HOLY CRAP....WHAT A STORM!
I've been through tornadoes in the Southwest, I've been through hurricanes, I've been through blizzards, I've even been in an earthquake - but I've NEVER seen anything like this. This was worse in my area than most people had predicted of prepared for.
Here's kind of an update of the events and the lessons learned.
Storm came in last Monday night with freezing rain. The impact and the damage varied greatly if you went 50 miles in any direction. Where I live was among the second hardest hit areas. Freezing rain continued into Wednesday morning then the snow started. By the time all was said and done, I had about 2 to 2.5 inches of ice (I measured) and about 3-4 inches of snow.
Monday when I got home from work, I cleaned the flue on the woodstove, moved a bunch of seasoned firewood from the barn down to the house, moved the generator down to the house, took the suburban to town and gassed up, and stocked up on perishable provisions (milk, lunch meat, etc).
Our power went down Tuesday morning about 9:00 am. No flicker, no drama, just dropped off. That's never a good sign - but we fired up the generator and away we went. I've a 5500 watt unit hooked up on a whole house relay switch. It'll run about 10-12 hours on 4 gallons. It will run everything in my house except the electric furnace (which I don't need because of the woodstove), and the cooktop. If I shut everything off, I can run the water heater, and then turn it off and everything else back on so my water pump works (house is on a reservoir, I can't get county water where I am)
Temperatures never got above 25 until Saturday when it hit 40. Sunday it was about 50. The temperatures were a curse, because they caused all the fields and side roads to turn to soup and made it hell for the power guys to get in an work. They were/are pulling work trucks with dozers across peoples fields.
At one point on Wednesday, there was a 5 county area around where I live with 100% power outage. The ice took down a trunk line and 10 substations.
My grandfather lives about 15 miles away, and it was Thursday before I could get to him. Keep in mind I've got a 3/4 ton suburban that's outfitted as a hunting buggy. Lifted, re-geared, the whole deal and it still took me that long. The damage from falling trees was enormous. The "major" roads were difficult due to trees and lines down, but the secondary roads were impassable. I drove through fields at some points to get to my grandfather
At one point on Tuesday it sounded like the army was having artillery practice in the woods behind my house. If you've every heard the top on a huge 100 yo oak hit the ground - it's an awesome sound.
Biggest problem in my area proved to be fuel. There was ZERO gas, diesel and kerosene in my county and two neighboring counties for most of the week. If you got lucky and the station had enough power to run the pumps, there was a huge line of people. I have a tank on the farm so it wasn't a big deal to me - but it was a major problem. Tankers couldn't run until late Thursday or Friday and shortages were still felt as late as Monday. You could drive 50 miles and get all the gas you wanted, but people panicked.
Several towns and counties lost water supply because the water substations went down when the power substations went down and the fuel supplies on hand wouldn't run the purification and pumping equipment for a long enough time. As I said - I have a reservoir, but it's something to think about.
There was/is an entire county that the state has essentially asked people to leave. It'll be at least the end of February before they get power. I'm really remote within my county - so I probably won't have power until valentines day.
I had, at one point, 14 people in my house, not counting the people that wandered through to take showers. It's awesome to see people help each other out! I had a cousin in Missouri that once he finally got in touch with the family, went to Lowe's and bought 8 generators and drove them all night to get to us on Saturday. What the family didn't buy, we took to town and sold for cost.
So ...long story and sorry to bore you with the details.
There were a lot of lessons learned.
Lesson 1 - My wife and I learned that we're not nuts for doing this. We're more convinced than ever that 12 months of lockdown supplies is a necessity.
Lesson 2- We may have to reevaluate how much we need to accomplish our goals in light of the extended family. We have to make some hard decisions on who and how much we're willing to help if it gets really bad. It'll be very easy to be taken advantage of - we've got to put some serious thought into that. Part of the planning from here is to make some hard decisions on others. We're going to have a talk with my extended family. They know what we're doing, and poke a little fun at us - but the tune has changed. Problem is that the neighbors and friends know what we have stashed. We're going to have to tell the family what we are and aren't willing to do in another situation like this. If you have supplies and a plan, and your friends/family do not - it's best to consider that BEFORE there is a crisis.
Lesson 3 - Pack Mentality is DANGEROUS. A PERSON is smart, but PEOPLE are scared, panicky and not real bright. The fuel issues in town really drove that home. There was gas 50 miles away, but we had fights and lines and a shooting over fuel. In a crisis - if you are going into a situation where crowds are likely, ALWAYS have an exit plan and a weapon. Probably - you should give serious consideration to whether the trip is a NEED or a want.
Lesson 5 - Protect/Guard your stuff. People were stealing generators, siphoning gas out of neighbors cars. Nuts. Hell I chained my generator to the support beams on my deck and joined the chains with a bolt not a lock so it couldn't be cut easily. You have to look objectively at what you have - am I a target? Is the placement of this item, the use of this item, or something I'm doing putting me at undue risk of attention (grey man!)
Lesson 5a - Decide NOW how far you are willing to go to defend your stuff and your home. After my issues with fuel, my wife and I had a talk about "what if". She told me that is someone was taking food, firewood, fuel, generator, etc then they were threatening the health and safety of our family and she wouldn't hesitate for a moment to shoot them, and she wouldn't expect me to either. I was glad to hear her say it out loud. Decide that up front..don't get into a situation where you have to decide that under stress.
Lesson 6 - Location REALLY matters. My house is in a REALLY bad location. I've got to build a cabin and storage off the road. My house sits right on a paved road. You have light and smoke when no one else does, and you're gonna have trouble. I had some trouble with people trying to steal fuel. I've got to reevaluate where my stuff is.
Lesson 6a - DIVERSIFY! If you have substantial stores - spread them out in multiple locations. We're going to spread stuff out among several locations on the farm until we can get an isolated storage location built.
Lesson 7 - STORE FUEL. If you don't have the capacity of a large tank like I do - have AT LEAST 7 days worth of fuel in cans for your generator. Get a siphon hose and learn how to use it. Keep the tanks on your cars FULL, and buy LOCKING gas caps for them.
Lesson 8 - Cell phone's are NOT your friend. You don't realize how much you depend on them until you don't have them. We lost cells on Monday and they didn't come back up until the following Sunday. We've got some 10 mile two-ways ans we're going to distribute them to friends and family as an alternate means of communication.
Lesson 9 - KEEP CASH ON HAND. When we finally made it into town, there was no power and no phones in the businesses - hence no credit or debit cards. My wife and I keep cash on hand just for this reason. We have the advantage of living in a community where everyone knows everyone, so you could in most cases write a check - but in a more heavily populated area - that's probably not the case.
Lesson 10 - Things can get REAL bad REAL fast. I would say I got a brief glimpse into a total SHTF scenario. It was short, but it was bad. No power, no heat, no fuel, dwindling food supplies, people with no preparation - and it can get scary quick. This was just three or four days, you take these things away for two weeks? Three Weeks? Longer?.
Lesson 11 - Rural is better (in my opinion) and people are GENERALLY good folks. There was a group of us that went around on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday on 4wheelers checking on folks. We had to take chain saws and log chains to clear some stuff - but we did it. There were groups of people what got together with 4WD's and took the elderly to the shelters. A contactor in town took three HUGE gene's to several churches to help set up shelters.
I learned some great lessons, and got a great test run. We're making modifications to the plans based on the lessons. I hate that it happened, but it was an excellent teaching moment.
