Normal food for 72 hour kits

 I prefer to buy normal food from the grocery store for my emergency food supply.  Ready-to-eat meals like this one last a couple of years, and are more convenient for me to buy than ordering MRE's ("Meals Ready to Eat").



(Note: "72 hour kit" is a term that is  going out of style.  After Hurricane Katrina, people have realized that you need to be able to take care of yourself for much longer than 3 days.)

Tick Key

We found this tick attached on the top of my husband's head. (Yuck!)  This tick key was very simple to use, and as you can see, the tick is still alive and intact.  They say that pulling the tick's head off is a bad thing, I suppose you don't want the head to stay imbedded in your skin.  I have also heard that you don't want to upset the tick because it will excrete more poisons/lyme disease into you.  I would buy a couple of these if you don't have one.

Bio Lite Campstove can charge your phone

 I got one of these stoves, and it works great.  You just light the fuel (twigs, sticks, etc.) and as the stove heats up it creates electricity for the USB port.

Some things to think about before a hurricane

Prepare now for what could be an active hurricane season.  If we had a direct hit, we could be without power and without grocery stores for 7 days or longer.  (Think worst case scenario like Katrina.) 

Ask yourselves:

Do we have alternative lighting, and batteries?

Do we have alternative ways to cook food?

Do we have enough water stored or ways to purify water?

Do we have cash on hand if there are no ATMs?

Do we keep at least a 1/2 tank of gas in our cars at all times?

Do we have easily prepared meals which do not need refrigeration? (These are called "shelf stable" meals.)

Do we have a non-electric can opener?

Do we own several weeks worth of baby formula, diapers, food, toiletries, and prescriptions?

Do we have a battery powered radio?


Can we save some clean sodapop and juice bottles to store more water in the back of closets?  This could be used to flush toilets.

Can we fit more canned goods under the bed?

Can we buy some solar powered yard lights? (These work great as indoor lighting when the power is off.)

Can we get another 20 lb. propane tank to use with our grill?

Can we buy an alternative recharger for our cell phones?

Do we have a paper copy of the phone numbers of friends and family, if our cell phone is dead?

If the GPS is dead, do we have a paper map to help us evacuate?

Can we buy a generator, or at the minimum, a small solar battery charger and rechargeable batteries?

Dec. Challenge: Buy Preparedness Gifts

December Challenge: Buy emergency preparedness items as CHRISTMAS GIFTS for many of your friends and family members.
Gifts for lighting or making a fire during a power outage. Flashlights, lanterns, oil lamps, glowsticks, solar powered yard lights, candles, Bic lighters.


Gifts for keeping warm in a power outage. Winter clothing, down coats, down blankets, ski pants, knit caps, mittens, snow boots, wool socks, tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, wool or down blankets, indoor emergency heaters.


Buy gifts for auto emergencies: Battery charger, fix-a-flat, wool blanket, emergency kit, star wrench, jumper cables, car phone charger, flares, fire extinguisher, maps.


Buy gifts for coping with disasters: medical emergencies, cooking without power, camping, etc.


I am sure you can think of a lot more!

An Emergency Kit to keep under your bed

Calamity Janet describes the kit she keeps under her bed, in case there is ever another earthquake or train wreck in her town.  This is really a great idea, and you could tweak her supply list to cope with disasters which are common in North Carolina, like ice storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes.

http://www.calamityjanet.com/oh-sht-kit.html

Food advice for backpacking

A woman asked this question to my husband (who is an avid backpacker and camper):  

Where does your family normally buy the Mountain House meals for hiking?  If I do buy them from Emergency Essentials how long do their orders typically take to get here?  I want to make sure they arrive before the boys go on their 50-miler.

Answer from my husband:  I've never been a big fan of Mountain House.  It is pretty good food, but I prefer lower cost foods from the grocery store.  Not only is it less expensive, but I like the way that it tastes better.  And, I've had fewer problems re-hydrating the food.  MH tends to leave crunchy bits in the corners...

  You might look at Emergency Essential's web site to see what their delivery times are.  But if you ask for faster delivery, you lose the savings and might as well buy locally.

  I think WalMart carries some.  But, REI is going to have a larger selection.

If you want to explore the grocery store style, here are some things we like:

BREAKFAST

  Instant Oatmeal, 2 packets per person per breakfast.

  Hot Chocolate or Instant Spiced Apple Cider

I just boil water and pour it into my cups.

Then, if there is enough hot water left, I use that to wash the cups.

I really don't do much else for breakfast. I just change the flavors to break the monotony.

  We have taken Pop Tarts, too.  They taste good, but they are...

  - very high in calories without filling you up

  - quite heavy.

LUNCH

  This can be the hardest meal to think of.  I want food that allows me to eat when I'm hungry, and I won't have to stop and heat anything.

I tend to bring:

  Bagels & Cream Cheese

  Bagels 

These pack well and don't get too squished,

and are very filling.

 Cream Cheese 

Get the Cream Cheese in the little tub.

They have a bunch of different flavors.

I've never had a problem when I carry it 

deep in my pack away from the sun 

and the heat of my back.

  Trail mix

I make my own with:

  Cracklin' Oat Bran

  M&Ms

  Nuts (what ever variety you like)

Make sure the nuts are SALTED.

You need to replace the salt.

  Granola Bars

DINNER

Couscous.

  Just add boiling water and let it sit for 5 minutes.

There are a variety of flavors to choose from. My favorites are Parmesan or Pine Nut.

Uncle Ben's (or your favorite brand) Flavored Rice

These come in 5 and 25 minute cook times. Make sure you get the 5 minute time to save on fuel.

Ramen noodles.

  I like these better than the Cup O' Noodles because you don't have to carry the empty foam cup after.

Lipton Noodles

  These come in quite a few flavors and have pretty short cook times.

Mashed Potatoes

  Not Plain.

There are many flavored varieties like  

Herb & Garlic,  Loaded Baked Potato, etc.

NOTE: This can leave you wanting something to chew, too.

So, you might want to pair it with Beef Jerky, Summer Sausage, etc.

I always re-package all of the food in freezer bags.  I clip the name & directions from the box or bag

and drop them in with the food then throw away the boxes.

That way I know how much water to add & cook times and which flavor I'm going to eat.

This reduces the weight of all the packaging and if you have left overs, you can put them in the ziplocks. That reduces the smell of the trash bag you carry out.

This is more than you asked for, but I thought you might like to have some options.

(Note from Amy:  I thought his backpacking food choices would also work well for 72 hour kits, or for eating during a disaster when you have to cook without electricity.)

"Contagion" movie: Things They Got Wrong

While watching "Contagion" on Friday night, these are the things I noticed that I didn't think they got right:

They showed that looting took place but no one was hurt. 

They showed that the streets are filled with garbage but no one gets sick from it. 

They show the MRE food line and that they "ran out" but the movie goes on for months without anyone starving. No ill effects from the lack of food. Matt Damon and his daughter stayed home for months...what did they eat?  Typical Americans don't have much in their cupboards.

They mentioned that only 25% of the law enforcement showed up to work, the teamsters wouldn't drive trucks, that all the nurses went on strike, and trash collectors weren't picking up the trash.  They NEVER mentioned the possibility that the workers at the city water supply or public utilities such as natural gas and electricity didn't show up.  Yet power, water, and cellphone service were still working throughout the movie. 

It was silly to me that the department store where the dad bought his daughter a dress was still in business.  That was ridiculous, since one out of four people were dead.  No, I don't think a dress store would still be open.

Anyway, I hate to burst your bubble, but if a "Contagion" scenario really happens, it will be a lot worse than the movie.

Things that "Contagion" movie got right

We finally went to see "Contagion" at the theater, and I thought that most people watching it might catch some good emergency-preparedness ideas.

For instance:

Touching things spreads germs.  Quit touching things.  Or if you do, wash your hands before touching your face or food.

Having food inside your house is a good thing.  The movie showed the riots in the stores, grocery stores running out of food, and the military running out of Meals-Ready-to-Eat.

It would be wise to have some basic medical skills, and some supplies such as masks and gloves.  And to know how to keep the germs from your family members away from other family members.

Staying away from other people is important during a pandemic.  The Matt Damon character isolated his daughter and himself for about a year.

Tips on Emergency Preparedness by Coleman

I was on the Coleman website the other day, and saw this whole page about emergency preparedness.  Of course, they are telling you to buy all Coleman products, but you can ignore that if you want to.

http://www.coleman.com/coleman/emergency/

Only 30 Minutes to Evacuate

Yesterday I talked about an internet post I read, talking about a bedside grab bag.

Here is some more information from that same lady.

She was doing the 7-Day Challenge from http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/.  On Saturday, Sept. 17, the challenge was to grab your 72 hour kits, and load everything in your car as if you were running from an impending disaster, and the time limit to pack your car was 30 minutes.  You were supposed to imagine that your home would be gone when you returned.  What would you take?  And what would fit into your car?

The woman chose to put these things into her car:

 her bedside grab bag
her 72 hour kit with all the regular stuff she normally keeps in there.
Insurance info
genealogy
4 sets of clothing
extra underwear, socks, sneakers,
pillow and 2 blankets
sleeping bag
25 meals she had previously sealed in mylar
picture albums, and flash drives containing more digital pictures
her emergency 3 ring binder (you can learn more about this on  http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/)
solar charger and cords for recharging cell phone
a couple of her precious antiques
water purifier

She said by this time the car was getting pretty full.  She was only able to fit in very few more items:

Bathroom bag with shampoo, toothbrush, etc.
a package of 6 rolls of Toilet paper
1 box kleenex
laptop
her purse

Then she said there was only enough room left for her body in the driver's seat.  And it only took her 18 minutes to collect and load everything into her car.

I thought it was a great exercise to read about.  I was out of town on Saturday, so I couldn't participate, but I am hoping that I will do the evacuation challenge some other time.  I really want to see how fast I can find all my supplies, and see how much will fit into my 15 passenger van (I am pretty sure I will be able to fit more than she did.)

Bedside Grab Bag

I have to admit I never EVER thought of this before.  This is a brand new idea for me.

(Maybe this is more common in earthquake-prone areas.)

I just read something on an emergency preparedness site, where a woman was listing all the things she kept next to her bed.

In her bedside grab bag, she kept a whistle, hard hat, flashlight, work gloves, an emergency ration bar, and a crowbar.  I can only imagine that each of these items would be very, very useful if you were buried in an earthquake and had to fight your way out.  In fact, in an earthquake-prone area, I think any intelligent person would want to keep these things beside their bed.

I am not sure we have that big of a need to keep these things beside our beds here in North Carolina, but we should probably brainstorm what items would help us.

In our house, we keep flashlights beside our beds.

I also keep a pair of old shoes right under my side of the bed, because I heard Carol B. talk about a tornado she lived through.  When they woke up in the night, they had to run through their demolished house and neighborhood, and she wished she could find her shoes.  That was a good enough warning for me, and now I always know where my shoes are.

What other emergency supplies do you keep by your beds?  Add your comments.

Emergency Preparedness while I was out of town

I feel so bad that I haven't been participating in the 7-Day Challenge, but the fact is that I was out of town on business and couldn't.

Now I'm back home and hope to participate in the next 4 days.

To make up for the fact that I didn't do the challenge on Friday or today, I will tell you what emergency preparedness steps we took when we went out of town.

We drove to a town in South Carolina, over 200 miles away.  We had food and several bottles of water in the car.  We took parts of our 72 hour kit in the trunk, including a little camp stove and matches.  We had coats and a blanket, just in case we got stranded somewhere and the temperature went down more than we expected.

In our hotel, the first thing we did was find the stairs, we counted the doorways from our room in case we had to evacuate the building in the dark or in smoke.

We brought flashlights and put them by the bed.

And we brought some cash with us, in case anything happened (power outages, etc.) that made it impossible to use our credit cards.

I am always thinking of worst case scenarios, and although I didn't cover everything, at least I had the means of providing myself food, water, warmth, and light in case any of those things went away.

No, I'm not to this point yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PaxjfQheNes

This is a 44 minute show by National Geographic. "Doomsday Preppers".  Getting food storage and emergency supplies is becoming more common in America, not just among Mormons.  

But these people are a little too over-the-top for me.

Flooding, Power Outages, Wildfires, Hurricanes

It is amazing to see all the disasters going on around the world, and in the United States.

I want you to carefully think about each scenario.

What if you were faced with a wildfire approaching your home?

What if your community was surrounded by rising rivers and you couldn't get out because the roads were impassable?

What if your power was out and you had no idea when it would come back on?

What if Hurricane Maria or Nate comes straight at us?

Think about the supplies you would need, and ACQUIRE THEM.  I'm sure none of the people in any of those scenarios today knew two weeks ago that this would happen to them.

Someday one of these things will happen in our area.  You can't help yourself or anyone else unless you have the supplies and the skills. Get them now.

Did you ever think of storing these things?

We are quite fixated on storing food, but did you ever think about all the other supplies you might need if we end up in the worst-case scenario?

What if we are in a huge widespread disaster, where there are no stores open and no power for an extended period of time?  Do you have enough of these in your storage?

• Batteries

Tools

• Hand saw
• Bow saw
• Hand Drill
• Basic portable Tool Box
• Glue and tape

Miscellaneous

• Black trash bags (all sizes) 101 uses.
• Work gloves
• Roll of window screen (101 uses).
• Thermometers
• Cleaning products, disinfectants,
• Aluminum foil. (all sizes).
• Ziploc bags (all sizes).
• Safety Pins
• W/D 40.
• Small cash of "junk" silver coins and some cash.

Vehicle

• Case of oil
• Vehicle Emergency kit
• Gasoline
• Filters
• Anti-freeze
• Transmission fluid
• Brake fluid

Survival Books/ Instruction Manuals

• Recipes printed out, not online
• BSA Fieldbook
• Dutch Oven Cooking
• many more

For Barter

• Salt
• 2,000 paper matches, (50 booklets per box) for trade.
• Extra quart-bottles of Clorox (for water purification).
• Several boxes (2,000 each) of those sugar packets for trade.
• Extra Duct-tape for trade.
• Needles and tread
• Finger-nail clipper
• Tweezers
• More work gloves
• Fly/Bug killer
• Cloth diapers, plastic pants
• feminine hygiene supplies

Car Emergency Kits

CAR EMERGENCY KITS
Another part of the Day 6 Challenge was to stay stranded in your car for an hour while you are changing a tire, and see if you have what you need. I didn't do that (I changed the tire in my driveway) but I got prepared for having car trouble by making emergency kits for each of our vehicles. I painted "Emergency Kit" on several containers, and filled them with things like flashlights, first aid items, mylar emergency blankets, diapers for our grandkids, duct tape, umbrella, some cash, a magic marker, and heavy paper to make signs with. I also put some bottles of water in my trunk, and a box of Cheerios in case I am stranded with the grandkids. I'm hoping the heat won't ruin the Cheerios.



Then, for the 7th day of the challenge on Monday, we were supposed to:

" Organize your kitchen pantry, and food storage areas. Inventory your long term food storage and three-month storage items. Make a complete list of what you still need to buy." I had already done a lot of those over the past six months, so I was pretty much done.

I feel good about the things I learned on the 7-Day Challenge, and plan to do it again next September.

Day 5 Challenge- Extreme Weather Conditions

(Sorry, it has taken me a few days to load this post. I've been having internet trouble.)

Day 5- SATURDAY- NATURAL DISASTER- EXTREME WEATHER CONDITIONS

This was the challenge for Saturday. Depending on where you live, pick an extreme weather emergency common to your area and live it. (I chose conditions after a hurricane and during an ice storm. You will notice that I changed quite a few of the rules to make them fit the conditions for these two weather situations.) They said "you have water, but you don't have electricity or natural gas." I chose to say we have water, we don't have electricity, but WE DO have natural gas.

They said my fridge food is ruined, but I say my fridge food is fine, because right after a hurricane eating up your fridge food is the first thing you need to do. So today we are eating out of our fridge, and cooking in the solar oven and on the camp stove.

Note: We have not been able to buy anything from the store since Monday, Sept. 13. We ran out of real milk on Wednesday. So we have been living on powdered milk, powdered eggs, and all the food storage we have in our house.

My own personal goals for the day:

Cook more food in the solar oven.

About 11:00 am I mixed some banana bread batter, and put it into a bundt pan (the bundt pan was shiny aluminum and it should have been dark, but I don't own a dark one yet.) I put the pan into the preheated solar oven at 11:35. It baked for 1 hr and 25 min. and the temperature reached 325 degrees. I got it out at 1:00.

While it was in the solar oven, I put water and raw vegetables in a black pot, inside a clear oven-roasting bag, sitting on an aluminum pie pan to reflect the heat, and set it out in the sun to pre warm.

After I took the banana bread out of the solar oven, I immediately put the black pot into the solar oven at 1:00. When I opened the oven to switch the food, the temperature dropped from 325 to 250 degrees. Within 25 minutes it was back up to 320.

I cooked the vegetables for 40 minutes, the water wasn't boiling yet even though the thermometer said 320. But the carrots were a little softer than raw (I like them crunchy) so they were almost done.

Learn to use our camping stove.
I am afraid of fire so I don't like to use camp stoves or grills or matches. But our stove was surprisingly easy to light. I boiled some water in a coffeepot placed on the top.


Figure out how to hang blankets around our stairwell to trap the heat in the downstairs if we have to use our gas log to heat our living room.
We could put a board across and nail it into the wall, and fasten or nail a blanket to that. It will make holes in the wall, but they will be relatively easy to patch and paint later. It will be easier to stay warm in the one room with the gas log if we have the stairwell blocked off. Otherwise, all the heat will rise into the upstairs.

Things I learned:

After so many days without real milk, I finally drank some cold powdered milk (because I wanted milk with my banana bread.) I found that if I added a little vanilla to my glass of milk, it tasted a tiny bit like melted vanilla ice cream instead of that stale powdered milk flavor. It was actually good that way. I will never drink powdered milk plain again, I will always add vanilla from now on. (Note to self: Buy more vanilla for my food storage.)

Using my food storage in the past couple of years, I have learned that stocking up on Wheat Thins or mayonnaise or olives, etc. when they are on a really good sale is a great way to save money. I went to the grand opening of a grocery store near my home this week (yes, I was cheating on the Challenge because I wanted to see their Grand Opening prices, but I ended up not buying anything so technically I didn't actually cheat) and I couldn't find a single thing to buy for food storage. All of their loss leaders were things I had already stocked up on, and I didn't need any more. That tells me that most of my food has been purchased at the lowest prices I could find them during the year.

Thinking of Hurricane Season

Tuesday morning I was walking with Patti, and we were reminiscing about Hurricane Fran, which was our last big hurricane here in the Raleigh area, in September 1996. She was out of electricity for nine days, I was only out for one day. There were fallen trees blocking all the roads. We knew of plenty of people with trees on their house or car. Stores and businesses were closed.

I said to Patti, "If we found out there was a big hurricane heading straight for us right now, what would you do to prepare?"

And we both started brainstorming.

(Remember, we both already have lots of food and water storage, so these are just extra things we would do.)

(For those of you who have moved here since 1996, and have no idea what to do to prepare for a hurricane, pay close attention.)

Here is the list we came up with:

Buy another propane tank for the grill. (For cooking outdoors.)

Do all the laundry. (You may be out of electricity for awhile.)

Fill up all the spaces in my freezer with 2-liter bottles full of water. (A full freezer stays frozen longer. And ice is always handy when the power is out.)

Fill up all the cars with gasoline. (Gas stations can't function without electricity. Also, if there is a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, the refineries might be nonfunctional for weeks.)

Get the bikes repaired. (It is good to have another form of transportation if gasoline is unavailable.)

Get sandbags. (I'm going to get 4 bags of playground sand from Home Depot, to put across my front door. During Fran, we had 9 inches of rain in one day. I think my front door is low enough that I fear some water is going to come in there if the water can't drain from my front yard fast enough.)

Obtain a battery or solar radio, buy a replacement for my little portable TV. (We threw it away because it was analog. We loved that TV during hurricanes because we could plug it into the car and find out what was happening. So now we need a digital TV with an antenna.)

Fire Extinguisher Care

I was worried that my fire extinguishers were too old so I called the fire department to see if they would inspect them. The fireman said they don't inspect fire extinguishers, but he said to just look at the dial and see if the arrow pointed to the green area that says "Full". He said once it is discharged it has to be serviced.



He also said that the powder inside can get crusty on top from settling. Here's what to do to prevent that: Every six months or so, turn it upside side down and back again. Rock it back and forth, you should be able to feel the powder pouring back and forth inside. If not, knock on it with a rubber mallet to loosen up the powder.