Hurricane DISTRICT 10 Preparedness

One thing I should bring up, along with immediately shutting off the natural gas at the meter in the event of an earthquake (if you have it, and possibly propane if potentially damaged), is securing gas water heaters so they don't fall over and start a fire, etc. Newer buildings in the area, I've been told, are required to have them secured. But if you have one that's not, you can screw hooks in the wall or walls, using a stud-finder, on either side of your water heater, and secure it with a chain. (Ours has a little extra slack so we can adjust it according to size.)

Something to think about. Could it have ramifications for us? (I can't see anywhere to show if this article is politically motivated): https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-US-Diesel-Shortage-Is-Worsening.html

  In the October 2022 Preparedness Letter I shared below we talked about ways to stay warm in your home if there is an interruption in heating sources. Below is another option which doubles as a cooker. Pretty cool, I think. (Another option which we will probably talk about in an upcoming letter is Solar Cookers).: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004W7VJU2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=AUEUXQQV6YS3R&psc=1 And, of course, you'll want an adapter hose to hook up to a 20 lb propane tank, so it will be a LOT less expensive to use (scroll down for similar products, as always): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F8DL422/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=AXO3Y8HYXC74B&psc=1  

We will be there with a display about Freeze Drying.  

Hi folks! ( YES THE LETTER IS HERE. SCROLL DOWN FOR IT .) It seems after I publish a new Preparedness Letter (see below), there's always something that pops up and says "You forgot about me!" I wasn't going to cover generators because, like solar power, many people just don't have them (not that it's a bad idea!...especially a multi-fuel one like the last two shown here:  https://www.costco.com/generators.html?brand=firman&refine=%7C%7CBrand_attr-Firman ). But what I DID think of is that if anyone has a generator and gets tempted to hook it up to their house by themselves using tricky, home-made cords and plugs in order to avoid just hooking up everything to long cords, you need to know that that strategy is HIGHLY ILLEGAL and VERY DANGEROUS. In fact, you are likely to fry someone when the city sends them out to repair a line somewhere. You will also end up toasting your generator and other things if the power comes back on un-predictably when you have it ...

It seems a part of the human psyche to grasp at any straw of hope that the safety of the status quo will continue indefinitely. Any soundbite on the evening news that signals that perhaps the spiraling challenges the world now faces will be delayed allows us to be complacent. Further, it’s a natural tendency to believe that if things ever do go wrong on a large scale, that the government or one’s church will take care of everything. Some may even believe that because we have organized blocks, areas, districts and drill once a year, everything will be fine if there is a widespread emergency or major disruption of the resources we take for granted. As one considers an honest appraisal of repeating history, however, and looks beyond the sponsored hype of the major “news” networks, he or she will soon realize that there is no real guarantee that life as we know it in our little valley will continue without more than an occasional bump or two; that sources of the comforts we consider reliab...

Here's a whole page of resources, including some "free" stuff: https://www.ready.gov/be-informed ( And the warm, fuzzy video to go along with it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsy2ENCM3N0 )

So, folks, we didn’t do an entry in July. We were so busy camping, working around the yard and doing a Trek that we just never got to it. Our alibi is that we were practicing using some of our preparedness items.   This month we want to focus on Emergency Kits, sometimes known as 72 Hour Kits. We never know what kind of emergency we might have to deal with at any given time. Because of the Hurricane Fault within our city limits earthquakes are far more likely than a tornado, but we have actually had a tornado in Hurricane in my memory (fortunately it was out by the airport). The quake of 1992 didn’t cause damage to every home, but the widespread damage to homes all over the area that were built on unstable soil demonstrated the fault’s capabilities. There are also possibilities of supply chain disruptions due to events in other parts of the world. It used to be ridiculous to even think of civil unrest in our area, but such events seem to be ramping up all over the world. An underst...