Category: Preparedness

Well, we certainly had a great runner this past week. We knew we were supposed to have snow coming in sometime Saturday night (January 14th). Here in Washington State, an inch of snow is a lot and 4 inches will close things down – schools, businesses, etc. What is normal for us here is to get an inch of snow then it melts by the next day.

We got our 4 inches of snow, so we all just stayed home, not a problem since it was Sunday. Monday wasn't too bad – if you didn't HAVE to go to work or school, you stayed home and waited for the snow to melt. Only it didn't melt. We got another foot to foot and a half over the next 2 days. By Wednesday we knew we weren't going anywhere any time soon. Didn't matter if the roads were plowed or not – there was no way to get out of my driveway to get onto the road.

Then on Thursday, it started to rain. But it was still below freezing, so rather than melt all the snow, it covered everything in ice. It didn't just rain for an hour or so, it rained and rained and rained, coating all the trees which were already heavy laden with snow, with layer upon layer of ice.

All that weight on all those trees caused huge branches to SNAP and break off – it sounded like .22 rifle fire each time a branch would go. This caused wide spread power outages all over western Washington. By mid afternoon, entire trees were snapping and breaking like toothpicks. It was not safe to walk under any trees, and we have a lot of trees.

The power company said they couldn't start fixing any power lines near trees because it was too unsafe for their line crews. It was not safe for me to walk my driveway to the road, because if a branch came down and whacked me, there would be no help.

For most people, once they lost power Thursday morning they lost water. And heat. (and our phones didn't work until late morning, but since there was no electricity, only those people with a plain phone could call anyone). The temperature outside sat at 30 degrees all day (-1.11 C) so within a few hours peoples' houses were getting mighty cold if they didn't have a wood stove or propane heat.

I have one friend who is on a community well – 5 households share that well. When her power went out before she had no water, but she was able to drive to the store and buy bottled water. But not this time. Luckily, she remembered what I told her after that experience. The MINUTE you realize the power is out, FILL UP EVERY CONTAINER you can lay your hands on, because all it will take to empty the water tank is 4 households flushing their toilets, then you'll have no water.

It was 5:45 am when her power went out. She snapped into gear, put on her Petzl headlamp and started filling containers and jugs and pitchers (my 3 friends recently got the Petzl headlamp like I have been using for years. The first thing they said after asking how it was at my place was "Boy! I LOVE my Petzl headlamp!!").

By 7:30 am there was no water. But she had enough for her dogs and cats and self because of her quick actions. And she also had a 7 gallon spigoted container with water that she had stored. Even with the 7 gallon container and what she gathered that morning, she realized that she needed to have way more water on hand. And there were some not so prepared. They were having to melt snow just to have water.

One friend put snow in the toilet tank (the square part that holds the water for flushing). She said if there was no water at all in the tank it took a long time for the snow to melt, but as long as there was some water in there, it melted quite fast (for snow). This allowed her to flush her toilet once a day. [A note for those of you who may not have flushed a toile t with a bucket of water: If you have a bucket half full or more of water and you dump it in the toilet bowl that will flush your toilet. My friend said she tried flushing her toilet by dumping water in but it didn't work on her toilet. What? she has a special toilet? No. What she was doing was glugging water into the toilet bowl from a jug. Rather than half a bucket of water all at once – DOOSH! – she was pouring it in glug-glug-glug-glug, so not enough volume was going in at once to make it flush. Once she changed from the glug-glug method to the bucket-of-water method it worked perfectly. She has never had to flush a toilet this way so she just didn't know.]

So heat. Boy did that get to the top of the list in a hurry last Thursday. It was 30 degrees outside and maybe 39 degrees inside. Again, let's use my friend as an example. Once the phones came back on she called to see how I was doing (great, of course :o) She said she had lit a few candles and that she was freezing cold.

I told her to thumb tack up a blanket where the hallway went off from the living room. If you only have a small amount of heat, use it wisely. For her it was the kitchen/living room area – no sense in heating a hallway or extra bedroom. She had recently gotten 3 flat wick oil lamps. I said get those out and get em going – they will give off more heat than candles. Then about an hour before bedtime, put one in your bedroom and close the door (but leave it open about an inch for air flow). Then when you and the 2 dogs go to bed, turn the oil lamp off. It worked like a charm and they all slept well.

If you have to sleep in very cold conditions, there are things you can do to ensure that you will be more comfortable. Wear a hat – you lose a ton of heat through your head. Before you go to bed drink a glass of water. I know, I can hear you saying But I don't want to have to get up to pee in the freezing cold. Yes, drinking a glass of water before bed seems counter intuitive, but anyone who does a lot of snow camping or cold weather camping knows that a dehydrated person gets frostbite long before a hydrated person. They know that that glass of water can mean the difference between hands and feet that are freezing all night long and just won't warm up and having a good night sleep with happy hands and feet. If you're lucky enough to have several nights of really cold weather check it out.

So the candles and the lanterns, and closing off the hallway helped – she got the temperature up into the mid 40's. She had planned on buying, at my recommendation, a Big Buddy propane heater but "just hadn't gotten around to getting it". My other friend said she planned on buying a kerosene heater, but "just hadn't gotten around to getting it yet". We all know that story – we'll do it next weekend.

I got one of these heaters several years ago and they are brilliant. There are 2 models, the Mr Heater Buddy and the Mr Heater Big Buddy heater. Don't bother with the Buddy heater – it does 9000 BTU so it is good for a bathroom. Get the Big Buddy heater (pictured here). It does 18,000 BTU and 9000 BTU. PLUS it has a built in fan that runs off D cell batteries, so rather than a just a pool of heat close to the heater, it will blow that heat out throughout the room. And the batteries last a really long time.

These are safe indoors because they are designed to be used indoors – they have a low oxygen sensor with emergency shut and other great features. AND THEY ARE ON SALE AT CABELA'S IN LACEY!! WOO HOO! They usually run $149.99 and are on sale for $119.99. (do not get the $85 one – that is the small one and you WILL be disappointed) You will also need to get the 12 foot hose that connects the heater to a propane tank, and then you will need a 5 gallon propane tank or two. They will tell you the heater also runs off those dark green 1 lb propane cannisters. Don't bother with that. Go for the 5 gallon one like the one on your BBQ grill.

Please note: DO NOT EVER EVER EVER USE A TANK TOP TYPE PROPANE HEATER INDOORS. They use up oxygen at an alarming rate and are only meant for open areas with tons of ventilation. First you start getting bad headaches. Then you die.

BACK TO WATER, THE TOPIC FOR JANUARY

My friend had a 7 gallon container of water. It was outside. If it is really cold out for a long time, and you have barrels of water stored in an unheated shed, or out behind the garage or by the back door, what's going to happen? Yep – they are going to freeze. Hopefully, you left 4 or 5 inches of "head room" when you filled the barrels (that means empty space, you don't fill the barrels up to the rim). When water freezes it expands. If you fill the barrels all the way up, and then they freeze, the bottom pooches out and the barrels fall over, or they just crack. Neither is a good option.

A one gallon jug of water will freeze solid quicker than a 5 gallon container, and that will freeze faster than a 55 gallon barrel. If it's winter, and you know you are in for a very cold stretch put a few containers of water inside, so if you lose power, you will have water. These square water containers can be stuck on the floor in the corner in any closet. They'll be out of the way, and they won't freeze. Plus they have spigots so they are great for next to the kitchen sink and bathroom sink.

STORING WATER

To clean new or previously used barrels or containers, wash thoroughly, sanitize with a bleach/water solution, rinse well, and then fill with drinkable water. To make a sanitizing/cleaning solution, use 1 teaspoon of bleach per quart (liter) of water. If you are cleaning out a barrel, use 1 ¼ cups of bleach per 5 gallons of water. You want to make sure to coat all the interior surfaces to kill any bacteria that may be there.

Don't use plastic milk jugs – they're very hard to get completely clean and the plastic breaks down after a while. Also, if you buy gallons of water at the grocery store, rotate it out after the expiration date. That plastic will leach into your water as well. When you open a 1 gallon jug of water that you'd had for a really long time, it will taste "funny". Kind of blech-y. That's because the water is leaching chemicals out of the plastic. Get rid of it or mark it as toilet flushing water. (And if you won't drink it, don't give it to your animals unless of course you are in a life and death situation.)

Using bleach to STORE water is different than using it to SANITIZE containers. If you are putting drinkable water in a 50-55 gallon barrel to store it, you use 3 Tablespoons of unscented bleach for that one barrel. If you are putting up one gallon containers of water you can use 10 drops of unscented bleach.

For those who don't want to put bleach in their water, you can use Aerobic 07 Water Preserver. Use one ounce for a 50-55 gallon barrel. One ounce will keep the water good for 5 years.

I got a call from a lady who said she had access to some water but it was green (due to algae). I said to filter out debris by pouring the water through something like a pillowcase and then adding bleach. Following is the official Red Cross instructions. I would add to their instructions, saying that once you had made sure that the water was purified by the bleach, either let the water stand for several hours or over night (uncovered) and that will evaporate the bleach out. Now you have safe water and no bleach. You can also run the water through your Katadyn Drip Filter.

The recommendation to use bleach for water treatment:
 
1. Filter out/remove any solid impurities.
 
2. Add 16 drops of the bleach per gallon of water and stir. This is the same recommendation for either the 5-1/4% or 6% concentration.
 
3. Let stand 30 minutes.
 
4. If it smells slightly of chlorine, you can use it.
 
5. If it does not smell of chlorine, add another 16 drops and wait another 30 minutes.
 
6. If it still does not smell of chlorine after two doses, discard it and find other water.

[NOTE: Sodium hypochlorite of the concentration of 5.25% to 6% should be the only active ingredient in the bleach. There should not be any added soap or fragrances. Clorox brand bleach has started adding Sodium Hydroxide (lye) to their bleach. They say it is still safe to use it for treating home water storage. Yeah, right. And big business really has our best interests at heart. Me? I'd look around and buy some that has no Sodium Hydroxide in it.]
And remember, with a Katadyn Drip Filter, you can get a bucket from your pond, the lake, the river or a rain barrel and just dump 2.5 gallons into the top chamber. It will drip down into the bottom chamber which has a spigot. While the upper part might get green and scary looking, the bottom part has crystal clear good water in it. And the same set of filters will last years and years (I've used the same set for over 15 years).

Teri Simpson
www.OptimumPreparedness.com