[KYwildsurvive]

He is a reply to my introduction post:

Originally Posted by tjwilhelm

Welcome aboard, Adam! If you feel up to it, it would be interesting to read about your experience of being without power for almost a month, and to learn what you've done in the meantime to prep for the next one.

Thanks in advance!

...I had to rely on my girls parents to bring us kerosene. (Talk about feeling like you can't take care of your family.) I was humbled. I didn't even have a heater (her grand pa supplied that) or a radio. We went 5 days without contact with the outside world. On the 5th day, the dollar store opened and I was able to get a radio. I also picked up some candles (what was left). Resources were exhausted quick. Lanterns, oil, camping supplies, and kerosene were bought within hours of the power outage. Kerosene was hard to get cause gas stations run their pumps off electricity. I was surprised that none of them had generator back up.

The funny thing is, I was in Wal-Mart the night before the storm and everyone was in a mad rush to buy everything up. Me being naive, I was laughing at everyone and at how much they were overreacting about the Ice Storm. Well...the joke was on me.
Once I was able to scrape enough supplies it was actually time consuming to survive. I was actually satisfied when I went to bed. I felt like I had earned my day and had a reason to drink one of them beers I kept out in the ice.

I started out with nothing. These were the items I acquired in a few short days during the storm.

Radio
Lantern
Lantern Oil
Kerosene Heater
8 stick Candles
12 tea candles
a pack of C batteries
Zippo Lighter Fluid
10 Gallons of Kerosene

That's it. Nothing more.

In all we were without power for 2 weeks. We couldn't get our van out of the driveway for days.

I've attached some picks.

[garret]

ah well it could have been much worse and at least now you will be prepared for the next problem.

i think it takes things like this to get most people into the prepper lifestyle, but once you are you can feel confident that you can ride out this sort of thing and not panic or worry

and having to rely on family to help, thats what family is for - they help you, you help them, it's all part of the cycle

[Omegaman]

For our ice storm last year we where with out power for about 10-14 day I think. For us it was like camping in cold weather. I will not lie we were found wanting of a few things I over looked. I only had 10 gallon of kerosene stored and I had only a handful of D batteries oh ya and I only had 1 back up chain, spark plug and bar for my chain saws and for a radio we only had my work shop boom box which eats batteries. The big hassle for us was, both the place my wife works and the place I work have huuuuge backup generators so we had to be to work on time every day which means bathing, so we would heat water on the wood stove and the kerosene heaters and take mini baths. The rest we just used our camping gear, propane & muti fuel colman lamps, kerosene lamps, propane camping stove and kerosene heaters and wood stove. We only lost our phone for 1 day and we have backup old style phones and with our lap top and my inverter in my truck we had internet. With no generator when the frige and freezer got warm I moved what I could out side into big fishing and hunting cooler and we cooked the rest. The good thing was that it showed my wife that being a prepper is not about the end of the world it is about being prepared for what can happen. I was able to learn from my short commings and make changes to fill the gaps that we found. The cool thing was that the place I work was the only place in town other then the police and fire that had power so I had a pretty good preview of what thing would look like when TSHTF

[AlpineZone]

KYwildsurvive, you also got something more valuable then anything on that list. Knowledge.

Tough way to learn but since you all made it through safely this was a very good scenario to go through for future disasters and emergencies. Having the knowledge of preperation and when is more useful then the actual items themselves.

I am sure next time you will be much more comfortable over the course of your scenario. Thanks for sharing this trying time with us and grats on getting through it!

[ozarks dave]

i remember a huge ice storm here in kcmo years ago. i had 1 1/2'' of solid sheet ice covering my truck. they called in power n light crews from up to 500 miles away to help get power back. we were kind of lucky that we only lost power for 3 days and at the time i was kind of naive as well, but i had enough basic stuff to get by with me, my fiancee at the time and her 1 year old(thank god we just bought 2 weeks worth of baby food and diapers etc...), my parents who lived only 10 blocks from us helped out by bringing me my 4x4 quadrunner(dad had his to take mom home after dropping off mine) and i used it to bring home wood for the fireplace from all the downed trees in the neighborhood. get to the store and back n forth to mom n dads. i was lucky. barely made it but we made it. ill tell you what- i will never again go without in a situation like that one.

[cowgirlup]

Thanks for sharing that! You'll be better preparred the next time something happens. And, you won't even have to go to the store hours before the storm and fight the crowds...unless you really want to.

[kevin]

this is exactly why they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger (or in this case makes you better prepared next time)

[tjwilhelm]

Thanks for sharing, Adam! Nothing educates us like experience...and sometimes it's much more comfortable and safe to learn from OTHER people's experience, rather than having to take the hard knocks, ourselves (I've had enough of those, already).

I'm sure you learned, real quick, what kinds of things you'd want to have stockpiled for the next time!

[Herbalpagan]

Last year was an eye opener for many folks with the rash of ice storms, leaving people in various places, without electricity for 2 weeks. I was caught in one, but it wasn't bad for me as I was prepared. It did serve to show me things I needed to do differently and things I needed to improve upon. Now, it's all done and I'm ready for this winter.

[Dick]

The January 5th, 1998 ice storm in the northeast was a whopper. Three weeks after the beginning of the storm, there were still 700,000 people without power. By January 28th there was still 150 000 people without power in Quebec alone.

That’s a lot of kerosene!