Go bags, Evac kits, 72 Hour Kits

[onejayhawk]

This thread is getting very topical for the Gulf coast. I know someone in St. Petersburg that is not evacuating. They have water, filtration, a generator and camping gear. The generator should keep the fridge running for a couple of days. Hopefully the propane lasts.

The western Pacific didn't get any hurricanes until the early 50's. The first signs of global warming, perhaps?

Keep your day job. As a comic, your timing is off.

J

 

[FriendlyFire]

Up 'til now, we've been buying a big bag of rice, eating down zero, and then buying more. We buy six big bottles of water, drink it down until we're working on the last bottle, and then buy more. Yesterday, we bought six extra bottles of water and placed them in the storage room on the third floor. Today, we're buying an extra bag of rice, and putting it there too. Now, when we buy more water and/or rice, it'll go up to the storage room, and that in storage will come down ti the kitchen.
In our next trip to Tagbilaran, I'll buy a portable stove.

Buying extra rice with no way of cooking it if the power is out is kinda defeats that purpouse
Raw Rice while cheap staple requires significant preperation, thats why you dont see many people stockpile it, even though as a grain it will last a long time in storage
Better off buying canned good which can be eatern cold, or easily heated with a tiny burner

I dont store water, but have several empty 25L plastic bottles to fill if ever need arises.
Its 2L per person per day

BTW interstingly, old cold war era they had canned water, suprsingly the canned water even after 50+ years tasted fine
While everything else was uneatable, the only thing that was was chocolate so you might look at picking up some as part of emergancy supplies

 

[onejayhawk]

Buying extra rice with no way of cooking it if the power is out is kinda defeats that purpouse
Raw Rice while cheap staple requires significant preperation, thats why you dont see many people stockpile it, even though as a grain it will last a long time in storage
Better off buying canned good which can be eatern cold, or easily heated with a tiny burner

I dont store water, but have several empty 25L plastic bottles to fill if ever need arises.
Its 2L per person per day

BTW interstingly, old cold war era they had canned water, suprsingly the canned water even after 50+ years tasted fine
While everything else was uneatable, the only thing that was was chocolate so you might look at picking up some as part of emergancy supplies

True that. Beans rice and pasta all require a great deal of water.

Sugar is a remarkably good preservative if dry. Properly stored candy keeps forever. Edible crystallized honey was recovered from 2nd millennium BC.

A good osmotic water filter is not expensive. That said, coffee filter and boil will go a long way.

J

 

[The_J]

We don't have really natural disasters here... and the only one which would be serious threat will just wash away half of the country, then I'd be lost anyways.
But I do have...
- first aid kit
- food powder for like... 12 days currently, I think
- most of the time bottled water for 3-4 days, but right now not
- a bunch of batteries and a radio
Guess I'd be fine for a short while.

 

[Quintillus]

I had 5 granola bars in my car, but my friends and I ate them yesterday.

But more generally, no, I don't really have any of these. I live in Ohio, and outside of the part that is in tornado alley in the SW part of the state, so the chances of a noteworthy natural disaster here are very low. About the most significant event we can expect is an extended power outage, the last of which happened in 2010 or so (and the electric grid seems to be quite a bit more reliable now than it was 15 years ago; I think they've made some upgrades to it since then). Heavy snowstorms also happen once in awhile, but rarely shut down the city. Even when they do it's only a couple days till the snowplows work their way through to residential side streets, so you just stay at home and do a lot of reading or build snowmen for a couple days.

So if I did have the supplies to live a few weeks or a couple months in dry goods, lots of bottled water, etc., it would almost certainly be a waste of resources. Although if I do at some point move to somewhere more coastal, earthquake-prone, or remote, it may be worth establishing a stash for that possibility.

 

[Zkribbler]

Buying extra rice with no way of cooking it if the power is out is kinda defeats that purpouse

In our next trip to the city, we'll be buying a portable propane stove to use on the third floor in case tht first floor is flooded. [My kitchen stove is a combination electric/propane stove.]

 

[Birdjaguar]

In our next trip to the city, we'll be buying a portable propane stove to use on the third floor in case tht first floor is flooded. [My kitchen stove is a combination electric/propane stove.]

A long time ago we had a wood/propane gas combo. It was a monster of a stove and heated the house in winter. Loved it!

 

[FriendlyFire]

In our next trip to the city, we'll be buying a portable propane stove to use on the third floor in case tht first floor is flooded. [My kitchen stove is a combination electric/propane stove.]

Also consider not leaving the rice in its hesh / plastic bag because those can be eaten at by mice, or easily damage, broken etc
Transfer your rice into separate say 5Liter strong air tight / water proof plastic containers to prevent spoilage and waste

I have eaten old rice before and it dont taste that great, frankly nearly uneatable compared with fresh rice. I found the old rice hard and tasteless

Sugar is a remarkably good preservative if dry. Properly stored candy keeps forever. Edible crystallized honey was recovered from 2nd millennium BC.

Oh thats right sugar also last a long time as well, as well as being cheap
Get brown crystallized sugar it has more nutrition then the highly processed white sugar

 

[Commodore]

On a more serious note for me, we do have a survival kit packed away that has enough food, water, basic medical supplies, clothing, equipment (flashlights, batteries, etc.), and ammo to last about a week. I live in southwest Ohio, so natural disasters are extremely rare otherwise we'd definitely have a more substantial survival kit. Our kit also has small tents and sleeping bags just in case we'd have to go mobile for some reason in a disaster. I even have a portable water purifier that I got in the Army.

Come to think of it, we do have start replacing some of the stuff in our survival kit as some of it (like the MREs and some of the medicine) are approaching their expiration dates.