SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Survival is about more than water. Today features a few great articles that make that distinction.
Living Without Electricity
Gulf Power, the power company most affected by Hurricane Michael, is announcing that they hope to have electricity restored to 95% of its customers by October 24th. However, that estimate is only for customers who are affected by system outages. If the power drop into your home has been affected by the storm, you will need to wait longer as you are most likely on the bottom of the priority pile. That’s nearly 14 days without power for most of the population and much longer for some. They have already restored power to some 21,000 customers, but that was the high priority customers and the low hanging fruit (easy to repair). Here’s hoping that those people are depending on commercial power for refrigeration, cooking, or water. Thanks to H.L. for the link.
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People on the other side of America also had to deal with power outages. Pacific Gas & Electric has decided to voluntarily shut off power to tens of thousands of customers due to red-flag wind warnings and the fear of falling trees starting wildfires. Of course, some will remember just a few years ago when the government decided to excuse the power companies poor management of their power lines. The same conditions created some nasty wildfires, but the power companies were not help responsible. perhaps they fear that the largesse of the government won’t extend to them a second time. A hat tip to G.P. for the link.
More than Water
A SurvivalBlog reader sent in this article on how prepping is more than just buying a few cases of bottled water. Many families think that they can just run to Walmart, grab a couple of cases of water and be set for whatever life throws their way. Sometimes, they don’t even think that far too. No, prepping is a way of life. It’s a state of mind that demands that you have most of what you will need to survive before the storm is ever named. It’s being able to calmly run down your checklist from the safety of your garage while others are raiding the shelves of the local grocery stores making it seem like Black Friday sales are happening all over again. The bottom line? It’s taking responsibility for your personal well being.
War on Children
Clint Ekert, SurvivalBlog’s Foreign Affairs Editor, sent in this short YouTube video on the current war on children. While the video is produced by an Austrailian organization, they cover issues ranging all over the world. You will be appalled at how the progressive/left has been sneaking their agenda into the public schools around America and other places. The re-educating of the children is so graphic and so disgusting that they children themselves can’t help talking about it to their friends, which is the exact response that the organizers of this abomination are looking for. Even the comments, which I generally avoid on YouTube, are worth reading on this subject. The film is about 35 minutes long.
DIY Dynamite
Robb Moffett, of Robb’s Homemade life, posted a video review of “Henley’s 10,000 Scientific Formulas for the Home and Shop”. As Robb mentions in the review, this was the original YouTube resource. Before YouTube, if you wanted to know how to make something, this was the reference that you went to. The book covers trade secrets, food, chemical recipes and money saving ideas. It even has a recipe for making your own dynamite. If you don’t own a copy of this book, you should. You can download an online copy of the 1914 edition for free at the Gutenberg.org.
Kicking the Can
Sears is a prime example that you can only kick the can down the road for so long before the consequences catch up to you. Over the last few years, we’ve watched Sears close stores and sell of prime parts of its company in a bid to stay relevant in today’s market. Of course, the real fix would have been to continue to deliver products and services to customers in a way that was convenient for them. Sears missed the boat on that one. I recently bought a Craftsman tool chest from their online store. It was a closeout model and I got a good price on it. There were two things about this sale that really chapped my hide though. One was how many calls I got from the company about the delivery. All told, between the purchase and delivery of the product, I received no less than 14 calls about how they expected me to be at home when they delivered it. The second was the “free” bonus dollars that I earned by purchasing from them. It turns out that there were so many conditions placed on spending those bonus dollars that it took nearly 2 hours of phone calls for me to just walk away from them. Nope, they are still not delivering what customers want.
Catering to Mass Exodus
Reader H.L. sent in this article on how one specific real estate brokerage near San Francisco is capitalizing on the mass exodus out of the Bay Area. According to some reports, 48% of residents say they want to move out of the area citing housing costs and the high cost of living. The brokerage finds out where you want to move to and partners you up with a real estate specialist for the area that you want to move to while helping them sell their homes. It’s a great business concept and my only gripe is that they don’t qualify the buyers based on their life values. I’d much prefer that the progressive/liberals leaving only because of the “cost of living” stay in California, keeping their values from destroying other areas of the country.
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Please send your news tips to HJL. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who watch news that is important to them. Due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” news. We often “get the scoop” on news that is most likely ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!
I live in hurricane country. I have never bought bottled water, let alone in preparation for a hurricane. I just put out lots of buckets and syrup tubs to catch rain water. I’m crazy enough to drink rain water in a normal situation, since it tastes so much better. I’ve been known to run out with my half gallon jars and funnels and fill about 5 gallons of water in the pouring down rain. So why would I buy bottled water right before a hurricane? There’s LOTS of water falling directly out of the sky! Usually my hurricane preps involve thinking through where the cows are at the moment and moving them to higher ground, perhaps wrapping up some chicken pens, moving some piles of junk so they don’t blow down the road 2 miles, cutting some hedge bushes to haul in for the goats since goats don’t do water, etc. It never involves buying stuff. I don’t have time to run to the store at that kind of time!
“I just put out lots of buckets and syrup tubs to catch rain water.”
not any of those orange 5-gal buckets I hope. the orange dye is toxic.
No, none of my buckets are orange. Some are white, some are black. Most are syrup tubs. Why would it matter if you’re using it to flush the toilet?
“Why would it matter if you’re using it to flush the toilet?”
it matters downstream.
Toxic! Really? More than likely you are repeating old lies, biases and tall tales. You could probably drink out of one of those orange 5 gallon buckets for your entire life and have no ill effect.
But, LOL, what you are flushing out of the toilet is indeed toxic.
“Toxic! Really? More than likely you are repeating old lies, biases and tall tales.”
just repeating what the manufacturer said. about came through the phone at me when I called and asked about it – “no! don’t do that!” ….
“Pacific Gas & Electric has decided to voluntarily shut off power to tens of thousands of customers due to red-flag wind warnings and the fear of falling trees starting wildfires.”
prime prepper territory, that region. “hey, let’s go live in the norcal wilderness, we’ll be safe there” ….
Sears management cut their own throats when the farmed out their service to incompetent contractors and let Beneficial Finance take over their loan department.
Beneficial is the reason I never bought another thing from Sears.
“High priority customers and low hanging fruit”
Is it me,or is the tone of the article somewhat negative towards the repairs?
I’ve been thru hurricanes,of course I want the major infrstructure repaired first.Hospitals,sewage and water,major traffic signals,communications,and so on.No,there is a plan,low hanging fruit is a cheap shot.
@cook
You’re reading way to much into a simple phrase. “low hanging fruit” just means tackling the jobs that give the highest return for the lowest amount of effort. i.e. fixing a downed power pole that feeds a whole neighborhood and brings 200 customers back on line will receive a higher priority than individual customers that need attention. The goal isn’t using the lowest amount of effort, but attaining the highest yield for what effort you do use.
No it’s not a cheap shot – just a fact of doing business.
Catering to Mass Exodus:
Someone just sent this to me… Only with Portland in mind…
The new Portland travel commercial, brought to you by the #TedWheeler doing absolutely nothing!
(YouTube Video)
Str8DonLemon
Published on Oct 14, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxlSrnWgvqc
Duration 1:19
No longer available due to copyright issues
My apologies.
Maybe its culture/semantics/regional/whatever.
All my life that was a derogatory statement,meaning taking the easiest,laziest way.Grabbing the apples off the low branches,even if they are rotten,unripe,full of bees,etc.,just because you could reach them…..vs. putting your best effort to get the best results.
Kicking the can:
It turns out the current boss at Sears has been buying up the best assets as Sears sells off. Sounds like what Jack Nasser tried to do at Ford Motor Co. He bought up elite auto brands, Land Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin, and Volvo, for FoMoCo then tried to combine those with the Lincoln brand to create his own company, Premier Automotive Group. Then the goal was to destroy FoMoCo. It almost worked, Ford almost went down the tubes under his watch. They should have thrown his butt in jail (or maybe a contract hit would have been more appropriate) for what he did to Ford.
The guy at Sears (I forget his name) has been in charge since 2005. He seems to have been much more effective at destroying Sears than Nasser was at destroying Ford. He will walk away with prime assets while Sears goes down the toilet.
I’ve been off of Sears for years ever since the last telemarket call that I had gotten from them. Their caller called me trying to sell me storm windows. I informed him that I was on a no call list and that he wasn’t supposed to be calling me trying to sell me anything. His reply was ” I’m not trying to sell you windows, I’m just calling to see if you want to buy any.” I never bought a thing from Sears from that day on.
Had a problem with Kmart. They gave me corporate number which answered Sears. Had forgotten Kmart was part of Sears. My main problem with the calls was that corporate answers from the Philippines. First I had to argue with a computer. When I finally got to one of numerous humans, none of them could speak understandable American English. Though one argued that she could speak English.
Overall my assessment was, “no wonder they are going out of business.”
Had the same problem with ATT. My internet and phone provider ended service in my area. ATT couldn’t seem to get their act together and provide me with service for both. I’m talking to someone in India or Pakistan not here. Finally gave up and called someone more local, they spoke American English and had my service set up in a couple of days. No more ATT ever, ending Directv (also ATT) soon.
I live in the united States. I want to deal with people who live in the united States. American English is my first language, I want to do business with people who speak American English as there first language. If that makes me a bigot, so be it.
As for dealing with Sears, I made the big mistake of having them install a furnace and central air conditioning. The workmanship was absolutely horrible. I could have done the job by myself and with more professionalism. Bye Bye Sears.
Sears should of crushed amazon and the other web retailers like ants but was wholly incompetent. The management should be facing criminal charges for negligence and the CEO for conversion.