I was able to get out to the property yesterday.
I dropped of a set of metric and SAE box-end wrenches, reset the traps and threw some more seeds around the food-plot.
God loves me. Lower Michigan picked up about a 1/2" of rain five hours after I broadcast the rape (kale) and radish seeds. It would have been better if I had planted a month ago, but I had not killed off the brush that was shading the ground at that point.
Lists of Essential Equipment
As I was hanging the wrench-sets on the wall of the pole barn, it got me thinking about the lists of The Top Fifty (or Seventy or One Hundred) Items to Buy Now!!! that are popping up on the Internet.
I thought of the family living in an 800 square-foot apartment and could not imagine where they would put most of the gear on those lists.
I suggest using the Rule of Threes to prioritize:
- Three seconds of stupid can kill you
- Three minutes without oxygen getting to your brain (suffocation, loss of blood)
- Three hours of exposure can kill you.
- Three days without water
- Three weeks without food
Example:
I was lowering eggs into boiling water using a metal spoon. I was using the hot-plate on the porch to keep the heat and humidity outside. I felt a tingle when the spoon touched the water. Then it happened again.
I got my multi-tester electrical tool. Yup, the hot-plate had a short-to-hot in the wiring. Its rubber coasters prevented it from shorting to the table and thence to the concrete floor.
The hot-plate went into the trash.
Another example:
It gets cold in Michigan in the winter. Not Minnesota or Alberta cold, but cold enough to kill you. Most apartments have enough storage to squirrel away enough quilt/comforters/sleeping bags to throw on the beds to make 20F inside temperature endurable.
The point being, even if you have a storage unit, there are some camping items that are worth storing in your apartment.
Another:
Having some non-electrical means to cook food or boil water doesn't have to consume a lot of space. There are countless one-burner, propane fired camp stoves/hot-plates that are available.
Finally:
Sometimes the "stupid" is going outside of your apartment outside of very specific time-slots. Having various comfort items, especially if you have kids, is a no-brainer. One example would be to have some zero-sugar lollipops handy. With a little bit of care, a lollipop can last a while and keep the sniffles and whining down. Another spin on this is to have the means to have at least 24 hours of water stored so you aren't forced to go looking for it at a dangerous time of night.
These examples are not comprehensive. They are just a few vignettes to show one way of deciding what you can do to harden your apartment should power-outages or civil unrest come to your neighborhood.
When electricity goes out, the convenience of lighting at the flick of a switch disappears. Batteries often run out at inopportune times (battery check at least once a month) and having at least one unit per person in household should be a minimum. Besides white gas camping stoves we have, we have one of the inexpensive Asian manufactured butane cartridge propane stoves sold for approximately $25 now. Spare fuel units are easy to store as well. They have only one burner, but with the right foods, a one pot meal is very easy to provide for a family to eat. Key is picking meals that everyone has no problems consuming.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post ERJ.
Those can cookers are cheap, they work & store well and as a plus you can get ones that will run off propane too.
DeleteA portable AGM or SLA emergency light battery with charger, folding solar panel and usb coverter for scavenging watts may be an idea. Ditto water scavenging.
ReplyDeleteI have several USB-chargeable flashlights around here at Rancho Whybother. They eliminate the need to keep a bunch of spare batteries around. They'll even act as power banks to charge other USB devices like cell phones. They do need a charging source though. A solar charger is slow but sure, and folds down to nothing. A fully charged "power bank" USB-chargeable battery is also nice to have, as it'll charge or operate other USB devices. Really small, and relatively inexpensive. The time to research, buy, and test these things is NOW, folks...
DeleteIf you don't have much space, I'd prepare for short emergences and the most urgent and go from there.
ReplyDeleteFood, water, shelter are the most urgent - to them I'd add a way to get rid of waste, or at least a way to segregate it to keep down smell and contamination.
If you have a balcony and it isn't dangerous to use, My best idea is a collapsible cardboard toilet with a bag in it and a blanket strung up for privacy. It needs to be a non water intensive method.
All this, of course, is short term. Long term is a whole separate discussion.
Jonathan
Your family has to survive the short-term before they need to worry about the long-term.
DeleteThe two worst scenarios IMHO are to freeze up like a deer in the headlights OR panic and become a refugee with no destination.
Use your time to text (low bandwidth) your contacts to find a landing-spot BEFORE you leave your apartment.
Texting is the way to go for communicating by cell phone during a n emergency scenario. As ERJ stated, it's VERY low bandwidth. Cell towers are going to be either overwhelmed or down altogether, and most likely won't support a voice call. Even if your text doesn't go out right away, as "holes" appear in the cell towers' usage, the message will get out.
DeleteAs an aside to portable gas stoves in an apartment, DO NOT bring your barbecue from the balcony inside under any circumstances. It will kill you! I saw this on a regular basis as a firefighter. If you're reading this blog you're smart enough to already know this. But maybe your neighbor isn't. Watch out for each other. It's a great survival strategy.
ReplyDeleteERJ, I am starting to work through some of this with my change in living situations and have started taking notes. To the items you addressed:
ReplyDelete1) I suspect some older apartments and most newer ones are now 100% electric. Ours (probably built early 2000's) certainly is. A backpacking stove or Jetboil will at least provide you with the hot water to make any water based dish as well as cleaning water (also, coffee!). I have used such things repeatedly out hiking and they are darn reliable.
2) Blankets and/or sleeping bags are indeed easy to store; that said, apartments do not always have a ton of storage space (ours has a quite large kitchen space for example, but almost no other closet space).
3) Beyond just being ready to "stay inside for a bit" (it has already happened to me), I think that one of the simply not sticking out in the complex. Do not make the outer viewable portion of your apartment (door, windows, balcony if you have one) look significantly different than anyone else's. Do not draw attention to yourself by yelling, loud music, or anything else that will cause people to "remember" you. Said differently, blend in to the community.
Buy some of those shrink bags. They hook up to vacumn cleaners and shrink bulky items down to inches by sucking the air out. Come in various sizes. Work great. You can put most of your winter clothes in one and winter sleep items in another and store all of that in a duffle as I do.
DeleteAlso, one of those water bladders that fit in a bath tub. Stores a lot of water and comes with a pump. Keep it in the box till needed.
Black out curtains/fabric.
MF
If you have a FoodSaver machine and bags (use the rolls), you can do the same thing with the smaller stuff. You'd be surprised at what will fit in the larger bags. A rolled up pair of jeans and a shirt will fit in one, as will several changes of underwear. The FoodSaver will collapse these things down to nothing!
DeleteA down sleeping bag, rolled up, takes up VERY little space! They're more expensive than the Hollofil bags, but store better and keep you warmer!
I second the suggestion of having a Waterbob ready to fill. It'll store in a small drawer in the bathroom until needed, and will increase the holding capacity of your bathtub by about 40%! It'll also keep the water CLEAN, and will eliminate the need to disinfect the tub before filling it.
Watch out if you plan to use those cartridge backpacking stoves in the winter… they don’t do so well when the temps drop!
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Butane is USELESS below 15*F. Remember this if you're planning on using a butane lighter as your source of fire in a cold place. Keep the lighter in your pocket until needed. Also, have a box of strike-anywhere (Ohio Blue Tip or the like) handy. They'll work in any temp.
DeleteButane won't work well if its too cold. Warm the can inside your jacket and have another warming as a standby. Also if its too hot it won't fire up. I've had to cool it down in the fridge for a few minutes.
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=butane+stove&oq=butane+stove&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQLhhA0gEIODg0M2owajGoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 I keep one in my van and use the one in kitchen to make my moka pot coffee in the morning.
ReplyDeleteA question - will fire prevention be a major fear / When the power goes out and its cold, we begin to see house fires in the news. What measures can apartment dwellers use to accomplish this ?
ReplyDeleteAnon - The short answer is "Yes". With the loss of large scale power likely fire risks will increase dramatically due to people trying to heat and warm with (effectively) open flame. There was an incident like this in Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (fiction of course) in which a retirement home burned down after a societal collapse due to an inhabitant trying to cook a meal and the fire getting out of control.
DeleteHistorically, one can look to the history and periodic fires of many if not most ancient and medieval cities which used wood as a meeting. Rome especially comes to mind with its great tenements, but it happened everywhere. Fun fact: during the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan (1601-1867) Edo (now Tokyo) burned 49 times.
Thank you for replying to my question. It appears that fire is both a servant and master.
Delete