I wrote about stockpiling back in May 2009, the first month I was blogging. Today Rina has a post about stockpiling on her great site, Gotta Little Space and asked what her readers stockpile and whether she'd missed anything.
I've commented but I thought I'd write a little more about the kinds of things I stockpiled several years ago, since my earlier post was kind of a "stockpile lite" version of some things I was planning to stockpile again.
Water
Water is vital. You can live for weeks without food but for only a few days without water. It's also one of the first things that will likely not be available in an emergency. Since I don't drink tap water (I'm allergic to chlorine and my rural home is in an area where there are periodic "boil water" warnings) I always have bottled water on hand. The 2 litres/person/day amount that Rina refers to is for drinking and cooking. You also need additional water for bathing and handwashing, dishes and laundry. You may also need water to flush your toilet if the water supply is off. The usual recommendation is that you store 1 gallon/person/day for a minimum of 3 days. While it can all be commercial bottled water, it's also possible to store bottled water for drinking only and to store tap water in approved containers for washing. I try to keep 3 to 4 of the 5 gallon bottles on hand, one in use and the others in reserve and I rotate them so the oldest one is always the next one to be used.
Beverages
Coffee beans (regular and decaf)
Coffee, instant (regular and decaf)
Grape juice (case of 750 ml bottles)
Instant hot chocolate
Tea bags (Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Chai, all decaf)
Tetra paks of Almond Breeze, especially the chocolate one
Tetra paks of soup (Tomato)
Wine, red and white
Dry groceries
Whole wheat pasta (elbow macaroni, rotini, spaghetti, linguine, lasagne noodles)
Wacky Mac (mac & cheese)
Basmati rice
White beans
Ramen noodle soups in a cup
Oatmeal bulk and instant, packaged
Sugar, granulated
Canned items (tins or jars)
Tuna
Salmon
Sardines
Jam, jelly or marmelade
Peanut butter
Chocolate spread (like Nutella)
Honey
Olive oil
Sunflower oil
Tomato sauce
Tomato paste
Chili tomatoes
Kidney beans
Applesauce
Freezer
Butter (2 lb per month)
1/2 Salmon
French fries
Hash browns
Ready-to-eat food
Cold cereal
Soft granola bars
Pretzels
Fruit rollups
Cookies
Chocolate
Personal
Toothpaste
Dental floss
Feminine products (3 months per female)
Deodorant
Cotton swabs
Contact solution, if needed
Diapers, disposable & 12 flat flannelette plus pkg of diaper pins (if there are babies or toddlers)
Baby wipes (even if there aren't babies, always useful!)
Toilet paper
Kleenex
Liquid soap
Waterless hand cleaner, antibacterial
Multivitamins (even if you're not a vitamin person, very useful when your food is limited & you're under stress)
Cleaning Products
Dish soap
Laundry detergent
Multipurpose cleaning product for counters and floors
Toilet cleaner
First Aid Kit
St. John's Ambulance makes a good one.
Medication
Advil
Migraine meds
Children's Advil
Polysporin
Prescription meds (3 months supply if possible)
Ipecac
Anti-diarrhea medication
Gravol
Other (very important!)
Manual can opener
Bottle opener
Corkscrew
Aluminum foil
Ziplok bags (heavy)
Coleman camp stove with at least 3 small cans of propane (or big tank and converter)
Candles, Shabbat (72 to a box)
Candles, yahrzeit (in metal tins, burn over 24 hours)
Candles, tea lights (from IKEA 100/pkg)
Matches and waterproof container
Flint/striker
Manual coffee grinder (I have my grandmother's)
Coffee filters
Stir sticks (I buy the long hollow ones that double as straws, they come 1000/box)
Garbage bags (many uses in addition to holding garbage)
Space blankets 1/person (in case of extended power outages during cold weather)
Pets
Dry food
Water (2 litres/pet/day)
Any meds
Litter for cats (I don't have cats now, but have in the past)
So, those are the types of things that I have stockpiled or would stockpile. My ideal is to have a year's worth of stuff stored. This is not because I believe we'd go through a year long emergency but there could be a series of emergencies or the family breadwinner could become unemployed for several months or we could need to provide for more than our immediate family.
As Rina said, the easiest way to stockpile is to do it a little at a time, buying doubles or triples of items you use when they're on sale. Always rotate your stock and make sure you don't have a cupboard full of expired food! This is the biggest reason for stocking items that your family will actually eat. Eat your stockpiled food on a regular basis and keep replacing it. Then, you won't have a problem convincing your family to eat something new during an emergency. The food I've listed is food we eat.
What would you do differently? Is there anything you think I've omitted?
Showing posts with label power outages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power outages. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Saturday, December 20, 2008
What if We're Snowed In?
It's a bit unlikely that we'll actually be snowed in, but we could lose our power and the cold water pipe leading to our sink seems to have frozen this afternoon. The pipe runs along the outside wall of the house for at least a short distance and is the only one affected at this point. Right now we have the cold tap turned on a little way and have opened the bottom cupboard doors in an attempt to get more warmth into there.
My son-in-law isn't home. He's been plowing and sanding ever since 7 am. However, he talked to Eldest Daughter on the phone and says there's really nothing else to do at this point. His hope is that the pressure of having the tap open might clear the line and I guess we're just hoping nothing has cracked inside the wall.
It's really kind of odd. I mean, it's only been down to 17 or 19 Celsius (edit: That should be Fahrenheit, of course. 19 Celsius would be a warm spring day.) and our area of the house is always very warm when they have the heat on upstairs. It was also actually colder outside a few nights ago, with no problem. But I don't know. I'm sure son-in-law will have a look at it when he can. He's scheduled to work tomorrow but I don't think union rules allow him to work 15 or so hours and then work again with less than 12 hours off in between. I'm hoping he can look at it in the morning. It's also a bit warmer now and will probably warm up another few degrees because it has clouded over and begun to snow heavily. We're actually forecast to receive 15 to 25 centimetres tonight and tomorrow (up to 10" of snow). This is just not Vancouver weather.
I'm concerned about the house but my neighbour has always been good about checking on it for us and letting me know when there was a problem. I may give them a call tomorrow though. They were saying on tonight's news that the wind chill in some parts of the Okanagan will drop temperatures to around 40 below (which is 40 below no matter which temperature system you're using). That's cold. Really, really cold.
But what if it snowed so much that we were actually snowed in for a couple of days? This is one of the reasons for always having a supply of food on hand, as well as bottled water, lamps or candles, etc. We have a coleman stove but no propane at the moment. My Eldest Daughter and son-in-law have a propane BBQ that they could use (but I can't find the adaptor kit I bought several years ago to use a large tank of propane with our stove). Possibly they still have some of the small propane containers left over from camping this summer. We have 7 or 8 gallons of bottled water, about 2 dozen Shabbat candles (that burn for 2 to 3 hours), only a few tea lights and a couple of big pillar candles that would last for a few days.
As for food, we have some basics. There's brown rice, white beans, whole wheat pasta, a big bag of oatmeal, 3 boxes of dry cereal, a few tins of tuna, apples, sugar, tea and coffee. There are some other things on the shelf too (like a box of brownie mix and another of pie crust mix) and a bunch of stuff in the fridge and freezer like hash browns, french fries, Yves ground "meat" (a soy substitute), cheese, milk, butter, eggs, carrots and so on. So we'd have enough to eat if we were stuck for 2 or 3 days and, if there's actually small propane canisters upstairs, we'd be able to cook quite nicely.
We'd stay in our bedroom for the most part, pile all our blankets and quilts on the beds and dress warmly. We'd only venture out to go to the washroom, to cook and to take Dog for walks. It probably wouldn't be the most fun we've ever had but we'd get through it without huge problems. The big thing I learned from this is that I should buy some propane.
What about you? If your power went out for 2 or 3 days how would you manage? Would you freeze? Would you have water and food? Would you be able to cook? Are your cell phones charged?
My son-in-law isn't home. He's been plowing and sanding ever since 7 am. However, he talked to Eldest Daughter on the phone and says there's really nothing else to do at this point. His hope is that the pressure of having the tap open might clear the line and I guess we're just hoping nothing has cracked inside the wall.
It's really kind of odd. I mean, it's only been down to 17 or 19 Celsius (edit: That should be Fahrenheit, of course. 19 Celsius would be a warm spring day.) and our area of the house is always very warm when they have the heat on upstairs. It was also actually colder outside a few nights ago, with no problem. But I don't know. I'm sure son-in-law will have a look at it when he can. He's scheduled to work tomorrow but I don't think union rules allow him to work 15 or so hours and then work again with less than 12 hours off in between. I'm hoping he can look at it in the morning. It's also a bit warmer now and will probably warm up another few degrees because it has clouded over and begun to snow heavily. We're actually forecast to receive 15 to 25 centimetres tonight and tomorrow (up to 10" of snow). This is just not Vancouver weather.
I'm concerned about the house but my neighbour has always been good about checking on it for us and letting me know when there was a problem. I may give them a call tomorrow though. They were saying on tonight's news that the wind chill in some parts of the Okanagan will drop temperatures to around 40 below (which is 40 below no matter which temperature system you're using). That's cold. Really, really cold.
But what if it snowed so much that we were actually snowed in for a couple of days? This is one of the reasons for always having a supply of food on hand, as well as bottled water, lamps or candles, etc. We have a coleman stove but no propane at the moment. My Eldest Daughter and son-in-law have a propane BBQ that they could use (but I can't find the adaptor kit I bought several years ago to use a large tank of propane with our stove). Possibly they still have some of the small propane containers left over from camping this summer. We have 7 or 8 gallons of bottled water, about 2 dozen Shabbat candles (that burn for 2 to 3 hours), only a few tea lights and a couple of big pillar candles that would last for a few days.
As for food, we have some basics. There's brown rice, white beans, whole wheat pasta, a big bag of oatmeal, 3 boxes of dry cereal, a few tins of tuna, apples, sugar, tea and coffee. There are some other things on the shelf too (like a box of brownie mix and another of pie crust mix) and a bunch of stuff in the fridge and freezer like hash browns, french fries, Yves ground "meat" (a soy substitute), cheese, milk, butter, eggs, carrots and so on. So we'd have enough to eat if we were stuck for 2 or 3 days and, if there's actually small propane canisters upstairs, we'd be able to cook quite nicely.
We'd stay in our bedroom for the most part, pile all our blankets and quilts on the beds and dress warmly. We'd only venture out to go to the washroom, to cook and to take Dog for walks. It probably wouldn't be the most fun we've ever had but we'd get through it without huge problems. The big thing I learned from this is that I should buy some propane.
What about you? If your power went out for 2 or 3 days how would you manage? Would you freeze? Would you have water and food? Would you be able to cook? Are your cell phones charged?
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