Faced with imminent risk of flooding over in Britishland, the Met Office has provided a helpful emergency list for those Brits at risk of same:
“Think about putting together an emergency flood kit with essential items that will help you cope in a flood, including: Insurance documents and list of contact numbers; torch and spare batteries; first-aid kit and any prescription medicines; warm waterproof clothes and blankets; bottled water and snacks; battery or wind-up radio and if it applies to you: supplies for looking after your baby or pet. Make sure that everyone knows where to find this kit and what to do if flooding happens.”
Of course, what isn’t mentioned is whether the flood risk involves home evacuation or simply being isolated at home (surrounded, say, by floodwaters).
I have a couple of grab ‘n go chests ready if I had to leave home, and they contain all the above along with more serious survival stuff, to be supplemented only with things I keep in the house, e.g. Rx meds, rain gear and of course my laptop computer (which contains all the documentation I need to run my life). And as long as I have sufficient gas in the car, the power inverter I keep inside it will provide all the power I’d need. Of take-along guns we will not speak, of course, but most Brits don’t have any of those, so their supplies are pretty much there for the taking by anyone (e.g. a criminal or police officer [some overlap] ) who can simply commandeer whatever they need.
As for staying in place at home, I think we could survive for about a month, maybe even two before being seriously inconvenienced.
In other words, I’m not too worried about the problem — unless the disaster strikes (as it usually does in Texas) during a severe winter storm, in which case things might be a little more tricky, but not insurmountable. As our apartment is on the ground floor and overlooks a large lawn, I could always park the car next to the patio railing and use the inverter for emergency power inside the apartment if necessary. (The complex has all sorts of rules about outdoor cooking on the patio etc., but in a SHTF situation I’d ignore pretty much everything that stood in my way anyway.)
Feel free to run over all the things you’d need to get through a catastrophe of the above nature. It’s a good mental exercise even if you believe you’re adequately prepared, and who knows, you might find that you have a few things to attend to, e.g. getting in some more batteries or non-perishable foods.
Disaster prep: if you don’t do it, you deserve everything that hits you.
Other than prescription drugs we have everything we need for a year or more. The only food products we have to leave the compound for on a regular basis is produce stuff, milk, and bread, and alcohol.
We have solar panels and various generators, invertors, etc.
Sputum and Tiggy have inverters?
Just Tiggy.
I can confirm that at the Goodwood Revival today it was very wet. This made for some exciting driving.
Since I (really) retired, I put some effort into ramping up my preps for an eventual Shelter in Place.
I’m a Shelter In Place guy more by circumstance than choice. There’s no way I’m going to get out of the DC suburbs along with the 4-6 million other schlubs (who’ll all run out of gas 75 miles into West Virginia or Central Virginia). I’d take my chances on my own, but not with my wife and her two sons, Hopeless and Helpless. So I’ll make my stand in my woodsy suburban cul-de-sac.
#1 Water. Even though I’m on city water, I have a deep well I share with my neighbor. I also have a 2-barrell rain catchment set up (it rains on average, every 10-12 days here), so there’s generally 160 gallons+ there. I also have 2 bathtub water storage bladders good for 100 gallons each. My filtration and sanitation system setup can give me about 35 gallons of potable water a day with almost no effort and if I hook up my gravity fed RO filter, another 200 gallons a day. My Solar Shower set up (100 feet of black poly hose coiled on black plastic on the south side of the roof with a 13 gallon cold water reservoir and thermostatic mixing valve) can be installed in one afternoon, assuming I can get my 66 year old ass up on the roof. I can add a clear acrylic frame and reflectors if I need to in the winter.
#2 Power. 22Kw whole house Generac generator, powered by natural gas. It runs 90% of the circuits on the house. Backup: A portable Yanmar diesel generator that’ll run freezers, fridges and space heaters. One 2000w solar generator, with a power bank. Natural gas will be the last utility shut off, so I may be able to use that for a while.
#3 Comms. Midland MicroMobile GMRS set with base station and 2 handhelds. I just got Starlink internet and I’ll sign up for their Direct to Cell service as soon as it’s available.
#4 Food/Medicine/Booze. I keep a full pantry. Two freezers of protein, always at least 3/4 full. 6-24 months worth of dried beans, rice, lentils, etc. It won’t be a gourmet feast, but I could stand to lose a few pounds anyway and the Last Wife is a light eater. I’ve got 2-3 years worth of BP meds, a closet full of Vitamin B, C and D and assorted OTC meds. Milspec first aid gear that’ll cover anything up to and including a GSW, closed fracture or amputation. Freeze dried coffee, vacuum-packed tea and dried milk aplenty. About 400 bottles of wine, 120 bottles of champagne, about 100 bottles of assorted bourbon, rum, Irish whiskey, gin, and tequila. More cigars than I’ll ever smoke in what’s left of my life.
#5 Fire, Fuel, Batteries. I live next to an 800-acre state park that is full of deadfall. Lifetime supply of wood for the taking. I’ve got a decent sized 1/4″ plate steel rocket stove with a grill/griddle top. Oh yeah, a Kelly Kettle too, for when I just need a cup of tea or coffee. I switched to all electric yard tools a couple of years ago and have a dandy EGO battery chainsaw that’ll handle all the bigger wood cutting I’ll need and a corded Makita chainsaw for the light work. For the grill, I’ve got 6 20-lb propane tanks. Both my interior fireplaces were converted to natural gas heater inserts by the previous owner, and while they won’t heat the whole house, they’ll heat the rooms they’re in easily. I always have a couple of dozen rechargeable batteries, a couple hundred regular batteries. I also have a half dozen UCO brass candle lanterns and a gross of candles for them.
#6 Transpo. Cars won’t be of much use after a couple of days and I won’t have to go anywhere unless it’s in the neighborhood. I have a 2019 Kawasaki Mule Pro-DX diesel SXS with a long bed and that’ll be what I’ll use if I can find diesel. Half my neighbors have diesel Mercedes and I have a drill-powered transfer pump, so there’s that.
#7 Entertainment/Data. 3000CDs, 1900 LPs, about 900 DVDs, 30K downloaded books, and about 4TB of videos on survival techniques and related topics. I never was a TV watcher, so I won’t miss that.
#8 Guns/Ammo. I won’t need any because the most important thing in a SHTF scenario is coming together as a community and sharing what you have with your neighbors and new friends. HA! Just fuggin’ witcha! Of course I’ll be armed to the teeth and why the hell else have I been stockpiling ammo for the past 30 years if not for this!
That’s a fine job of contingency planning, but now having seen that, I gotta ask: Isn’t your house so full that you have to sleep in your car? ;>D
Seriously, how did you set your rain barrels and how do you get the water out? I’m fairly well set in most areas, have a good water filtration setup, but water supply troubles me. Are the barrels elevated so they’re easy to fill a container from a bottom spigot, or do you dip from the top? And how do you prevent algae from growing?
I have a pretty good sized house (8000+ sq ft) with one basement storage area that is 24’x72′ and a secure room in the basement that is 14’x14′.
One rain barrel is on the second floor deck and the other is on the walkout basement porch below it. Overflow valve on the first goes straight to the second. Both have bung taps and are on risers. I used an Oatey Mystic insert on my down spout to redirect the water into the top barrel. If I’m worried about water quality, I’ll run it through a HydroLogic RO system that’s good for 200-300 gallons a day. If I need to get water from the well, it will go through the RO system.
The top barrel is gray (with a domed black top with mesh insert) and in the shade. I got it from Home Depot a couple of years ago. The bottom one is a small IBC tote tank (135 gallons) under my back deck that I got from one of my bakery suppliers last year that held glycerol. I have blue tarp framed over it to keep the light out.
Once the top barrel is full, I add some bleach (1/8th tsp per gallon) and move it to the bottom barrel. When the top barrel fills again, I add the bleach to it and will generally hold it for about 10-12 days, then drain the bottom barrel by half, fill it from the top barrel and do it all over again. They both get cleaned in the spring and the fall.
That habit came by NOT staying on top of it and the bottom tote got algae in it. Took me a couple of days to clean it out and I’d rather not do that again.
(hand slap to forehead!) I didn’t even think to feed one to a second to enable easy turnover.
Thanks!
I have plenty of long guns, even more handguns, and plenty shotguns
Plenty of ammo
~100 head of beef angus cattle
A couple of wells
A house in the country if urban violence erupts