Survival and Emergency Preparedness

It has been interesting watching how the southern areas have been struggling so much with this storm. We received 7-9 inches depending on where you measured with up to three foot snow drifts. The wind chill was nasty with -30f, but overall it wasn't that bad. We turned on our basement wall heater in case we lost power and made sure dad had his back up heater working.

I did have to get out my extra heavy long underwear (my Underarmor 4.0, usually wear the 2.0). I guess one advantage to living where we live, we have learned and prepared for temps from above 100 to temps below zero which occurs every year.

On the plus side, it allows me to buy more toys to be prepared for the different climates that we go through.

What is funny is every winter when I was a kid in PA was 10x worse than this.

But to answer the post - I live in Florida.

I heard about it while wearing shorts and a T-shirt with my AC on. Not trying to be funny, that's the facts. It's 'mildly' chilly at the moment but over the weekend it was in the 80's.

It was much ado about nothing here. 10-12" predicted. 1-3" delivered. At my house we got about an inch of snow followed by a few hours of sleet. No serious accumulation, but everything has an icy crust. Road crews had no issues staying ahead of it so streets never got bad. Temps have been in the single digits at night, but that's nothing abnormal here in northern ohio.

In NY... easy time with 8"+. Snow blower for 75ft driveway is no problem.
Snowing right now, to be up to another 8", but the old stuff was cleared and melted off driveway ( faces south )

Snow is not a big deal after all it is winter and we are supposed to be ready for it

House has a gennie so even if power goes out not an issue for me. ( glad I'm not in TX where no one was ready )

Do you think that some in Texas will change their ways and become prepared? Even if 1% of the 4 million that was out of power starts preparing, that would be 40,000 more people in a better position for the next disaster.

We got 2" on Sunday night and another 6" on Monday. Temps have been in single digits until today when it got up to 21 (heatwave). Went up to my new house yesterday and we had gotten 5" on top of the 13" already on the ground. Temps were around 0. Got up to 5 when I went out to snowblow the driveway. Came home today and as I look out it's snowing again. Supposed to get 1-3".

I feel bad for Texas. They aren't used to bitter cold weather and certainly didn't expect it. Having said that, other stuff (like power outages) do happen and they should have been better prepared. Lots of noise on other forums about buying whole house generators. Not really needed IMO. A portable gen-set for lights/fridge and a couple kerosene and/or propane heaters will get you through just about anything.

Water, food, heat, light, fuel. It ain't rocket science.

I have a 7500w generator... thought about getting a house gen like Generac , but the cost wasn't worth it for the times used.
My gen cost about $1500 and I can run all in house but the few 220v items ( stove, dryer, a/c ) while a house unit was at least $5-6K to 10K.

Thinking I can replace my current unit several times over and usage is less than one time per yr for a few days , IMO it didn't pay.

BUT, will said the generator connection box for the home was worth every penny of $400. Safe and allows you to toggle on circuits as needed.
It can be self wired in if you know /follow basic elec info

Never needed more than a 4K Watt portable gennie for our regular house. I've had it since I bought it in 1999 for Y2K.

Still debating getting a whole house generator for the new house. We do lose power up there on occasion. Since we aren't there most of the time in the winter and have to keep the heat on a house gen-set that would kick on automatically would be useful. And the house runs on propane so a propane genny could be hooked up. Like I said, still debating but probably will bite the bullet and set one up in the spring.

If not always at the home and it gets cold. with the option of propane... I would get a small auto start home unit in a min.
a small generac unit just about $2000+ in 7.5k models ( I did some looking a while back )