I just "lived" through a 2.5hr power outage. my neighbors all freaked out (there's a faggot-ass neighborhood text group) because its hot outside and they lost their HVAC and they can't flush a fucking toilet or get a drink of water because we are all on private wells. not a single one of these idiots has a backup power source. sparse rural "neighborhood" consists of about 11 houses over several miles. everyone move out here between 2022-2023. not a single one of them has purchased a generator... but they've all got a bunch of shitty quads, POS motorcycles they dont even ride, at least 4 cars per house, busted-ass RV's and several pre-built storage sheds they all bought over the last 3 years.

power goes down out here at least once a month and they all start banging rocks like cavemen. "muh kidz wuz watchin' paw patrol! now I gots to interact wi' dem!"

we have multiple backup power sources. our primary backup is 7k PV solar and 30kwh LiFePO4. we are totally unaffected. we took a shower, watched TV and made dinner with the fucking lights on like civilized people. they all chattered and bitched about "muh hot, Muh kids! Muh water!!" on the group chat. we dont participate in their fucking noise, but the intel is gold.

I hate our loser neighbors.

>>3003099
As a Floridaboy that has stayed for every hurricane, guidelines should be seen as the baseline rather than disregarded.
Truth be told, you'll never be equipped enough and everyone time you wish you had something for one situation, it's useless in the next.
The best thing you can do is focus on preparing for what's likely to happen. In my case, floods, downed trees, and outages. A boat would be nice, but its not practical for the two days every twenty years you MIGHT need it when you could have otherwise have stayed put and let the waters rescind. A tarp could he handy if any windows get broken or you have a new hole in your roof.
But reacting to disaster is not as nearly as helpful as preparing for one. Having plywood ready to go and install over windows will protect them. Having ample food and water just in case shit really hits the fan will keep you from having to go anywhere in hazardous conditions. Battery lights, generator, supplies, plywood, and some pre-emptive debris management are all you really need to be fine during any hurricane.

>>3003099
Town burned down. The air was fucking cancer for two weeks afterword for like a hundred miles in every direction. Couldn't see the other side of the street the first few days. No power for a week. Some spots had no power for months. Couldn't run generators the air was so bad. Engine air filters? Sold out on day 1. HVAC filters? Triple the price. N95 masks? Unobtanium. Decent eye protection? Out of stock. Most stores? Closed. Amazon, eBay, Walmart? Temporarily not delivering to your area.

>>3003099
Made a bug-out bag WAY back when the zombie craze was in, actually ended up using it during a family emergency (not a disaster but let's be honest it's way more likely then TEOTWAWKI).
>Gold Star stuff
A decent water bottle proved invaluable. Equally valuable was the big scarf (like a giant shemagh type thing I got at an open market). I grabbed the bag but not a coat (didn't think I'd be out long), and having a bit of extra warmth was great.
PAPER BACKUP OF VITAL INFO: after all was said and done I actually re-did this. Printed, kept in a waterproof container. Insurance details, people's phone numbers (invaluable in case your phone is kaput, these were all out of date), medical info (this was key), next of kin addresses, etc. You don't want to fuck around trying to remember where you're sleeping tonight when your house has burned down. Also some blank paper/a notebook and writing implements. You get a lot of info thrown at you.
>Pretty gud
Light source is good. I had a flashlight with angle head and pocket clip, which I think might be situationally more useful than a headlamp, but either way a hands-free option is great.
Had a rolled-up poncho in the bottom of the bag, and at one point when it looked like rain I was very glad to have it but didn't use it.
>Wish I had
The bag had been sitting there for years and the candy/granola bars had gone bad. This sucked as I could have done with them.
Change of socks and underwear was great, but the jeans and T-shirt no longer fit me.
Some small comforts would have been nice. Earplugs to sleep, etc.
>Caused issues
Was worried about getting shit for having an autist knife, had no use case for it.
Bag itself looked pretty suspicious (lime green paracord coil and glowsticks on outside) and I ended up having to take it into a bathroom and unclip all the edgy shit from the outside. Still wish it was black and not urban camo print.

I treat each one like a military exercise and I'm naturally ready due to being a lifelong gearhead DIY beast. I take notes each time so I can be even more comfy next time.

Biggest was Hurricane Hugo which was cake because my base got time off work to help cut trees with the locals. I immediately bought a cheap chain saw because cutting wood beats carrying that shit. (I rented at the time and had no personal need for one.)
I was never without everything I needed and now I own land I'm more than covered.

I fill all my trucks and my four military fuel cans when dangerous weather is inbound. That costs nothing extra because I use the fuel. I have a 150 gallon aluminum truck fuel tank modded with stainless fittings for serious emergencies. I store it bone dry but if need can strap it in my truck and fill it conveniently.

I have many rechargeable flashlights and good quality head lamps, all rechargeable. I keep multiple JNC 660 and one GooLoo jump pack (I'm a mechanic). I hotspot off my phone. My notebooks exist because their batteries are built-in UPS (I get frequent short outages). I USB tether my phone for comms and keep an old CB radio just in case because I'm near truck stops and truckers are informative about road conditions.

I've a good Honda eu2000i generator but store it dry and other than the first ops check never use it. If an outage is long enough it will power my freezer or fridge (I can swap cords since they don't need power 24/7 to stay cold). I'll upgrade gensets since I just added two 240V wells but have ample clean water storage in G.I. plastic water cans.

I leave several blue poly drums open under my eaves for more than ample wash water. toilet flushing and washing up outdoors after wrenching.. I also keep one clean poly drum in my bathroom I can prefill for convenience.

I keep a few boxes of MREs because they're zero hassle. Survival food should not encourage eating so it lasts longer. I keep a full pantry too.

>>3003099
I used to live near several large chemical plants. While, thank God, there were no catastrophic incidents, there were a few situations where I was very glad I had prepped.

>toxic gases
This was the most common incident (2-24h). Sirens would blare, warning us not to go outside and to close all windows. It’s always good to have a few days' extra supply of food and water so you aren’t forced to go outside during an incident. I made it a routine to use those stored items regularly and replace them with fresh stock so nothing went bad

>Water contamination
Fun one: Sirens, announcing that the water supply was cut off until they were sure there was no contamination. Then I realized how much you use water: showering, cooking, laundry, toilet, etc. People started panic-buying water, and you could actually feel the tone in the city shift. It took about 36 hours before the water was turned back on

>Flooding
This comes from my childhood. We used to live in a pretty flood-prone area. Minor floods (where streets become unusable for a day and basements fill with water) were common. I remember one 100-year flood.

All streets were flooded and every basement was underwater. If you hadn't prepped you’d end up with one to two feet of water on the first floor, with no electricity or fresh water for 2-3 days.

We lived in an old house, so we had a proper chimney and fireplace, along with some wood stored nearby on the second floor. Food that didn’t require heating was very helpful. We made it a rule to eat everything in the fridge first, as it would spoil sooner than the freezer contents. We used candles for light. Blankets to keep warm, cuddling together near the fire place.

I remember the routine pretty clearly: it would rain and rain. My parents would check the basement, and as soon as flooding started, they would check every 10 minutes. If the water rose too quickly, we all helped clear out the basement, moving everything upstairs.

>>3003105
sounds like you live in a white trash neighborhood.

>>3003124
you didn't just leave?

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3.39 MB JPG

>>3003380

I mean... I'm not even going to argue against your assumption. the houses are new (2022-2023) and still in decent condition, but I doubt maintenance is going to be their modus operandi. we all have large sections of land, so what they do is what they do as long as they keep their shit on their property. it doesn't generally affect me directly, but I notice what I notice and they do air their grief to one another publicly. they don't use their land or improve it. they seem to go to work, come home and hole up inside. to each their own i suppose. our approach is preparedness, cultivation, improvement, productivity and self-reliance.

>>3003381
If I wanted to get fired from my job and risk looters stripping my house, that would have been an option. I knew people that did leave and never came back. The town lost about 20k people. Many of them went to nearby areas but a little over half left the area completely. When you lose everything its an attractive option. My place survived undamaged so it was much less so.

I was in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, 15 years old.
My parents never experienced a true, grid down hurricane.
maybe a couple of days, yes, but nothing like that.
Anyway, the thing I wish we had most:
>community
I can’t stress enough how fast it went from a quiet night to gunshots heard from all corners.
I lived in one of the few white-ish areas that was left (gone now) and we got to know each other very quickly to set up barricades, watches, and teaching non-gun owners how to use (myself included).
I was nice after a week to feel like I really knew everyone.
>medical knowledge
I don’t need to go into detail. Also get a more robust first aid kit than some Walmart shit. Get your hands on antibiotics and diarrhea medicines.
>cleaning/hygiene supplies
>bug sprays, sleep nets
>sunscreen
>chaffing powder/blister fixes
>non-electrical entertainment
>physical fitness
And I don’t know how to say thins one, but knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
I was surprised how little the adults knew about how to get water or do much of anything.

>>3003425
This is some of the best advice. I would add on that if you live in a condo/apartment/townhouse you are really limited. All my experience is with hurricanes. Long periods (2 weeks) without power, boil orders for tap water, lines/no availability for fuel. Food is relatively accessible, especially early on when all the meat stores are trying to sell what they have before it spoils.

Anyway, basic "I'm prepared" requirements are:
>3000kw rated generator
You will want to run your fridge at least 8 hours a day, 4 in the morning, 4 in the evening. Having a way to charge devices and fire up that old dvd player in the closet adds a sense of comfort and normalcy.
>gas for generator
Unless you have tornadoes or flash flooding, you usually have some warning that a storm is coming. 3 days before it hits, get 20 gallons of gas and have your generator topped off. This should last you at least a week with 8 hours of power per day.
>chainsaw
Very handy. If you get a gas one, have 2.5 gallons of mixed oil/gas on hand just in case, and an equal amount of bar oil. Know how to sharpen your chain and have extra chain. Electric ones work well, you get what you pay for in this category. Charge them off the generator.
>water
Fill up your bath tub when the storm is hitting. Tape up your drains with duct tape if they leak. That's 40ish gallons of potable water and a way to flush your toilets. 3 or 4 cases of water.
>guns and ammo
Rifle>shotgun>pistol is standard wisdom. The reality is whatever you have will work as long as you practice at least once a month (almost nobody does this). A few hundred rounds of ammo lying around should be available at all times.
>food
A dozen cans of the food of your choice should be available for every mouth you want to feed, remember your pets! Big ol bags of rice last a long time. Same for beans. A few pounds of jerky is nice to have too. A deep freeze can be filled with the meat being sold by the butcher with no power.

ive been in several major disasters,
community is more important than anything
insular preppers like this crybaby white trash retard >>3003105
who can do it all and fuck you to everyone else have it all wrong

then water, then propane

>>3003470
How to do communal preparedness? Asking for fellow 4chan user who don't talk to neighbor that much or bring up much deeper subjects. What works as opener and conversation piece?

>>3003470

while I will agree community is advantageous, you have to have perspective. these people have no skills, no readiness, no desire to improve and they all live moment-to-moment spending more than they earn on shit they dont use, ignoring improvements, maintenance and nessesities. their idea of "community" if i was to participate, would be showing up hands held out, hungry, hot/cold and asking to charge phones, park children in front of my TV and pile into my air-conditioned home like sardines, filling my toilet and septic with their shits that they cant flush at home.

we did "community" at our last house. it turned into neighbors who didnt respect or even comprehend boundaries and getting stolen from on 2 occasions. this was in a decent suburban neighborhood.

as for your assumption of white trash... some of them definitely are, others are just people who are used to Mega-Low-Mart, Grid & Government being their providers. there are a 5 "million dollar homes" in our area. we are one of them. I have basic relationships with 3 of them. the rest are trailer houses. some are new(ish) doublewide trailers, some of them are absoloute entry-level singlewides. I dont fault somone for choosing an affordable housing option, I do observe what they do afterwards, how they treat their land/home and how they act. that's just good situational awareness and burden avoidance.

>>3003513
You don't have a community, you just live near people.

>>3003099
I lived through heavy bombardment for 3 months, in a basement of my apartment building. No electricity and no running water. Make sure you have some candles, blankets and water of course. Radio receiver is nice so get batteries. I probably ate some food but I don't really remember. I was 7.

>>3003519
unfortunately this is just society now
most people are unfortunately a burden if you're capable at all
it would be very nice to live in a community of white people with self sense of preparation and sustainability but the idea is immensely overrepresented on the internet
it's majority just people that want to get away from blacks, which at least we can relate on that
i'm not the anon you've been back and forthing with, but i have gone through quite a few communities the past 10 years and have made an effort to know my neighbors and besides the 1/10 outliers it really just hasn't been worth it

now in a situation of necessity like new orleans month of violence, well you'll make friendships out of necessity.
but the usual 2-3 days, a week or two without power. i'm fine by myself and nobody is going to get crazy uppity

not the anon you've been talking to, i'm anon 3

>>3003531
Fuck off with the politics shit.

>>3003531
>i have gone through quite a few communities the past 10 years
has it ever occured to you that you might be the problem?

>>3003535
>politics
?
>>3003543
i didn't move because of them or say they're the problem
sharing observations

starlink + battery backup + solar is a pretty great combo

>>3003424
your town burned down, yet your employer forced you back to work?

>>3003425
>I can’t stress enough how fast it went from a quiet night to gunshots heard from all corners.
>I lived in one of the few white-ish areas that was left (gone now) and we got to know each other very quickly to set up barricades, watches, and teaching non-gun owners how to use (myself included).
>I was nice after a week to feel like I really knew everyone.
Seemed like you enjoyed LARPing a post-apocolyptic race war for a few weeks.

Since stuff is already bad as default, even disasters are treated as normal here. But once in a while we get trucker strikes due to high fuel prices so gas stations dry up really fast, stores start to get real empty and people get even more stressed.
So it's just a matter of always having enough food (make one big purchase that lasts at least 1 month) and fill your tank when you feel a strike is incoming.
One time this went for longer than usual so all the booze started to disappear real fast. In my neighborhood there was a kid who had a still and made booze from fruits and stuff and he made bank during that time.

>>3003630
I'm guessing Anon is an American.

>>3003425
>I can’t stress enough how fast it went from a quiet night to gunshots heard from all corners.
This is how we know your post is bullshit.

>>3003531
Most black people have more "community" than you'll ever have, not that it's necessary because in a true emergency it's every man for himself

>>3003725

no. no they dont.

they have "hoods" where they steal from one another and shoot at eachother. where the EBT queens have 4 children with 4 different fathers, none of whom are involved or supporting. children running around unsupervised fighting destroying property.

no, sir, they dont "have more community" unless you consider getting robbed, shot at or stepping over drug addicts and drunks "community".

>>3003725
i mean yeah they know each other and interact, that's 'community'
but not a single one of them has foresight or preparedness
therefore they're dead weight and communing with them is a net negative

>>3003105
you need power to use the toilet?

>>3003630
My employer wasn't in the town that burned down. It was about 20 minutes away in a nearby town. About a third of our employees lived in the town that burned down. They were allowed to take time off. More than half of them lost their homes. Not a single one that lost their home stayed in the area. As you can imagine, finding a place to stay was difficult and expensive so most of them simply moved away. My place didn't burn down so I was expected to show up for work.

>>3003904

private water well. 225' deep, requires 240v 4" submersible pump to run. no municipal water service out here. wouldn't want it anyway. filthy, ancient water mains and god knows what leeching or being put into municipal water systems.

we get clean, sanitary water that we control in a system we service on known intervals, with testing done by us.

water is life. we control our water. we control our life.

>>3003726
This is what you've been trained to believe, even if it has little relationship to the truth.

>>3003914
You are the perfect target for control

>>3003914
why so shallow?

2021 storms hit the place hard around here. I lived through it ok.

Things that helped:
>Generator for fridges / freezer (I just plug in the whole house but what ever)
>100L of petrol in the shed
>Gravity fed water system with tanks
>Wood fired stove that heats water
>Propane stove and heater
>Cash

Fixed line phone and internet went down before too long and mobile phone system too. Didn't get power back for 8 days. Phone / internet came back before that but was on and off depending on when their generators were fueled up.

I went to work through all of it. We had to drive orders home because all regular coms were down. We hired a bigg ass trailer mounted generator to keep things going and got an electrician to wire it in temporarily. It was way bigger than needed but it was available and it kept the machines going.

At home I listened to scanners and radios. I had CB but never needed to call anyone.

Went to see the old woman down the road and took her a deep cycle battery and cig lighter phone charger.

Local servo (gas station) had a generator and a long queue for fuel as most competitors needed electricity to pump fuel so just closed. I just took a can to work and filled it outside the storm area totally when out on the road.

Having an understanding of electricity help a lot. People were freaking out over fallen power lines. Some power lines had thousands of cars over them before they got hauled off roads.

And there were the covid lockdowns but poeple just got out and cleaned up and the cops had more on their plate to worry about than people not wearing masks.

>>3003346
>>Water contamination

Get a food grade poly barrel (the blue and black are UV-resistant and more durable) or some G.I. plastic water cans for reserve water, and have bleach handy to kill critters. See military water purification info for usage.

I keep several open plastic barrels under my eaves which lets me wash self and clothing outdoors if needed but was most useful for toilet flushing during power outages. I also placed a plastic barrel (a new trash can would do) next to my toilet and fill it when disaster is inbound.

I added a ball valve and garden hose fitting under my sink to quickly fill buckets etc. It's great for mopping floors etc.

>>3003925

Billy badass over here talks big, goes hungry, thirsty and loves to LARP. when you live like we do, we not only prepare, but fortify and protect what we have. Billy Baddass LARPers love to chatter... we act.

>>3003956
you sound like the larper king
and a fag

>>3003099
Nothing crazy, but in my borough in Montréal the power goes out a lot in the winter.

I have a booster pack that doubles as a battery pack that I can use to charge a phone to full a few times. Information gathering and keeping contact with people is important.

A jetboil and a few tanks of fuel for hot food for the kids. When it's cold you lose a ton of heat all the time, a hot meal is a godsend because yummy, but also replenishes your internal heat stores. Very vital when your apartment heating dies.

Also got a bbq outside and bags if charcoal ready to go, again for cooking.

Plenty of books/puzzles to entertain the family.

Batteries, flashlights, headlamps are a must. Just doing shit when the Sun goes down at 15h00 sucks with no light.

And I'm a reservist, so I got some good winter sleeping bags. I have two -20°C bags that I had my kids sleep in those nights.

Power was out for 30 hours during the coldest moments of the year, people straight up froze to death in their places in my neighborhood. Good camping stuff for cold weather is a must, because you can easily freeze to death by having all your heat leech into your surroundings in your sleep.

At least we were able to keep perishables outside. Froze that shit. And plenty of snacks, for the kids.

>>3003966
montreal was based until they banned wood burning
its all downhill from there

>>3003099
I lived through the Texas blizzard that crashed the ower grid in 2021. We had maybe 15 - 30 minutes of power a day every day, so we used it to get as much phone charge as possible We ate things that didn't require cooking like jerky and snacks. The restaurants and convenience stores that were open and had power literally ran out of food and with roads closed no way to replenish their stock for those four days. There wasn't a lot to do beyond wait in the ghostly silence.

>>3003970
Yeah, I agree. But with the amount of chinese and indians and whatever other mystery-meat that moved in, I'm pretty sure if they didn't, you'd see a hell of a lot more trees vandalized/cut/stolen, and smoke out the wazoo throughout the winter. I'm leaving this place in a year and 100% going to have a wood burning stove where I'm going, but I see where they are coming from.

>>3003099
lived through the deadly poonami of 1989. i was the only survivor because of my snorkel