Since a two-week winter storm is forecast for the bulk of the United States, my mind turns towards preparedness. Some areas could have temperatures 30 to 50 degrees below normal lows for January. If this actually happens, many portions of the power grid will go down. Some areas will have no power because of an ice storm and downed power lines, but others may be subject to brownouts due to extraordinarily high demand for heating. If this happens, the utilities will likely send power to the critical areas (government and population centers) first, while the rural areas may be subject to rolling blackouts.
Most of us heat our homes and cook with electricity. In fact, the only thing keeping us from living in Little House on the Prairie as a society is the steady flow of electricity. Without electricity, we don't have gas stations, grocery stores, ATM's, cell phones, water and sewer, or the internet. The Power grid is aging and fragile, and can be damaged not just by winter storms and hurricanes, but by foreign powers through cyber warfare. Experts say it is not a question of IF the grid goes down, but WHEN. It is absolutely going to happen sooner or later. For some of us, it will be sooner-- as early as this Sunday, perhaps. My goal in this essay is to share some tools to help you get ready. I am going to teach you how to go camping the glamorous way-- at home! We call it "Glamping."
Preparedness for a grid-down event can be broken into categories of heating, cooking, water, sanitation, communication, and evacuation. This will not be a comprehensive treatment, just some ideas to get your mental gears turning.
HEATING: Major kinds of heating in the US include electric, oil furnaces, natural gas, and wood burning stoves. All but wood and pellet burning stoves involve electricity. Even if you have an oil furnace like I had in Virginia, or gas furnaces like you have in other places, you still are dependent on electricity to move the air around your home. There are three primary workarounds to this; solar, generators, and portable propane heaters.
I am going to set aside solar for the purposes of this discussion because you're not going to get it installed in time to beat the storm, and most installations only feed power back to the grid to cut the utility bill. For it to be helpful in a grid down situation, you must be able to store the energy created. Moreover, the very nature of a winter storm means environmental conditions will lead to little solar power generation.
Next we have generators. The nice way, the expensive way, the fancy way, the way you don't have time for right now, is to have a whole house generator installed. This could be a $20,000+ upgrade. Even if you have the money, you're not going to get it done before the storm. The next best option is a portable generator. This is the one I recommend. Cost is $350 to $1,300. Of this there are two types- the inverter suitcase style one, and the traditional wheelbarrow style model. I have been a contractor or 20 years, and I now ONLY buy the suitcase style ones. The wheelbarrow generators are loud, heavy, noisy, and thirsty. Mine burned 5 gallons of gas every work day and took two people to lift it. Even then, we were risking back injury.
In contrast, an inverter generator is less powerful, but can still be used to do what you need it to, and can be carried in one hand. This last hurricane, my little inverter generator powered two refrigerators, four cell phone chargers, and a drip coffee maker. It also burned less than two gallons of gas a day. You need a supply of gas cans for your generator. Buy ethanol free gas if you can, and use fuel stabilizer. You can find fuel stabilizer at Home Depot next to the chainsaws.
Okay, cool, but how do you use it to keep warm? There's the right way, and there's the emergency Do-It-Yourself way. The right way is to hire an electrician to hook it up to your electrical panel. It will only power your furnace and refrigerator and maybe a light or too, but that's enough. Having the professional do it is important because they will install a disconnect, which keeps you from feeding electricity back into the power grid and killing some poor utility lineman through your criminal negligence. This will typically cost $500-700, but you don't have time to get this done before the storm. Sorry.
The emergency do it yourself way is follows and should be done IF AND ONLY IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH HOME ELECTRICAL WIRING and you have a 110 volt air handling unit that moves air for your gas or oil burning furnace. If you have an all-electric heat pump, then it is probably 220 volt, and I can't help you. If you can't tell the difference, then don't touch it!!!
IF you have a 110 volt system AND you can identify the wire providing power to the furnace blower, then turn off power at the circuit breaker. After you have confirmed the power is off, cut the wire leading to the furnace and attach those wires to a receptacle. Then take the rest of the wire leading to your furnace, and put a three prong plug on it. Now you can plug the furnace into the house power supply, just like you were plugging in a vacuum cleaner. If the power goes out, unplug the furnace from the house power supply, and instead plug it into an extension cord leading to your generator. Important: DO NOT RUN YOUR GENERATOR IN THE HOUSE OR YOU WILL DIE OF CARBON MONOXIDE. Run it outside instead, and chain it up to keep it from getting stolen.
The cheapest option for emergency heat is to buy a propane heater, such as a "Buddy Heater." They are safe to use indoors. They cost $90 to $120 depending on the capacity, plus the propane tanks. If you are in a crisis, pile everybody into one room (such as the master bedroom), and put the heater on the bathroom floor facing into the bedroom. This room at least will be warm (enough.) The small ones use the little green tanks. The big ones can be adapted to use the standard 20 lb tank like you use with your gas grill.
COOKING: Most people have propane grills in their back yards, but it's cold out there, you know? A better option is a propane camp stove. You can get them at any outdoors store (including the camping section of Walmart. Cost is $50-140 depending on how fancy you want it. If you want to use it with your big 20 lb propane bottle you already have for your grill, then you need an adapter. You can buy this at Home Depot in the grill section for about $15. Make sure your propane tanks are full. An alternative is to get a little backpacking stove. They are tiny, lite weight, and take up very little space. The best ones are multifuel, and can burn gasoline, kerosene, white gas, and diesel. Cost is $80-$150. Have canned food on hand, and food that only needs to be heated, not prepared from scratch. HAVE A MANUAL CAN OPENER. Food can be stored in coolers outside if you don't have enough juice from the generator to power the fridge.
Easier and cheaper still is an electric skillet for $40-70. Just plug it into your generator.
WATER: You need to plan on AT LEAST three gallons of water per person per day. That's one gallon to drink, and two gallons to cook and clean. (Five gallons per person per day is more realistic.) If the power grid goes down, the pressure in a city water system usually lasts about 72 hours. So as soon as the power goes out (or maybe before the storm), fill a bathtub with water. You will use this for cleaning and flushing toilets. Water can be stored in plastic containers or water bottles. The containers are in the camping section of outdoors stores. You also need a way to filter water, because water may stop coming out of the faucet. Two primary filter methods involve either hand pumps or gravity. (I prefer the gravity style, because I am lazy.) Sawyer makes one of the best ones. You pour dirty water into the top of the bag, hang it up somewhere, and clean water comes out of the hose at the bottom. Easy Peasy. Bass Bro Shops has them.
SANITATION: First the easy stuff. Wash and dry your clothes before the storm hits. Stockpile paper plates and plastic utensils. That way you don't have to waste scarce water cleaning up after yourself. Get some disposable aluminum trays for cooking when you can. But you have to solve your human waste problem. The city sewer lines will work for a time, but then they will back up and your toilet will stop flushing.
There are two ways to deal with this. The easier way is to line a 5 gallon bucket with a heavy duty garbage bag and put a toilet seat on top. Urinate into a separate container first, and dump it outside. Then relieve yourself into the bucket. When you are finished, tie up the bag, and set it outside until you need it again. Alternatively, you can do the same thing with your toilet itself, if you get all the water out of the toilet bowl and use a big black contractor garbage bag like you use for leaves. (White kitchen garbage bags aren't wide enough.) Stock up on baby wipes. These can be used to keep yourself clean. (Armpits first, then your nether regions.)
COMMUNICATION: Have a weather radio for news, and an alternate way to communicate besides cell phones. A walkie talkie is a cheap and easy way to communicate with your party, and they sell them at Walmart.
EVACUATION: Have a plan of where to go. If you are planning to evacuate to Aunt Suzy's, have the conversation with her in advance! Dress for hiking, because if your car breaks down or gets stuck, then that's exactly what you will be doing! Coat, hat, boots, gloves, the works! If you don't have the appropriate clothing for spending serious time outdoors in this weather, then stay home! But if you must go out, have extra fuel, flares, sleeping bags, flashlights, etc.
I leave you with this saying, popular with my Norwegian friends. "There is no bad weather. There is only bad clothing."
(Remind me not to winter in Norway.)
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