E-Mail 'What I Learned Living Through Harvey, by M.S.' To A Friend

19 Comments

1. I really appreciate the tips in this article. There were a couple I never would have thought of. But more than that, I heartily approve of the attitude. Nothing sensationalist, just solid preparation tips and a desire to help those around him.

2. Great article! I would like JWR opinion on the safety keeping gas in a vehicle as I just don’t know. Also, what are his thoughts on emailing important documents to yourself. It seems like a great idea, but is it too easy for hackers?

   Thank you,

   1. I can tell you first hand that it would be very unsafe to carry extra gas in your vehicle unless it was an emergency. Just a little over a month ago I was returning to my home in Wyoming from a class reunion in Missourah and I had two 5 gallon containers of kerosene in my trunk that I bought in Missourah for my camp heater since kerosene is much cheaper in Missourah, to make a long story short, I was rear ended on I29 and both containers of kerosene ruptured and soaked everything in the trunk. Sure would hated for it to have been gasoline. who knows what would have happened. Trekker Out.

3. from middle florida…73 years…my mother and wife would always wash clothes and clean the house before a storm….we lost power for 9 days…with 5 cases of water in the chest freezer we still had ice at day 7 when we left town. we live in a city and never lost water. living on a well is a lot more fun(work,plan,store). i had a battery powered fan the wife ran all week on the same set of 8 D cells, she REALLY LIKED that fan!!!!
   i restocked water and batteries early but the day before found the radios needed C cells…most ALL the batteries were GONE at LOWES i found a few at the contractors checkout .

   1. Batteries are batteries and volts are volts. I can’t take credit for this, but during Hurricane Charlie we had a radio that needed 6, 1.5V batteries, which we did not have. My brother taped together an assortment of D’s, C’s and AA’s and stuffed them in the battery compartment. Worked like a champ.

4. Informative and well written. Thank you and God bless!

5. Re: gas cans in cars. Can’t comment on the safety, but Canadians routinely fill up 3or4 plastic gas cans here in the U.S., take home to Canada in the back of their mini suvs. I’ve begun swapping out my own plastic cans for metal ones, which I understand don’t leak fumes, so the gas stays fresh longer.

6. How are the winners of the contest determined? My vote for this article – informed, concise

7. I don’t keep a lot of food in the fridge, since there’s only my wife and I living here. Because of the lack of food in he refrigerator there can be a large shift in temperature when the door is opened. In order to fix this, we keep about 10 large blue cooler packs in the freezer and 10 in the refrigerator. The cooler packs are about 8”x8”x2” The rotation between fridge and freezer is done weekly.

   This has two benefits. It reduces the temperature swing, preventing the fridge compressor from running non-stop, and when we expect a long power outage, we move some those into a few coolers and put the food there.

   When this refrigerator dies, I’ll be getting a model with the freezer on the bottom instead of top or side. Since cold air flows down, it should help keep the colder temperature in the freezer longer.

   1. You might consider a chest freezer with a thermostat that keeps it at ‘refrigerator’ temperatures. You can open the top, dance with your wife, and come back to the freezer and it won’t have changed temperature at all, since cold falls and heat rises.
      You may need two chest freezers: one to refrigerate and one to freeze.

8. With regards emailing documents to yourself, it will depend on how your email system works. Some systems keep all the emails on the mail server unless you decide to delete a given email. Others do not keep the email once it has been downloaded to your PC. I use gmail setup so it keeps copies of all my emails. That way I can access them from anywhere I can reach the Internet.

   My preferred way to backup important files is using DropBox. I keep all important files in my DropBox which stores them in a secure server in the “cloud”. I have computers in two states which also store everything in my DropBox. Each of my laptops, stores a subset of the entire DropBox, and can access the rest through the Internet. I can even access my Dropbox from my iPhone or iPad.

9. Documents should be scanned onto a flash drive and put into your BOB.

   Thanks for a great article. I suggest you look at the Long Term Fuel storage link at Solar1234. Science-based recommendations. Go with PRI-G for gas, NOT Sta-bil. Get the 15 gallon barrels with tight bungs.

10. We were 10 miles from the Harvey eyewall in Victoria. Sustained winds of 80 +- and some gust of 90+- (this was not a major storm), compared to 1961 storm Carla which hit the area around 130 +- it was a major storm at landfall.
    Have prepped for many years, but every storm is different. As long as you have the basics Water, food, gas, propane and a generator there is no need for lost refrigerator food, or a lack of too many discomforts. A stronge residence is a requirement.
    This is my 3rd storm in my location since the 1961 storm. Major flood in 1998 kept power out for 7 days as well as Harvey.
    Lots of rain caused problems a couple of hundred miles from the storms epicenter, but those areas did not receive the wind.
    Tropical storm Alicia cause considerable damage from flooding in Houston as well as Hurricane Ike.
    I did have damage as well as losing a 33’ sailboat that went through the Cat 4 eye in Rockport. It built up quick and disappated quickly. We had approximately 18” of rain in a short period of time causing lowland flooding.

    In perspective, those that prepare do ok without outside help, but as usual there are those that never learn, and every day is a new day, and what they learn yesterday has nothing to do with today or tomorrow.
    At 70 years of age I have less and less to tolerance of those who never try to help themselves.

11. Thanks for good tips like new boxes of garbage bags.
    However I did not see the universal currency,(toilet paper), and how much to store?

    1. Sort of tongue in cheek: How much TP would you store if you knew none would be available for the foreseeable future? I think of survival essentials as being similar to fuel in a airplane: the only time you have too much is when you’re on fire!

       1. And…how would you store it?

12. I do all these things…except have policy #/claim # for homeowners and auto.
    They are now on my phone.
    Good idea.

13. I was just down in Beaumont with Team Rubicon helping clean out houses of flood victims. The people of Beaumont, Bevil Oaks and Port Arthur are great. They lost everything, but their dignity. Great article.

14. Emailing the documents to yourself. Don’t. Unless you are OK with Google/Other email entity being able to scan and read your documents.

    If you are, please encrypt the documents and then log in to your account via a browser and start a new email, attach the file(s) and save it as a draft for easy retrieval.

    As for USB thumb drives in your BOB, make sure you are using one that has at least 128bit encryption. Also, make sure you have a PDF reader that you can install (download the full installer)on any computer on the thumb drive also. You would hate to go a computer that is not yours and try to open a document, but the computer does not have a PDF viewing application.

    For me… Originals in the bank safe deposit box, hard copies at home in my G.O.O.D evacuation bag, an encrypted copy on my computer, an encrypted copy in the cloud (Dropbox, Box, Gmail, Microsoft… does not matter) and on an encrypted thumb drives in each B.O.B.

    Please be very careful, if someone got a hold of your info electronically, they can recreate your life as theirs and it would take a very long painful time to work it all out.

    Remember to always keep your passport updated.

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