Our fragile Infrastructure

There is an excellent editorial by Matt Gurney at the NationalPost.com about the fragility of our infrastructure and how the best laid plans of governments and men go oft awry when reality proves more complex than anyone had planned for. Gureny argues that our infrastructure is more complex than anyone can possibly understand or imagine; that failures are inevitable; that restoration can be difficult; that recovery can take days, weeks or even months. We should all be prepared with supplies to care for our own needs, without power or water, for several days.

Here are some of the highlights from the editorial ...

Sometimes, huge and complicated systems (or even systems of systems) are brought down by fantastically tiny glitches that happen to strike at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. [...] And so it was during the Northeast blackout of 2003, which cut electrical power for 55 million people in the United States and Ontario. That was eventually traced back to a combination of a computer glitch
and unusually hot weather causing power lines in Ohio to droop and make contact with tree branches that hadn’t been properly pruned. That was all it took to shut Toronto and New York City down.

[...] defending against this sort of thing is extraordinarily difficult. The systems that sustain our economy and civilization are too complex to be easily managed, or even understood by the trained professionals who run them. Returning to the 2003 blackout, the investigation into it revealed that even as the situation spiralled out of
control, utilities operators in Ohio had no appreciation that their electrical grid had become unstable and little understanding of how, as transmission wires overloaded and generators automatically shut down, the problem would ripple throughout their electrical system.

[...] Emergency preparedness is a good thing for governments to focus on. But [...] there’s ample evidence that governments are simply incapable of adequately tackling the complexities of disasters confined to even a single building. If something big ever happens — and sooner or later, something always does — we should all expect to be on our own for days, or longer. The systems we’ve built to support ourselves are just too complicated to repair any faster than that.

What if the entire country lost power?

Two weeks ago the power grid in northern India crashed leaving 370 million people without power for six to 12 hours. That more people than if the entire US and Canada went dark! And then a few days later, half the country lost power with over 600 million people affected.

India is used to daily power blackouts so "hospitals and major businesses have backup generators that seamlessly kick in during power cuts, and upscale homes are hooked to backup systems powered by truck batteries." Small businesses and the poor are not lucky and lack the funds for power backup. Some had to go without water as well pumps had no power to pump.

According to India’s Central Electricity Authority, demand for electricity during peak periods outstrips power generation by an average of 9 percent. So the system is overwhelmed and frequently fails, just not on the scale seen last month.  The government wants to spend $400 billion over the next five years on power-sector investment, adding 76 gigawatts of capacity by 2017. That’s on top of the 85 gigawatts of power India has added in the past 10 years. It's hard to keep up with growing demand.

More Derecho lessons...

As described yesterday, at the end of June the Eastern states were hit by a rare summer storm of strong, sustained winds blowing from the West. It produced hurricane force winds that gusted as high as 91 miles per hour in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Trees fell everywhere and the damage was massive. Here's some comments from a reader of SurvivalBlog.com

We here in West Virginia are used to disasters such as floods but the mountains tend to shield us from tornados and high winds are rare. Within an hour span[,] power was knocked out to 50 of the 55 counties in the state. The towers of major transmission lines were twisted wrecks.   [...]

· Gasoline was gone within 24 hours. Lines were just like the 1970s fuel embargo.
· Ice became the chief commodity and was in short supply or no supply.
· Water was out for most people at least for the first two days.
· Most big box stores and gas stations were up on generator power by day three.
· A new shipment of 250 generators was sold in a few hours. [...] 

 With all traffic lights out it was hectic but for the most part people were safe and courteous.  [...]  

The local radio station stepped up to the plate and suspended normal programming and went live 24 hours on generator with news and call-ins giving information. The unpreparedness of some of the call-ins was instructive. On the second day several were screaming for FEMA to arrive.

Dude, where's my electricty?

On June 29, the Atlantic coast was hit by a rare "derecho", a powerful wind storm that blows in from the Midwest and out to the Atlantic Ocean.  The storm and following heat wave without power has killed at least 23 people; some died when trees fell on their homes and cars, and heat stroke killed others.

In the U.S. we take electricity for granted and assume any outage will be brief. But five days after the deadly storms, there were still 1 million homes and businesses in a swath from Indiana to Virginia that remained without power. In Virginia alone emergency crews worked around the clock to deal with 60,000 outages.

Long duration outages like this occur after wind or snow storms bring down hundreds of thousands of trees on power lines.  With 3000 workers in Virgina and West Virginia combined, each person may have 40 lines to locate the break and fix.

"This was not a storm where tree limbs just fell on our wires," [Pepco spokesman Clay Anderson] says. "This was a storm where large mature trees were uprooted and lifted and just thrown into our poles — snapping our poles in half and wrapping our high-voltage wires around homes, businesses and cars."

You might say, bring in outside help, but that's exactly the problem with large regional storms. Your neighboring states are in just as bad shape and have no one to spare. So you have to ask for help from far away that will take a day or two to arrive.

Bottom Line:

Be prepared with a week of food and water and light. 72-hours is just not enough.

A laptop in a storm

Instapundit has an interesting discussion about recharging your laptop or smart phone after a power blackout. Is is OK to use outlets at McDonalds, etc? But what really caught me eye was a comment by Johan Bakker who installs home generators:

there are still serious issues with generators and UPS [Universal Power Supply] units. Except for the largest and most-sophisticated generators, these two devices do not play well together... UPS makers have set very-narrow boundaries on the frequency input that their devices will tolerate before calling a fault. ... UPS makers use the disruption in frequency as a warning that utility power is going out [and switch to battery backup]

Most home generators cannot keep the power frequency stable to ± 0.5 Hz as required by UPS (and circuit breakers?). Bakker recommends inverters instead

for low-level charging needs, like phones and laptops, the best solution is a 12V auto battery and a miniature inverter. The battery can be charged in so many different ways (from a car, from a charger running off a generator, from a lawnmower, from a solar panel, the possible ways are endless) and even a small lead-acid battery (like a lawn-tractor battery) has more-than-enough capacity to charge many cell-phones and laptops before requiring a fresh charge.

Fiat Lux LED

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
-Genesis 1:3

I've been very impressed lately with LED flashlights. We have two giant incandescent flashlights that use multiple D-cell batteries and recently, when I needed them at night, the output was useless as the batteries were old (not dead, just old). I got better light from the LED I keep on my keyring. The old flashlights are more useful as a weapon than for lighting the dark.

According to Wikipedia,  in 1999, Lumileds Corporation introduced the Luxeon LED, a high-power white-light emitter which was used in the first LED flashlight, the Arc LS, in 2001. LEDs can be significantly more efficient than incandescent lamps. An LED flashlight will have a longer battery life than a comparable incandescent flashlight and LEDs are also less fragile than conventional glass lamps.

Our two D-cell flashlight produces on the order of 15 to 20 lumens of light. A small LED flashlight operating on an AA cell can emit 100 lumens. 5 times brighter with less power!

Bottom Line

LED flashlights would be a great holiday gift. We saw a gift box of 4 for $20 at Sears. My wife says she'll buy when they are discounted 50%. She got lucky once with a LED flashlight at a Dollar store but has not seen them there since. On Amazon.com there are many LED flashlights for under $20 and some under $10. I don't yet see the value in LEDs selling for $100 or more.

P.S.
Fiat Lux in the blog title is the Latin often used for Let there be Light, perhaps the most well-known phrase from the Bible. [Wikipedia says Fiat Lux actually means "let light be made" and that "Lux Sit" is a better translation in Latin but C'est la vie.]

γενηθήτω φῶς (or genēthētō phōs) - Greek
יְהִי אוֹר (yehiy 'or) - Hebrew

Without power for over a week

"That's the night the lights went out in Georgia"
-lyrics in song of the same name

The day before Halloween, a freak snowstorm dump inches of wet heavy snow on New York, New Jersery, and New England states. Because the trees still had leaves attached, hundreds of thousands of braches became too heavy and broke. Now this does not sound like a big deal, certainly not as flashy a disaster as a hurricane or earthquake, and yet the consequences have been extreme. The Halloween nor'easter knocked out power to over 3 million homes. Connecticut was hit especially hard and over 100,000 residents of Connecticut are without power a week after the storm and they are NOT happy about it.  See Tempers flare over 6 days of Conn. power outages written on Nov 4.

“Angry residents left without heat as temperatures drop to near freezing overnight have been lashing out at Connecticut Light & Power: accosting repair crews, making profane criticisms online and suing. In Simsbury, a hard-hit suburban town of about 25,000 residents, National Guard troops deployed to clear debris have been providing security outside a utility office building.”

Abusing the work crews is a VERY bad idea. Some of these repairmen have left their familes in mid-west states to work here around the clock.  (A loose wire at our house was fixed at 3:30 in the morning.)

What went wrong? One reader of Instapundit, surmises,

Not sure what goes wrong, but it sounds like greed in not wanting to hire enough workers, failure to pay out of state crews that came up to help with Irene, incompetence, and poor character.

It's possible that Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) underestimated the massive scope of the damage and was slow to mobilize outside help. Regional disasters like this are particuallarly hard to solve because you cannot just call in workmen from neighboring states. Instead those states are desparate for extra repairmen also and everyone is competing for workers from outside the disaster area. And this is a repeat from just months ago during "hurricane" Irene so "favors" used up, emergency funds spent, emergency workers burnt out.

Bottom Line

It's events like this that show why you must be able to take care of yourself and your family. Can you supply your own heat, light and food for two weeks? If not, why not?

Candle light?

"The things I want to know are in books. My best friend is the man who'll get me a book I [haven't] read."
— Abraham Lincoln

During our power outage with the Halloween snowstorm, my wife & I were reminded of Lincoln reading by firelight. (See painting at right). We tried to read by candle light and found that very difficult to do.

We have a collection of pillar candles made by pouring wax into a milk carton with wick. Also a collection of wide candles made inside mason jars. We chose these types for safety since candle use in emergencies is discouraged. You don't want open flame if there's a chance of a gas leak and candles have started many home fires. The American Red Cross, which deals with those house fires, is opposed to candles and does not recommend them for 72-hour kits.

We use wide candles and glass jar candles to reduce the risk of tipping over. We have no large pet or kids so, fingers crossed, we think we're safe. And we take precautions like never burning a candle unattended.

So back to the original point, our candles did not put out much light! There are two problems with wide candles.
1. A depression is created down the center of the candle and the wick is hidden as it sinks into the cavity created.
2. The wick can drown in too much wax in the cavity it makes.

So my wife pulled out some taper candles - these are the tall skinny type - and wow the light was much brighter. To protect against tipping we put the taper candles in tall mason jars. It was not easy but reading was possible with a taper for each of us.

Website WSAC.com offers this advice for getting more use of candles:

• Try multi-wick candles. (We had one dual wick candle but it too suffered the wide candle problems mentioned above. Still they may be good for room lighting.)
• Use Reflection - place candles near mirrors or light colored walls to bounce back more light
• Light colored candles seem to emit brighter light than dark colored ones. (?)
• Cold candles (refrigerated prior to use) burn slower. Take care to ensure that they do not become moist. (I've never tried this)
• Air drafts cause candles to burn more quickly
• WSAC and other sites recommend 1/4" length for the candle wick. Higher wicks cause smoking and flickering.
• Try extinguishing the candle by pushing the wick into the liquid wax. When you restart it you'll burn wax instead of wick alone and the wick will last longer.

Bottom Line

Treat candles with respect. This is fire after all.

How long is food safe during a power outage?

“I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood.”
-Bill Watterson (author of Calvin & Hobbes)

My wife & I recently spent several winter days without power due to the Oct 29 snow storm which dropped 4 inches of heavy wet snow on trees still covered with autumn leaves. This causes massive amounts of broken limbs, fallen trees, and power lines knocked down. The damage to power lines was greater than tropical storm Irene a few months back.

When the power went out on Saturday we knew it would be gone for awhile - this was a major storm. So our first thought was the fridge. We discussed what to pull from the fridge (before opening it) and then quickly removed items we wanted to use and put them in an insulated cooler. The fridge and freezer were not opened again until power was restored. The cooler was placed outside in the snow to help keep it cold. If we had been more clever we might have emptied the fridge and put everything in the snow. This would have been great overnight but perhaps still unsafe during the heat of day. We also could have used dry ice in the fridge but no one was distributing it locally to us.

The magic temperature with refrigerated food is 40°. The USDA says,

"Always keep meat, poultry, fish, and eggs refrigerated at or below 40°F and frozen food at or below 0°F." ... "The refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened. A full freezer will hold the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed."

The USDA website has a table listing when foods are no longer safe. Discard any potentially hazardous food that has been above 41°F for four hours or more, reached a temperature of 45°F or higher for any length of time, or has an unusual color, odor, or texture.

VERY IMPORTANT: More than 250 diseases can be caused by bacteria found in contaminated food. Many bacteria can grow above 40°F and not produce a funny smell or taste. Never taste food to determine if it’s safe.

The following items can tolerate room temperatures for a few days and DO NOT need to be tossed out:

• Butter or margarine
• Hard and processed cheeses
• Fresh uncut fruits and vegetables, Fruit juices
• Dried fruits and coconut
• Opened jars of vinegar-based salad dressings, jelly, relish, taco sauce, barbecue sauce, mustard, ketchup, olives and peanut butter
• Fresh herbs and spices
• Fruit pies, breads, rolls, and muffins. Cakes, except cream cheese frosted or cream-filled
• Flour and nuts

Fortunately the list above describes most of our fridge content.  We should toss our raw eggs and our yogurt. I always thought yogurt would last longer than regular milk but even yogurt has a short shelf life; see http://www.ehow.com/facts_7382133_long-yogurt-stay-good-unrefrigerated_.html

Bottom Line
Perishable food such as meat, poultry, seafood, milk, and eggs that are not kept adequately refrigerated or frozen may cause illness if consumed, even when they are thoroughly cooked.

For a list of foods and which are "safe" or not when warm, check out http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/keeping_food_Safe_during_an_emergency/index.asp
Another good site is http://www.uri.edu/ce/ceec/food/factsheets/powerout.html

See also my blog post:  Living without power

Back-up Power

"Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery."
-Erma Bombeck

One of the items on my to-do list is to get a backup power generator. But there are so many issues and questions. What size, how does it work? And there are dangers: it must be used outdoors, gasoline must be stored, etc.

A good starting point is an How Emergency Power Systems Work from HowStuffWorks.com. There are 6+ pages in the series so be sure to read each:

1. Introduction to How Emergency Power Systems Work
2. Emergency Power Options and Goals
3. Understanding Your Power Needs
4. Choosing Between an Inverter and a Generator
5. Hooking the Power into Your House
6. Lots More Information

Some of the things I learned:
- add a gas stabilizer for gas stored more than one month
- know the peak pull of an appliance. A fridge may not pull much juice while idling but when the compressor turns out, power pull will spike. Many sites on efficient energy usage only report the average power used.
- consider alternating appliances. Run the fridge to cool it down, then unplug it and let the well pump increase the water pressure. Both won't work at the same time but you can stagger usage.

Bottom Line

There's an alternative to gas powered generators now, power inverters. Inverters attach to large batteries (like a car battery) and convert the direct current to alternating current for appliances. There are quiet and safe and affordable in small sizes. Sadly not so cheap for 5000 watt sizes and they may only last for a few hours to a day at best.

Food Storage, part 1

“Begin with a one week’s food supply and gradually build it to a month, and then to three months.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

Creating a food storage takes time and effort. Is it worth it?

When I was unemployed I was asked if I would need financial assistance. No, I replied. I had some money saved away, no debt, and a good food storage. My family could cut spending to the bone, eat from the food storage, and pay taxes and utilities from the rainy-day fund.

Medical Emergency: If your family "chef" became seriously ill, do you have foods, and menus, that other family members could easily prepare?

Power Outages: Do you have easy-to-prepare foods to keep you fed through several days or more of power outage?

Major Natural Disaster: If you had to evacuate your home, do you have foods you could prepare outdoors? And do you have enough fuel for days or weeks of outdoor cooking?

Tomorrow I'll talk about how much food to store and some ideas to get you started.
 
Bottom Line

Since Hurricane Katrina, emergency professionals know that 72-hours is not enough of a preparedness buffer while waiting for help to arrive. The recommended minimum food and water storage is now one week. So why store more? What if you have company staying and they become trapped in your house also? What if your neighbor is desperate with hungry kids and asks if you have anything to spare? What if you find half of your storage has spoiled, gone stale, or become infested by bugs? It's wise to have extra.

Power Outage

“I have the body of an eighteen year old. I keep it in the fridge.”
- humorist Spike Milligan

When the power goes out, a refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if UNOPENED. A full freezer will hold the temperature for up to two days if the door remains CLOSED (24 hours if the freezer is only half full).

More than 250 diseases can be caused by bacteria found in contaminated food. After a long outage, you can NOT rely on appearance or odor for food safety. Never taste food to determine if it’s safe use a food thermometer instead. Discard all perishable foods (meat, milk, soft cheeses, cooked leftovers) that have been above 40°F for 2 hours. Discard items that have come into contact with raw meat juices. If frozen food still contains ice crystals or is below 40 °F, it is safe to refreeze; otherwise toss it.

You can help preserve your food by moving any item you must use (like milk or soda for the children) into a cooler with ice. Then wrap tape or rope around your fridge and freezer to keep it closed from prying young fingers.

Bottom Line

For a list of foods and which are "safe" or not when warm, check out http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/keeping_food_Safe_during_an_emergency/index.asp

Another good site is http://www.uri.edu/ce/ceec/food/factsheets/powerout.html

If you don't have a food thermometer, then keep two ice cubes in a bag on a freezer shelf. If the ice has completely melted when the power returns, you can be pretty sure the food is not safe to keep.

Hurricane Season

"It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck."-Charles Caleb Colton

Today I'll let someone else do all the talking. Check out Hurricane Readiness at SurvivalBlog.com. It covers what to do before, during and after a hurricane and ends with a supply list.

Bottom Line

A hurricane is not something you can prepare for last minute. Check out the article and prepare now if you live in a hurricane zone.

Ways to Keep Warm

"May you have warm words on a cold evening, a full moon on a dark night and a smooth road all the way to your door.” - Irish Blessing

I can cope with most things during a power outage. I'll light some candles (protected by hurricane lanterns or similar), eat cold tuna fish or peanut butter on crackers, and drink the bottled water in my basement. But one item has me worried. If it's winter and freezing cold outside, how will I stay warm? Here are a few ideas I've found.

1. If you wear your warmest coat/gloves/hat, your odds of freezing to death are quite low. You are more likely to die by fire, lack of oxygen or carbon monoxide poisoning trying to get warm with the wrong methods.
2. No coat? Then wear multiple layers of clothing. Stuff your outer layer with crumpled up newspaper.
3. Still cold? Don't try to warm the entire house. Heat just a single room on the "warm" side of the house, opposite the blowing wind. Don't pick a room with lots of single pane glass or thin walls. Close doors or hang drapes to isolate the room.
4. Still not warm enough? Pile all your blankets on the biggest bed and put the whole family underneath.
5. If you live on a farm, you can emulate the Holy Family on Christmas Eve and sleep near the animals. The barn may be the warmest place around.

Bottom Line

Safety First! Do not burn anything larger than a candle inside the house without proper ventilation. It seems silly to open windows when you're trying to get warm but see item #1. And don't forget you need to open TWO windows (one inch gap) on opposite sides of the room for air to circulate.

• Never burn BBQ charcoal inside the house. This is deadly.- If you have a propane grill instead, don't get clever and try to hook this up to your stove or natural gas heat. Special regulator valves are required for this to safely work.
• If you have a fireplace or are using a space heater, take turns staying awake so one person is always watching and maintaining the fire. Don't let it burn unattended while everyone sleeps. Keep a fire extinguisher nearby. Also recommended is a battery powered Carbon Monoxide (CO) detector.
• For your fireplace, you can make emergency logs from rolled up newspapers and magazines.
• Do not put a space heater on carpets, rugs or uneven surfaces. Keep it at least 3 feed away from bedding, drapes, furniture or anything that could burn.

Emergency Alerts

“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised” - Denis Waitley

When a disaster happens how will you become informed of Emergency and Disaster Warnings?

1. The Emergency Alert System
   You’ve heard this an TV and radio as “This is a test of the National Emergency Alert System, this is only a test….BEEEEEEEP” During an actual emergency the BEEP would be followed by instructions on what to do.


2. TV & Radio Coverage (after the emergency)
   Many emergencies will knock out the power so it’s useful to have a solar powered or hand crank radio to follow the new reports and broadcasts by officials to learn what to do after the disaster has struck. When is the power coming back? What roads are closed? Is it safe to go outdoors?


3. Warning Sirens
   Many towns have sirens to warn of tornadoes, fires, nuclear power plant melt-downs, etc. My blog posting, Emergency Sirens, talks about the importance of understanding what your town sirens mean – is there an all clear signal or just danger signals? One signal or many? Continuous or repeating?


4. Residential Alerts
   Sometimes the police will drive through neighborhoods using their public address system to issue evacuation alerts, see Fire at Night.


5. NOAA Weather Bulletins
   Make sure your emergency radio or HAM radio can pick up the National Weather Service channel for 24 news and alerts. You can also buy alarm clocks or special devices to wake you in the middle of the night if there is a NOAA alert.

Bottom Line

Keep in mind that most emergency operations suffer from terrible communication. Don’t rely solely on news from officials. Use common sense also!

During the East coast blackout, I listened to NYC emergency center radio reports at my office for news when railroad service would be restored. (Electric trains were stuck and needed to be moved out of the way) I slept overnight at my office. The next morning my wife called to say a friend could see trains moving so I should ignore the radio and get to the train station. Sure enough diesel engines were running and I got home.

My first hint of 9-11 after getting off the commuter train in NYC was a crowd of people staring at TVs in a bank’s display window (my first thought –was, Oh no, a stock market collapse). Nothing was said on the train or at the train station about the World Trade Center. No sirens in midtown Manhattan. I got to work and about an hour later was told that all non-essential personnel should go home because Rockefeller Center could be a target. While walking south back to Grand Central Station I passed hordes of people all walking north along Madison Ave. I had no clue why. (Turns out the mayor had evacuated the entire southern region of Manhattan) Next I’m fortunate to be on one of the last trains out of the city before the lines are shut down. It wasn’t until I got home and watched TV that things started to make sense.

Lost Skills

“Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter,” – Bible, Proverbs 30:33

If you’ve been reading this blog the past few days, you may be tired of rhetoric and politics and the economy. When will Gary ever go back to traditional preparedness advice? How about now?

I was looking at the blog article Storing Food Without Refrigeration and noticing the many items that could be kept for weeks or months at room temperature if you lose power: Condiments & Spreads, some Dairy products, some meat & eggs, bread & yeast. I had to do a double take - Dairy, meat? What gives here? Even inside my fridge I’ve had milk spoil.

Taking a closer look at the products I noticed the dairy items were cheese, butter and yogurt; the meat products were mostly salami and other dried meats. Then a light bulb lit over my head. Ah ha! Our medieval and pioneer ancestors invented these very products because they lacked refrigerators. Cheese, butter, salami, etc, (in addition to being tasty) were invented to extend the life of milk & meat.

Today we take these room-temperature products for granted and sometimes abuse them (hmm…yummy). Cheese & butter are concentrated milk fat. Many sausages are packed with salt or other preservatives that should not be overindulged in. However if you treat them as treats, part of food storage to treasure and dole out in limited quantities, your body will be thankful.

Speaking of food storage, would you know how to preserve meat and milk if faced with a long-term power outage? You could be like friends of ours who, after a hurricane in Puerto Rico, hosted a giant BBQ for the neighborhood; sharing their frozen steaks before they went bad. Or you could practice pioneer recipes.

Let’s start with butter. Nothing is easier.

1. Put heavy cream inside a clean jar. (Sorry skim milk won’t do. You need the milk fats)
2. Close the lid tightly.
3. Shake.

That’s it. Now you may get sore arms (or a great workout) before all the milk converts to butter but it will happen. Keep shaking, rolling, etc. An alternative to shaking is using a butter churn. These devices use a paddle with fins to agitate the milk as you move the handle up and down.

If you’d like to try something more ambitious, here is a site for making yogurt:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How_to_make_your_own_yogurt_-_An_illustrated_guide

Bottom Line

Most of us were never taught the many skills that kept our ancestors alive.
In Why a Depression Today Would be worse than in the 1930s, the author, a museum curator, notes that rural Depression era families could make butter, smoke meat, grow a garden, raise chickens, pull a tooth, draw well water, do basic medicine, ride a horse or bike, etc. They had the skills to survive independently with little to no money. Today we are like the fat space-cruiser passengers in the movie Wall*E. Totally dependent on others (like technology or government) to fulfill our basic needs.

No Power on Cold Winter Nights

“Three feet of ice does not result from one day of cold weather.” - Chinese Proverb

I really like the story, Ice storm tests mettle of Harvard residents by the Harvard Press. It goes into details about how families survived in mid-winter with 4+ days without power.

Sleeping arrangements were dictated by the location of a fireplace in the master bedroom. The whole family could fall asleep while that room was still warm, alongside their cats and a pair of birds. ... the room dipped to about 42 degrees on the coldest night.

Even the four cats slept under the bed covers.

The group showed ingenuity at mealtime too, boiling water in a sterno-powered fondue pot and powering the coffee grinder from the car adaptor. Ten-year-old Julia LeBlanc used her Girl Scout training and some aluminum foil to grill ham-and-cheese sandwiches in the fire, though she found that bagels tended to burn. Their frozen food was saved by the next-door neighbors, whose home had some power from a powerful generator. To power their plumbing, the LeBlanc family tapped the five-gallon drums of water that Peter had stashed in his basement some three years ago for just such emergencies. A healthy supply of firewood kept the fireplaces burning, and Peter LeBlanc even took the time to rent a log-splitter and share it with his neighbors.

Bottom Line

If you're prepared, a winter crisis can be a time of family bonding and adventure instead of hardship and suffering. “We’ve done very well!” said Elizabeth LeBlanc.

Prius Power

“I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.” - Will Shriner (American Comedian)

From Prius Powers Home During Ice Storm,

A Massachusetts [electrical engineer] - faced with no power in the recent ice storm, powered up the family Prius to create electricity: The hybrid car made enough electricity to run the essentials; the fridge, the lights, the TV, the wood-stove fan. During the power outage, it supplied 17 Kilowatt hours of energy to his home for three days. ...

He dug up an inverter which made 120v AC from 12v DC current and he wired it into the hybrid electric Prius. [These inverters are available for about $100 many places online.]

Further details can be found at Ice storm tests mettle of Harvard residents. The three days used roughly five gallons of gas. The device allowed the engine to run every half hour, automatically
charging the car battery and indirectly supplying the required power.

Bottom Line

This is a very clever way to have backup electrical power. If you own a Prius consider buying the converter and instructions for installing it.

Camp Stoves - Sterno

The ultimate camping trip was the Lewis and Clark expedition.” -Dave Barry

The best know of alcohol cooking fuels is a jellied alcohol called Sterno. Two tablespoons of alcohol fuel will boil two cups (1 pint) of water in five minutes under ideal conditions (not windy). The flame is not hot and is best used to warm foods instead of boiling.

One 8 oz. can of Sterno fuel, about the diameter of a can of tuna fish and twice as
high, will allow you to cook six meals if used frugally. A can will last 2.5 hours but can be extinguished and relit for later use. Sterno is frequently used indoors to warm chafing dishes. But as this article notes, even Sterno can cause carbon monoxide poisoning if it is deprived of sufficient oxygen.

Sterno evaporates very easily, even when the lid is securely fastened! It is not a good fuel for long-term storage. If you use Sterno in your 72 hour kit, check it every six months for evaporation.

Sterno is more expensive than gas and liquid fuels but it is extremely convenient, safe (non-spill, not pressurized), and ultra-portable. It works in extreme cold and low pressure (like the top of Mt. Everest) when other stoves fail.

http://zenstoves.net/Sterno.htm

Bottom Line

"If you want the lightest, most compact, most reliable stove on the market, buy a can of Sterno. Yes, it takes 10 to 12 minutes to boil water ... My Sterno stove fits inside a 16-ounce cup. Throw a book of matches and a bandanna into the remaining space in the cup and the whole thing weighs 11 ounces and will serve you on a 6-day hiking trip. What's not to like?" - Kent Forrester

Camp Stoves - Pressurized Gas

"Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.” - Dave Barry

A pressurized gas stove looks like a liquid gas stove - it has a flame burner with an attached fuel canister. The difference is the contents of the canister if it leaks. Coleman fuel (discussed yesterday) will leak as a liquid but Propane and Butane will escape as a gas. And while you can refill your liquid stove with fuel, for gas stoves you must buy fuel canisters already filled and pressurized.

Propane & Butane are "safe" for indoor use as they produce carbon dioxide (not monoxide) while they burns. Still you should crack open a window because it does consume some oxygen in the room. The primary hazard of using propane indoors is that leaks will "pool" in low areas since it is heavier than air. Your hot water tank could ignite an explosion if leaked propane pools in the basement.

Propane stores indefinitely, having no known shelf life. Propane stoves and small portable heaters are very economical and simple to use but the storage of propane is governed by strict local laws. Check out your local ordinances.

Like Coleman stoves, gas stoves and grills allow a fine control over cooking temperatures - just like a home stove. My wife and I often see Butane stoves used in cooking demonstrations at fairs.
The most difficult aspect of gas canister stoves is finding the right canister. They are non-refillable and often custom made for each stove manufacturer. Old canisters must be safely disposed of (they remain potentially explosive). It is also very difficult to know how much fuel is left inside a canister.

Gas stoves do not operate below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bottom Line

It will be interesting to see if Butane stoves replace the Coleman stoves in popularity. Less mess and easier to use but at a higher fuel cost.