EMP Shakedown!

About 39 minutes ago there was an accident about a mile up the road. Apparently a car hit a power pole, because now there is no power at all in our neighborhood, or any of the surrounding neighborhoods. So I get a surprise test of my EMP readiness. Woo hoo!

 

My AO used to have that happen with annoying regularity - then the power company installed much stronger steel&concrete poles. Now Bubba's truck or car gets smashed, and we residents don't even notice.......

 

This was about a mile down a country road. Not a lot of modern infrastructure down that way. City Girl (my wife) heard from a friend of hers on the other side of town that their power was out too, but only for about half an hour. It was apparently fairly widespread. It's been off here for about an hour and a half so far.

Went over to our new neighbors to see if they needed any lanterns. The wife told me, "no, my husband knows where a flashlight is, and it even has batteries in it. We also have our cell phones." <sarcasm>It's good to know that when the S hits the F they'll be so well prepared! </sarcasm>

 

Two hours now. Just heard that 2000 homes are affected.

Couple of holes in my preps... I have enough lamps, but I will definitely need more lamp oil. I have about three gallons, but that's not nearly enough. Also, when the EMP hits, I hope it's in the winter... These oil lanterns put out a lot of heat! My electric lanterns put out more light and are very cool, but I am going to need solar-rechargeable "D" cells. I've been toying with the idea of getting a bunch of those solar lawn lights, the triple LED type. I could charge them during the day and bring them in at night. I think that would be a great addition to my preps.

 

Lights just came back on. Woo hoo!

Good point ghrit. I do have a couple of gallons of kerosene as well. Our last house was about 90 years old and had no heat. On really cold nights I would fire up a kerosene heater. When we moved into this house I kept the heater, just in case. I haven't used it for about seven years now. I stockpiled some new wicks and a new ignitor for it.

My understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, is that kerosene has a much shorter shelf life than lamp oil (which is basically a more refined and purified kerosene). Am I wrong about that?

 

Am I missing something?

Where does the EMP come into play?

 

Holy crap! Am I dying? Have you heard something? You'd tell me if you heard something, right?

Colt, no EMP. Not yet anyway. I was just saying that since my power went out without warning it was like an EMP shakedown test of my preps.

 

I had a rude awakening (literally!) one evening. Power went off, and my bedside fan died. But, the ol' Curly Wolf is prepped! I switched it to 12VDC battery power, checked to make sure the entire 'hood was without power (it was), and went back to sleep.
Next morning, heard on the news that the power substation some thirty miles away had blown, and they cross-connected to another leg. Had to order a new huge transformer unit, to be delivered in about a week!
I am within sight of the local main electrical plant, and had always thought we were on 'the main leg' coming directly from there! "Tain't so, McGee!"
I am not so trusting and complacent about my power supply any more!
Genset ready to go, plenty battery and oil lamps. Been working with rechargeable AAA, AA and D cell batteries for my gadgets. A bit of scratch upfront for cost, but CHEAP in the long run! I figured conservatively, with only 100 chargings, the AA batteries end up costing one cent a piece! ANd they are supposed to be good for a thousand chargings, according to the ads.
Slowly changing all my flashlights and lanterns to rechargeables. A few at a time, like my food preps. Spread the cost over time.
Picked up two more steel five gallon cans - NATO style but with plastic screw-on caps with nozzles. Filled my van using a siphon hose with bulb - a test to see if it works - it DOES! Slow but no having to lift and hold a 45 pound can forseveral minutes - much better for us older preppers!
Got a couple bigger coolers, to put food in if the power dies and the fridge ain't running. I may not want to be running the genny to keep it going, depending on what the neighbors are like.

 

I have been using the Sanyo Enloop for about 6 months now and they really work good as far as AA batteries go. Also just bought some of the AAA and they are working great. I haven't found any rechargable isn the D Size yet....

 

Our power goes out every time a storm comes through or someone's kid drinks too much beer and drives daddy's truck into the main power pole. We're all kinda used to being out of power for several hours and sometimes days. I've been putting money aside for a whole house generator for a while now, almost have enough.

 

I'm with ditch witch. big wind, no power. Rains no power. Ice storm, no power. Calm, sunny spring day, no power. So we get training time quite often as our distribution network is overloaded.

Can be minutes to more than 2 weeks (in the case of ice storm). good to practice life w/o power.

 

Is it OK th use kerosene with those cheap oil lamps with the crank up wicks?

 

Here's what I have always heard: Lamp oil is highly refined and purified kerosene known as "liquid paraffin". You can use regular old kerosene in those cheap oil lamps, but there is a little more smell and soot. You can also supposedly use paint thinner, but under NO CIRCUMSTANCES ever... EVER... use gasoline! Your lamp will go BOOM in your face!

*edit* - From the Wikipedia page about kerosene lamps: Mineral Spirits also known as paint thinner, white spirit or stoddard solvent, due to its low (under 110 degrees) flash point, may lead to a serious fire or explosion and should NOT used in a kerosene wick lamp.

 

I have about 3 gallons of kerosene in a 5 gallon container. It's been there for about 5 years and it still burns fine in my Colman lanterns and space heater.
(before you say anything- I have more than 3 gallons- but I wanted to let you know it lasts a long time if you keep it sealed up)

 

Practicing for an EMP event is a lot more comfortable when you have a wood stove--and a ready supply of firewood.

Here in a suburb of Denver, the power lines were installed underground. I really like that; in New England ice storms, high wind, snow and sometimes even heavy rain brought tree limbs down and knocked out power.

However, even with our power lines underground, we do get occasional outages. Usually, they are due to a backhoe cutting a line or, more frequently, our light, dry powdery snow can get blown sideways into transformers and short them out.

We've got the candles and the oil lamps. And several flashlights. But my newest wrinkle is to pick up a few hand crank-flashlights and make sure that we have those in each of our cars as well as on every floor and in each person's B.O.B. Since each hand crank flashlight is about $10 at Walmart, they are not yet, too high in price to make them hard to acquire.

We also have a large rocket stove for cooking family meals--or for boiling water.

 

I'm in central Florida, so even in the coldest winters we usually only have two or three times a year that the temps ever drop below freezing. That's one thing I have working in my favor. Even on our coldest nights, we could make due by bundling up in blankets... not that I would like that, but we would be OK.

I need to start stocking up on kerosene I guess. I only have a couple of gallons right now, but you've inspired me. I have three of the 20 pound propane tanks and about a dozen of the one pound canisters. Those are for my camp stoves and lanterns. Oh, also for the grill. We'll be able to cook at least.

Back in 2004 we had three hurricanes hit our part of the state within a month! First time that had ever happened, and hopefully the last. I was a Scoutmaster at the time, so I had lots of camping equipment, including camp stoves and a non-electric drip coffee maker. The morning after the first storm, many of my neighbors were out surveying the damage. We made coffee and handed it out. We were the neighborhood heroes! Actually, it was around that time that I started thinking about prepping.