What's your areas most likely disaster and how are you prepared?

dacjohns

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This winter, especially this week, is a good example of why many of us prepare. It isn't about zombies, it's about natural disasters.

Include Haiti here.
 

The Vail Benton's

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We have flash floods. Normally, they occur in obvious places like the washes and dry river beds, but in a good hard monsoon storm, they can happen almost anywhere once the ground reaches it's saturation point.
Don't drive through a running river or wash, stay indoors, and if you get caught in a storm, head for higher ground and try to stay out of open areas lest you be struck by lightening.
 

SKR8PN

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Summertime around here you need to worry about tornadoes. Winter time we get ice and snow storms. As a matter of fact, we are snowed in at the moment. :clap Kinda hard to really prepare for a tornado. Everything you stash could be gone in an instant..........
 

loriwy

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Blizzards,tornados,prairie fires,high winds and hail.
We have a coal stoker furnace we just installed. A couple tons of coal on hand. Rns with an auger and a couple little blower fans. We have a generator to take care of that problem. The generator should also run our well enough to fill containers. So that takes care of heat and water.
If it could blow away it already has. We have nasty winds quite alot here. thats just a fact of life. We don't build with nails. Only long screws. The gusting winds will literally pull nails out by working te walls back and forth.
Probably enough food put up right now for a couple weeks. Does a living food source count? LOTS of ducks,geese and roosters running around here. Plus eggs from the hens.
The LOTS of fowl running around have greatly eased my mind about prairie fires. Not much grass or weeds to burn around my place.LOL
We've had a few minor earth quakes.(nothing compaired to Cali.) But if Yellowstone decides to go. Only a few moments to worry about that one. I think of Pompei.
 

Quail_Antwerp

Cold is on the Right, Hot is on The Left
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The snow we have now, plus the flooding in the neighboring towns that will prevent us from getting off our hill...that's why we prepare!
 

enjoy the ride

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I've been thinking about this for a bit lately. Probably due to the recent earth quakes.

When I built my place, I put in a pellet stove for convenience and, to tell the truth, a little bit of fear as I never had a wood stove.

Then we had a sudden microwind event (read an unforecasted wind of around a hundred miles an hour that listed about twenty minutes.) I was outside and heard huge crashes all around me. With all the wood around here, there were trees down everywhere. And here that can mean trees with 6 to 15 foot diameters. On our short 7 mile side road, there were about a dozen or more large tree falls that took down power lines and blocked the road.
No power for more than two weeks as the power company repaired populated areas first then worked their way here.
In that time, I almost ran out of propane to power the generator. The tank was down to 15% before the propane truck could get through. And running that generator even a few hours a day cost $300 per week and more.

I have done a rethink- now I have a wood stove. I still use the pellet stove as the wood stove can overheat the house if it's 50 degrees or more outside. I have always kept 5000 gallons of water in storage as water is an issue in the summer and fall.

So, even if you have a generator, can you keep it fueled for a good long time? If you don't have power, can you pump water?
 

Quail_Antwerp

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We don't have a generator. Only reason we'd need one would be to power the fridge, I guess, if power went out...but even then I don't worry about it.

We can cook up the food as it thaws if the power's out. We have 2 sources of heat that don't use electric, and we can cook outside over a gas grill (if we have propane in the tank, and we usually do), over a charcoal grill, or over our brick lined BBQ pit.

As for keeping cold foods cold, guess I wouldn't worry about that, either. We'd use up most of it as fast as we could, and I keep plenty of canned goods on hand, so food wouldn't be an issue.

And we could drink water if we got really thirsty. :)
 

big brown horse

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VOLCANOS! Not really prepared, I just keep a full-ish tank of gas in the car.

Earthquakes too, but again, I'm not all that prepared...they are supposed to be small around here.

Tsunamis. Run to the nearest hill ASAP!!

I keep a full pantry and I have a pretty good sized first aid kit for humans and animals etc.

Volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis OH MY!
 

k0xxx

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dacjohns said:
It isn't about zombies, it's about natural disasters.
The zombie thing is just a metaphor for all disasters. If you're prepared for a zombie outbreak, you are prepared for most anything that nature (or man) throws at you. BUT, if it ever does come to rampaging mutant zombie bikers, I'll be ready.
 

SKR8PN

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My generator is currently hooked to the 500 gallon propane tank that we also use to cook and heat the shop with. I plan on getting another 500 gallon tank just for the generator itself. Since the line is already there for the existing tank, I am going to tie into that line and install a shutoff valve in the existing line. That way, if I have to, I can still run the generator off the old tank.
 
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