PRactice Run Irene....Where did you screw up?

[MisterHappy]

Time for honesty.....

There's a lot of talk about Prepping, and we had plenty of warning.

How did your plans and supplies work for you? Be honest!

Strong points for me:

plenty of light - well stocked with lamp fuel, lighting (kero and Coleman)
Plemtt of food - fell on the "It'll defrost!" grenade and ate well


Weak point:
Problems with generator. Test-ran it, but it crapped out after about 2 hours. Apparently, since it's older (Y2K) the ethanol casued trouble, and it had to be nursed. Would have been more of a problem in the WInter, though I have a wood stove.

Personal Grade: C

 

[Fitz]

Admittedly Irene's course took her ~3-50 miles west of us and while our area is prone for flooding, I don't think my sump pumps fired once.

Prepwise I think I covered most of the bases. Pumps were checked, filters cleaned, and spare pumps cycled. Generator was fired up and gas supply was stoked. Propane tanks registered full. Food-a-plenty.

....and since Sunday's weather was nothing more than some hard rain, I spent the entire day reloading in the basement. Gotta keep an eye on those pumps you know.

Fitz

 

[FPrice]

"Fat and happy, like nothing happened."

Because here, not much did happen, unlike many of our bretheren. However I do have a long way to go to prepare for something really bad. And I know it.

 

[Chrisg67]

buttoning up the yard went well, i had food, i had water...

where i flopped was lighting and sump pump. i never checked my lanterns, assumed they worked. i didnt need them but last night i lit them...neither would stay lit. need to order some nice Dietz hurricane lamps asap.

and my sump...not sure when it went, but i didnt find out until the hurricane was in full effect. sump was full to the top and i had no back up plan if the power went out. i thought a 5 gallon bucket would make more of a dent than it did. luckily my in laws had one i could borrow. pretty poor planning overlooking these things on my part

 

[BigDaddyAl]

We were technically an (A) since we never lost power and no basement flooding. But during our prep we realized we were unprepared/underprepared for a few things: (1) need better 72 hour kits if we have to evacuate quickly, (2) no generator if power is out for an extended period, (3) need more candles or hurricane lamps (or similar), (4) ability to purify water if we can't boil, and (5) no chain saw. We have a week's worth of water, at least a few month's of shelf-stable food storage, and the ability to cook for a several weeks if we lose the natural gas to the house. There were plenty of sump pumps going in our neighborhood, and if we had flooded and lost power, we would have been in trouble. I hope to pick up a returned generator for a discount at one of the hardware stores, and we'll work on the other issues over the next few weeks. It was a good exercise for us.

 

[Rancho]

I have a small suggestion.. shake lights. I had inadvertently picked up a couple of these at the army navy store a week or so before the storm. no batteries needed and it's a fun way to laugh with your spouse as she shakes it vigorously to make it work..

all was well for us we had the generator running watching the tube and drinking my neighbors deeeelicious home brew..
no trees fell on the house the basement was dry.
we both agreed that we should invest in some sort of solar and /or wind powered back up just in case that generator get's angry. plenty of food as a matter of fact my wife was making tomato sauce during the storm..
then the neighbors came back over for margaritas!!

 

[blindndead]

If anything, it made me more prepared.

 

[Business]

The only thing I wish i had was a colman lantern. We had plenty of flashlights and batteries, stored water and food But when it came time to eat said meal by flash light light it was kinda dim. So next up on the list is a gas lamp

 

[dwarven1]

I got lucky. Wifey is NOT onboard with anything that smacks of being prepared for a disaster. Or at least, wasn't. Annndddd... then the power went out. And stayed out for 11 hours.

So... I had plenty of ice to keep fridge and freezers cold. I had flashlights, candles, matches...

Propane for the grill? Plenty of it! In the 500 gal tank in the back yard, with a line run to the back deck. Where was the grill? Why, safely in the garage, where it couldn't blow over or away. I need to get my spare 20lb tanks back (I loaned them to my Lodge for a grill project, which is on hold ATM).

Lanterns? I had one, and plenty of lamp oil... with citronella. So I need to get some kero, unadulterated, and another hurricane lantern would be nice.

And the biggest thing... I now have the go-ahead to start pricing out generators.

Chain saw... I have a little electric one. I have yet to need a bigger one in 23 years of home ownership. Not sure if I can just keep that as my primary (since I'll have a generator soon) or if I should budget for an inexpensive, medium sized chainsaw - maybe like an 18" bar or so. (my little electric is a 14" Wen).

 

[Rider]

I concur with big daddy's points for the most part. But to a certain extent, it depends on your budget and just how prepped you want to be.

I'm going to get a 2000 watt inverter genny, probably Yamaha, once prices come down some. The are already tons on craigslist and eBay, but at "I bought this thing I didnt need and want to make a profit" prices. Then get a propane multi-fuel conversion. I think this would be very useful. Then you have a highly efficient, quiet, multi fuel genny that you can easily move yourself and daisy chain to increase output.

For the hams out there, get a bigger antenna. If you can't key up a repeater 20 miles away, you may have trouble getting simplex calls and multiple hop traffic going.

I could use a couple LED lanterns. Forget fuel. Get a small solar kit(Goal0) and some rechargeables, and the LED lanterns light up a room for a day on one charge.

Chain saw is situational. Good to have around, but not at the top of the list on a budget.

Firewood. You'd think you can get it year-round, but that isn't the case with many dealers.

Nice, big, truck.

These weren't all things I needed, but things that would have made it all better.

It was a wake up call in that for such a mild storm, the wide-spread damage and long restorations times were a surprise. My bride was on board already, but is enthusisatic about buying more gear, even if we don't use it a lot.

 

[xtry51]

Personal vote: B

Need more oil lanterns, can't really have enough for a family trying to do chores in the dark. Crank flashlights are great, but you have to hold them and some tasks really need that second hand. Everyone knows when you need to point a flashlight at something you're doing there is no physical way to set it down and have the beam right where you want it which is really annoying to me.

A couple more deep pots set aside specifically for boiling water or warming it for bathing. I got tired of washing the 3 I have for different tasks.

A solar charger for my phone. I was running using my car which is lame and a waste of gas.

A big chainsaw is needed. Small one worked, but was a lot of work for the number of trees I had down.

 

[Yazz]

Fat and happy!
No electricity in my town for four days but the Generac 4000 took care of that. I fired up an extra fridge for my neighbors. I wish I had a transfer switch installed but I had plenty of extension cords. I will be ordering and installing a transfer switch right away.

 

[Prepper]

Well in my case, I would have been just fine too even if I had no preps at all. My fence blew down, and my line conditioner was busy stabilizing the fluctuating power supply, but that's it.

If services started going down, I only would have had a problem when the stuff in the fridge started going bad. I don't have a generator and have not made it a high priority.

 

[KMS]

I need to get my generator hook up for the house.....by the time I got it out and fired up and selected what I wanted to power up the power came back on lol.

 

[FhvnLT4A]

I have to say it was an A +++++ for both me AND my wife. Not only was my wife on her own for the entire hurricane, she had a "house guest" from 4 pm the night before. My mother invited herself over at my sisters suggestion because she lives in a trailer (over 55) park. Wife and I had set up the house for sucess. Generator ran for 3 hours the day before. 8 gallons of gas portable, and pickup truck full of gas meant I had well over 35 gallons available if the need arose. The electrician was at the house the day before installing a 6 outlet gen trans switch with a 50 foot cord and an outside recepticle. I have a small 850 sq foot house, and with that we were able to power 80% of the house. Both freezers were on the loop as was the sump. Food was plentiful and there were no thawing worries with the electric. Gas grill was supplied with 40 lbs of propane that would last potentially a month if conserved. Water is via town service that was not turned off, plus 5 cases of water stored. Tub was NOT filled, but we only lost power for about 12 hours. All firearms were loaded, all spare mags as well. The ONE improve we found, before it became an issue, is we are not POSITIVE we got the furnace on the Gen trans loop. Something we will remedy before winter. All this was on the wife, who with a broken foot and no help from me, still got out and started the generator, got power switched over, and was fully armed and locked in the house with mom.

I was an A where I was at. Working in public safety, I was sent to a place in town where we had no power for our staging building. We planned ahead with food that didnt require much prep, and a small camp gas grill. When it started to get really dark, we plugged in Vehicle generator and used vehicle supplied lighting to light our building sufficently to be safe. We also brought our own cots and camping gear, and were quite comfortably equipped if we had to spend 24 or 48 hours in the same structure. I loved planning and preparing, because Instead of feeling the loss of power or cable or any of that.. we were able to adapt quite nicely and make due . THANK GOD, we got alot of wind and no real rain. Might have been alot more miserable with water instead of trees... PS, I live 1/4 mile from the ocean.

 

[Polibious]

Personal vote B. Had plenty of food and light (power came on at 4:00 today. I wish I started with more ice, would have kept the beer cold longer and I lost some perishables that we couldn't eat in time.

 

[JimB]

we lost power around 10AM and it came back on at 2AM, roughly 16 hours.

this was a tropical storm, what if it was a cat 2 or 3, think personally

think we would have been without power for days, a week, or more.

we had plenty of flashlights, coleman lantern, portable radio and of

course plenty of ammo. we had water and hot water. all natural gas

here. but what about winter, its a whole different ball game.

No heat brings about a whole new ball game, so i suggest you think

hurricance and tropical storms, i am.

JimB

 

[KMS]

A lot more of us would of been in trouble if this was a cat 1 or 2..Vermont is still in a state of emergency with some towns completely cut off from road access.

 

[MisterHappy]

One word on a used generator - make sure it stays running! Mine has maybe 20 hours on it (after this fun) and will run for a while, then surge and sometimes die, and sometimes not. And it's essentially new! I have some experience with small engines, and they can be tricky and finnicky, so caveat emptor - they're selling it for a reason! If the thing won't run for several hours with no attention, it's false hope, IMO.

As for a mantle lantern, propane is the easiest - no pumping or pouring, and real bright. Buy mantles at wallyworld - four pack for $2, IIRC. It was a two pack for $4 at the local hardware store.

All my lanterns are yard sale specials, and I paid no more than $5-6 for any of them, even the new, kick-ass liquid fuel Colemans.

I and my son have no problem firing one of those up, but my wife is nervous about it. The propane one was no problem. Just something to think about.

 

[scatter]

I give my preparations an A, and the way in which my preparations helped with actual events a D-.

I had plenty of water, food, flashlights, fully charged extra batteries, propane bottles for the camp stove, lanterns, gasoline, propane, everything moved inside or tied down, two generators staged and op-tested (one 240 for the well pump when needed; one 120 for everything else in the meantime).

Then the rain started on Saturday. Water came up into our basement through the seam between our bulkhead steps and the foundation (we already knew this was a problem and had a fix scheduled, just not in time for the storm). But it also flooded the transformer pedestal, which is located uphill from our house, and ran through the underground conduit into our meter box and from there into our breaker box in the basement in a constant stream. I had to shut off the power, and couldn't hook up the generators because of the wet breaker box.

And the power never went off anyway.

We did lose internet, cable and phone for a day, and our signal booster for the cell phone depends on the cable connection, so we lost cell phone reception too (we're in a low reception area). And I dropped my cell phone in the water, so I was completely incommunicado. All in all, everything that happened was unexpected and unprepared for, and everything that was prepared for, didn't happen.

 

[mcb]

Overall I'm giving myself a D. I was without power 4 days. The battery back up on my alarm lasts 2-3 days so that was a concern. I had non perishables, plenty of bottled water plus my hiking gear (lights, stove, radio, weather radio) so I wasn't totally lost. No ice by the time I realized I needed to use one of my 5 coolers to replace the fridge. So the first day I cooked all the frozen hamburgers and ate them up. With no running water this diet presented a problem when nature called. I'll stop here.

If it were the middle of winter I would have had to winterize so it was a good wake up call. I've budgeted a generator/transfer switch for well, heat, fridge, alarm, couple lights/outlets, range if possible. I don't like have electricity being such a major failure point, if the generator is not up I'm screwed again. Long term I need to think that part through.

 

[Jamie]

Never lost power here, but I'm kicking my own ass for not calling friends sooner and checking on them. I ended up loaning the spare generator, but it could have been done a day earlier.

 

[Chris]

Chain saw... I have a little electric one. I have yet to need a bigger one in 23 years of home ownership. Not sure if I can just keep that as my primary (since I'll have a generator soon) or if I should budget for an inexpensive, medium sized chainsaw - maybe like an 18" bar or so. (my little electric is a 14" Wen).

Concentrate on the power, can always borrow my saw if you need it.

 

[BigDaddyAl]

I just asked my wife how she thinks we did. She said her biggest failure was that she had in her mind that if things got really bad here, she would just go to her parent's house in Vermont. We definitely were not expecting Vermont to be hit so hard. Time to rethink our evacuation plans.

 

[oldguy]

Gas for the generators was my weak point.
I only had 20 gallons on hand.
The 20 gal may have been able to last about a week on my honda but thats still not enough cushion for me next time.
My goal is 30 gal next time or have a diesel genset that is easier to store more fuel long term.
We had a few stations open a town over on monday to load up on more
so no big deal.

 

[dwarven1]

One interesting thing about gasoline. On the way home on Friday afternoon, the line at the Stop & Shop gas station in Hudson was literally out the station and 3-4 cars up the road - I haven't seen gas lines in literally decades! So I passed by; I had a third of a tank, anyway.

But the next morning around 10 AM, there wasn't any line and they had plenty of gas. So I stopped in and then had a full tank in the Suby.

What does this mean? Not sure - I think that the line was there on Friday because everyone had been hearing doom and gloom all day at work and then on the ride home. Maybe that folks are, even with all the warnings, not big planners and will only think of stuff when it's right in their face?

 

[RATTLESNAKE]

over all i give my preps a B+ never lost power,so no need for back up lighting,I had to work so the wife was home with the kids and the Father-in-law i felt ok with leaving them because we were well prepared on the food and water front.I definalty need to get alittle more organized with my preps so this is on my to-do list asap..

 

[coastie]

We lost power for about 20 hrs. Genny worked fine. Fired it up a couple times to cool the fridge and use the sinks. Filled a gallon jug for drinking water on the counter and a 7 gal container Aqua tainer to wash hands. Cooked on the camp stove. Once again LED headlamps rock. I gave one to each of my kids (3 and 6) and they had a blast with them. Played some board games. The hardest thing for me was getting everything ready. I have been working 7-13s back shift for the last month. Fortunately my wife knows our storm plan and got most of the stuff ready. I didnt realize how many outdoor kid toys we had until they were all piled in the garage!!

 

[Blitz1]

I have a small suggestion.. shake lights. I had inadvertently picked up a couple of these at the army navy store a week or so before the storm. no batteries needed and it's a fun way to laugh with your spouse as she shakes it vigorously to make it work..

all was well for us we had the generator running watching the tube and drinking my neighbors deeeelicious home brew..
no trees fell on the house the basement was dry.
we both agreed that we should invest in some sort of solar and /or wind powered back up just in case that generator get's angry. plenty of food as a matter of fact my wife was making tomato sauce during the storm..
then the neighbors came back over for margaritas!!

I keep one in my truck, the wife has one in her car. The quality ones, not the cheap shit.

 

[Blitz1]

A lot more of us would of been in trouble if this was a cat 1 or 2..Vermont is still in a state of emergency with some towns completely cut off from road access.

Absolutely. This is a wake up call.