of the wood stove. Won’t work on a fireplace, but ours are very sturdy and effective.
Thank you, I’ll look into them. hen we purchased the wood stove (fireplace insert) we mad sure there was enough flat surface exposed so we could heat water, arm up a can of soup, etc. Wood stove at our BOL is the same.
Yesterday we had a Internet blackout like…2 AM or something. At 6 AM a commando arrived and have been since yesterday roaming around toting AKs. Couldn’t take pictures of course. Internet came back like at 5 PM. All of this after one video of a supposed group that would take armed actions against the ruling party in Venezuela. Jeez. These sort of things, given the current status of technology, are more linked to politics than to any other causes.
Power over the power. Being able to live without is a mindset all its own. Being confused and discouraged could be our mortal enemy.
I’ve thought about the difficulty in keeping up with day, date and time in a SHTF or grid down situation. I have a pocket watch on the dresser that I wind when I get up in the morning and before I go to bed in the evening. I also have a perpetual calendar set that I reset in the morning, adjusting day, date and month to record changes. Would be difficult to manage in a bug out situation. Wondered about a day, date, month app for a smart phone or tablet that would just run without the need for internet access.
“the difficulty in keeping up with day, date and time”
can buy a sealed battery wrist watch (casio) that does all that and lasts ten years. mine’s twelve years old now and still working just fine. walmart, $20.
I can tell you that the weather here on the tropical island of Luzon has been unusually cool for this time of year. Normally hot, humid, no rain and nights the same. This year even late April the nights have not turned hot, vs 2020 when the heat came early, and the monsoon rain went far north to China.
Great ponderings! I think about this too. It is the reason I haven’t bothered with Farraday bags. No one will announce they are going to do an EMP attack, and we don’t have spare devices to keep bagged, so I see no point.
Instead I am trying to prep with as many low-tech and no-tech options as I can….solar oven is top of my wishlist, especially since we are in a hot, sunny place.
I have wondered about nuclear threats too. Would there even be any warning?
As a recipient of the infamous false alarm North Korean ballistic missile text, I wonder if we would even be told, and if we were, how much warning we would get anyway? Would I be asleep with my phone in airplane mode? Would I be deep in rush hour commuter traffic and helpless to do anything anyway?
Not fun thoughts, but I sometimes think all the best preps in the world could still not be enough…
“solar oven is top of my wishlist, especially since we are in a hot, sunny place”
nail together a corner box. line it with three mirrors. place in it a large glass silo with a lid, and inside that a smaller glass silo with a lid, and inside that a jar with a lid to hold the cooking food. then aim it at the sun. works great.
“how much warning we would get anyway?”
during the cold war the warning time for a soviet attack was 30-45 minutes – if you were watching/listening to a broadcasting source. if the civil defense system was operational you might have heard a siren within 15-30 minutes, if one were in range. these days the most likely attack will be from a cargo container just off shore, so maybe 5 minutes at most, if it’s detected and if you have a cell phone app dedicated to such a warning. so for most the initial warning will consist of the flash.
Or even a cardboard box lined with aluminum foil or a windshield screen can be fashioned into a thing to reflect heat. A heat sink like a flat chunk of scrap metal and a way to keep the heat in like a window. In a pinch. Might take a few days to cook beans but cooked in small batch in quart mason jars painted matte black would work. Bread baked in a solar oven is heavenly.
I will always listen to the advice of a Marine….oorah. Mom of 2 jar heads here so these days I ALWAYS think the worst. I am currently thinking all this wind we are having for months straight in WI is something manufactured. I don’t FEEL crazy (lol) but I do not trust our government any longer.
Just like to take a moment to thank everyone for their comments.
Also thank you to those with solar panels or generators and your input or experience.
If it was not for that dang pesky money thing, I would have a array, battery bank and wind turbine too!
But, this year we thought a larger and more efficient wood stove would be a better investment.
Thank you again.
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Dear, 1st Marinejarhead, What you are experiencing is the end times events making themselves known. I suggest you learn a lot more about the end times and be prepared to get to a safe location, get alternative energy, and grow your own foods, raising your own chickens, learn to hunt, fish and gather wild edibles in your area.. because the Grid will disappear all over the world, and it will not be the elite taking it down, it will be earth changes that relate to the lead up to the end day of the end times, which is expected to happen in 2027. The grid will never re-appear, once gone. On earth Mankind faces a pole shift. This means all the land masses across the planet will quake at richer 9 and mountains will rise and fall, rivers will change course, volcanoes will explode, fires will happen unexpectedly and take out a mass of territory, and weather will be unexpected, vasolating so that we have micro bursts of high winds, or storm winds like hurricanes, snow in July on our ripening fruits and vegs, hail the size of baseballs, mud slides, bridges falling, Dams breaking and disappearing. Read: http://poleshift.ning.com/. We are a team here to educate others so mankind can survive these events. Our main site has been on the net since 1995 and we have over 10,000 pages responding to human questions with historical knowledge of mankind and the truth about history government spirituality, religion, and how the end times works and what it all means. Our information is guided by our angels who have been there for mankind since our creation. They are telepathic, meaning they CANNOT lie, or story, or con or misrepresent, etc. They are supervised by God to help mankind prepare. the Watchers guided Noah who also went through the end times pole shift 11,000 years ago, and Moses who also lived during the end times, using the end times events to save the slaves 3657 years ago. This event happens every 3657 yrs, and we are at 3652 years now, leading into the new madrid event 1st. This event is in progress NOW and will become a major disaster affecting 18 million Americans this year more then likely. Why haven’t we been told? Do you think your elite tell you everything? This is the biggest secret they carry. Executive orders have been written to keep the silence. The elite expect to keep only 500M humans to be their slaves for the OWO. That wont happen, but that does not change their minds. The pole shift will remove 90% of humanity before, during and after the event, so silence works for them. Thus, our efforts to educate and get as many as possible awake and moving to safe locations so we can help each other survive. Our main site: https://zetatalk.com/. Nothing will ever be the same it was 10 years ago. We will loose all commerce, roads, food delivery, hospitals, EMT help, cell communications, internet, phone service, use of automobiles that depend on technology or mother boards, propane, natural gas, electricity, etc. BUT.. this will afford humanity the chance to be FREE of the control of the elite. we will barter, not using the money they have designed to control us and make themselves rich in material items and control. There will be no contracts, no paperwork, no IRS, no mortgages, no credit cards. life will move forward as it has in the past as mankind is here, we survived every event in the past, but we were told back then. Not this time. we have to learn on our own and pass on the lies and coverups of the elite. God Bless you. Care for your family and survive.
Here in rural Texas our power has been very constant. We didn’t even have an outage last year during the big freeze. However, we’ve had 2 lately. And the electric co-op included a letter with our last statement saying that ERCOT is saying that the state is using too much power. They’ll give us a warning and if everyone doesn’t cut back after the warning, there will be outages.
I’m not worried about cold weather because we just don’t get that much of it and we have a wood stove, but summer is something completely different. August is horrible and I don’t know how we’d survive the heat with no relief. Up to 100 I could handle, but sometimes it gets to 112 degrees here. We’ve had months when every day for a month was over 100.
I looked into solar charged fans, and it doesn’t look good. Anything bigger than a mini fan got bad reviews. And even the mini fans got a bad review on the solar panel construction.
Any ideas out there for the elderly and budget strapped?
That’s a tough one. Being in the SW, we are seriously challenged in the summer. One year it was triple digits for three solid months. Who knew there wasn’t going to be any relief for that long? We are not quite elderly, but being seniors, we are troubled by that kind of heat anymore. We don’t have air conditioning. But if it weren’t for fans we would really melt badly. We keep the house shut up and have curtains drawn keeping windows open with a slight crack. How do they do it in North Africa, Saudi, etc.? They construct buildings with lots of small openings in the direction the winds come from. This has a cooling effect. They lay low in the hottest parts of the day. Open up the house at night to capture the cool air. Then close up. In Phoenix, the folks there live at night and sleep by day. Store lots of water. Caffeinated and sweetened beverages are counter productive. Eat cooling foods: cucumbers, raw vegies, salads. Do chores in the cooler parts the day. Try not to stress as that makes it feel hotter. It doesn’t make it all go away but these are a few of the things we do.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I’ve thought about this a lot, and your suggestions are good ones. If we were young, there are several other things I can think of that would help, like digging and constructing a cellar, not only for food storage, but for cooler temps and storm season protection, but that’s not likely to happen now.
I’ve been making some notes and plan to do a blog post on ideas and suggestions for heat survival, as well as other money saving/emergency situation ideas.
And now it’s July of 22. The Hoover Dam transformer blew yesterday. More interruptions of natural gas pipelines. Have folks thought about that a great many of your power plants are called Co-gen plants (I built the steam turbines) that are completely powered by natural gas to fire the boilers and turn the generators to produce power. Our power grid is beyond fragile it wouldn’t take much to put it down for a very extended period. I would recommend folks find hand tools to do all your basic work to include the kitchen (how many of you have a hand powered beater or even a can opener?) when things go dark things will go south in a hurry. How many folks have looked into solar powered well pumps? Life is so much easier when you have running water. Tons of questions and never enough time to fix it all but taking care of the simple basic things will put you way ahead of the curve.