Posted: 8/16/2008 1:05:00 PM EDT
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If you would have asked me 4 days ago if I was prepped, I would have said hell yeah. 9months of food and 9months of water plus lots of extras. Well the power goes out 3 days ago as I get home from work. The whole town is out. It was 8:30 and getting dark. Everyone is outside wondering around and trying to figure out what they are going to do. Im thinking no big deal. Well I was wrong. The first thing I was looking for was a flash light. Found it. Kids must have used it. Next, candles. Where are the candles. Found them. Well what little was left of them. No I ticked b/c we sould have some sort of lights that we can use when the power goes out. Long and short of it, My wife and I decide that we need more preps. Yeah. I truely overlooked simple things like candles. Now Im wondering what else I might have forgotten. |
Dry run, bud. You bump into the walls to find out where they are. Its better to learn this way while its relatively no big deal than to not prep at all and be left wondering one day just what you're going to do with nothing. I thougth I would rely on my spring and nearby stream out of a state park mountain nearby for back up water if the power was off for extended periods. I have stored water but my well is a drilled well and deep. Guess what? For the last 3 summers my spring and the stream has dried up for months. Seems I just bumped into another wall: Maybe that generator I turned down last year would have been a good buy after all. At least I could run my well pump with it. Don't have any money now, but will start saving for one as soon as possible. |
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Pathmark had candles in a little glass dish for a buck. I bought 36, Wifey just rolled her eyes til the power went out. I bought 2 3paks of grill lighters, she thinks they were a good idea now. Each kid has a large flashlight and a few Micro-light clones. Flashlight paracorded to a hook at each outside door. I'm waiting for a deal on glow sticks now. Pete |
hit up a rave at some techno club, they usually have boxes of them out for you to grab as many as you want. |
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My wife learned this lesson the hard way as well. I could never find a flashlight in our house, except for the one in my pocket. When we moved out of town, things changed. About the 1st time she got caught breast feeding at night and the lights went out, with our 3 year old at her feet, and me not home to save the day......well lets just say we now have flashlights and battery lanterns placed around the house like I wanted. ( she ended up using the light from her cell phone with two kids attached to her and finally found a flashlight ). She now has a lantern right next to her chair behind the side table, so she doesn't even have to get up out of the chair. The kid has his own LED flashlights and thus eliminates playing with ours, and now they ALWAYS get returned to there place after being used. We always had plenty of candles, flashlights and lanterns, just finding them or digging them out in the dark proved to be quite the chore. Even my 4 year old has his own little lantern and flashlights staged around his room, and he always sleeps with an LED flashlight in his bed " just like daddy " in case the powers out and he needs to get up and go to the potty. I'd like to know why we are always losing our power so much? These lessons are better learned now then later. Cheers BT |
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I am a flashlight junkie. All my relatives benefit from my "tryouts". Once I buy a light and try it out, if its less than stellar, I will give it away pretty quickly. I don't buy junk, but sometimes a light really isn't exciting or interesting so one of my relatives gets it! Within 20 ft. of me right now, there have to be 30 flashlights. I practically have to think about which one to grab for the task! Its really a good addiction.
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At nearly 50 years old my Ravin' days are over, I'd send my 19yr old son but he's the drummer in a metal band, him and techno is pretty dicey. Pete |
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I've heard people slam the shake flashlights, but they would have done you a world of good... good that you discovered a tiny hole in a tiny shtf situation rather than a huge hole in a huge shtf.  now, just turn off your power on purpose (on a random day) and see what else you're missing... think of it as a |
amen to that - we've ALL forgotten something... trial and error (on our part or others) helps us learn what that something is. |