I did pretty well but I needed.

Battery powered radio. (For entertainment mainly)
Large power bank that could charge phone / IPAD for a couple of days.

Same situation for me. It was frustrating because I have both but couldn't find them when I needed them.

Once I had my fireplace going and all the cold air was getting sucked in under my doors, I realized my weather stripping was inadequate at the temperatures we reached. Maybe it's just old.

We did well - had a pretty good supply of water and had a plan for centralized batteries chargers and flashlights along with water and some snacks

One thing I needed was more plumbing supplies so I will add some things there - especially pipe insulation!

Also need some bags of salt on hand for the driveway

Like many, lacking insulation. House built in 1978. We've replaced all the doors, but not windows. We replaced the galvanized steel pipes to PEX, but they weren't insulated and froze when water pressure dropped.

Have 40 gallons of RO water on hand all the time. And I can quadruple my storage with 3 days notice to push to other storage and make more. Have a generator, but its not tied to the house (yet) and 40 gallons of gas on hand. Need to finish some wiring projects in the house so we can blow in more insulation as well.

And just some better procedures for any event, make sure the cars have their tanks topped off etc.

All in all not horrible, but still very lacking.

I think ive finally decided that I'd like some slippers. Never really saw the point. But my toes were cold even with thick socks.

Other than that I was ok with how well prepped we were. I'd let my canned soup stock dwindle too much so we only had a couple on hand. And I realized that can of Ranch style beans in the pantry are the ones with extra onions instead of regular. Need to rectify that.

Really pissed when I ran out of mayonnaise when I wanted some chicken salad.

Lacking a place to send 3 kids 9 and under.

AgsMnn said:

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Lacking a place to send 3 kids 9 and under.

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Told my parents to go the greyhound station and pick ours up today.

One thing I did not address was how to sedate mommy - add that to the list

we never lost power/water so most of our preparedness went to helping others who were not so fortunate.

That said, what I have been most surprised by are how many people seem to be utterly incapable of living life below 70 degrees and without utilities. And I'm not talking single digit temps. The number of "it's 50 degrees in here and I have kids" or "how am I supposed to boil water with no electricity" on this site (not necessarily this board) and others have been eye opening to me.

For all the talk of generators, I think there needs to be as much or more towards basic "outdoor" skills. Putting that in quotes here because of the application indoors in this case. Not having sleeping bags, clothing layers, and some way to cook is simply unfathomable to me.

AgsMnn said:

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Lacking a place to send 3 kids 9 and under.

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POTD

Didn't have near enough booze. Had to make 2 ill advised trips to the liquor store.

texrover91 said:

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AgsMnn said:

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Lacking a place to send 3 kids 9 and under.

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Told my parents to go the greyhound station and pick ours up today.

One thing I did not address was how to sedate mommy - add that to the list

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Ketamine- 1-1.5 MG/KG IV

ccard257 said:

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That said, what I have been most surprised by are how many people seem to be utterly incapable of living life below 70 degrees and without utilities. And I'm not talking single digit temps. The number of "it's 50 degrees in here and I have kids" or "how am I supposed to boil water with no electricity" on this site (not necessarily this board) and others have been eye opening to me.

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This baffled me too.

No firewood, my water storage buckets were empty, never bought the safety equipment for my chainsaw (that I have also never used). Didn't have a space heater (to pair with generators). Didn't have oil on hand for generators. Gasoline containers empty.

I was able to borrow firewood, borrow space heater, buy oil, buy gas. And a friend did chainsawing with his own saw. Worked out fine, but I could do better.

I was a boy scout. I was a scoutmaster. I have lived off the grid for 16 months straight in the past (with biweekly trips for supplies). I have a lot of camping equipment. I was going to survive and be fine.

Misplaced water shutoff tool. Panicked search for it (even though we haven't had a busted pipe or water leak). Found it.

InMyOpinion said:

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ccard257 said:

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That said, what I have been most surprised by are how many people seem to be utterly incapable of living life below 70 degrees and without utilities. And I'm not talking single digit temps. The number of "it's 50 degrees in here and I have kids" or "how am I supposed to boil water with no electricity" on this site (not necessarily this board) and others have been eye opening to me.

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This baffled me too.

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This x1000

I never lost power for any meaningful amount of time but would have been happy to let my house get to 55 inside. I only kept it at 62-65 to help keep the pipes in the attic from freezing.

Even if it got down to 20-30 degrees inside, I still have my tempurpedic so I'm really just luxury tent camping for a few days. God forbid people have to wear sweat pants and a light jacket around the house.

I would have gladly traded a loss of power for the loss of internet/phone. I'm probably going to look at switching to Verizon phone since both my att phone and internet were down and couldn't check on my parents/grandparents for a day or so.

Lacked only backup power for home.

Had:
full bathtub
exterior pipes wrapped (w/ pipe heat cable on the main)
exterior wall lines shut in at PEX manifold
food for days
truck gassed
batteries for flashlights
candles
nat gas fireplace & grill (sooooo so handy),
battery jump box for vehicles (w/ USB out - we used for phone charging)

Needed: long term power solution. Lesson learned & generator ordered on Wed.

Not needed & did not have: backup plumbing supplies to cap/patch a few lines if needed - will add some of this

The number of people who do not understand wood burning fireplaces are essentially for decoration only.

They are not designed to heat your home.

https://hearthandpatiostore.com/know-shopping-replacement-fireplace/

Last Saturday I bought all the Coors Banquet beer and Copenhagen extra long cut at Kroger so I pretty much thought of everything.

Need another cord of wood on hand at all times. I have two houses on the property, only one on backup generator. Main house has wood stove and we burned a TON of wood.

Probably will pick up another 180 gal propane tank.

Very glad I bought a 55gal Titan tank for the f250. going 850+ miles on a tank is handy in times like this.

I have a rain catchment system and we used a lot of water and I still have about 1000gal left over.

Picard said:

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JSKolache said:

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....
exterior pipes wrapped (w/ pipe heat cable on the main)
....

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Tell me more about this please. Looking for recommendations on some way to do more than just wrap the hose spigots in the future...some sort of heated option other than the C9 incandescent Christmas lights I used.

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Interested as well.

I did this:







Which turned into this:



Yes, the inner styrofoam was almost completely melted.

Also thought about maybe just reducing the number of lights and adding a thermostatically controlled plug (which I had bought but didn't install, oops).

AlaskanAg99 said:

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The number of people who do not understand wood burning fireplaces are essentially for decoration only.

They are not designed to heat your home.

https://hearthandpatiostore.com/know-shopping-replacement-fireplace/

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They work relatively well in an emergency