Catastrophic Weather and being prepared

I live in a very rural area, in town, and we are the end of the grid as far as electrical feed. Here you need an alternate heat source that does not depend on the grid, and ways to deal with a few days or so of no power, possibly no water, at times. And the weather. We are in tornado alley.

Last night we had the entire region get hit with very bad weather, and the power went. Calling the power company, their entire service area was affected, as they said they lost major transmission lines from tornados. We had firewood though it wouldn't be that cold, and the matches were missing so pinch hit with a autofire bernzomatic (piezo start). We have a second hand generator in the process of having the engine being rebuilt... so.

That said, how ready are you to deal with a natural disaster, having the power disappear, having your water disappear, or worse, too much water and say, what if you lost your roof? Are you ready to deal? What do you need to deal? What if your neighbors aren't prepared and show up on your doorstep? What if someone you don't know comes to your door?

I keep firewood for a fireplace (and plan on doing RMH's, scheduled this summer), and keep a rotating pantry that could feed us for 30-45 days. I keep water on hand and have ponds and means of purifying that water if needed. If flush plumbing disappears we do have bale setups for #1 and can dig pits for #2. I can lean on my landscape for 7-9 months to help feed self. I have backup for residence if I would lose the roof and unless the place was totaled could repair it within a few months by myself with mostly everything on hand and some creative bodging. (our zoning allows a person to do their own work without permit, whether construction, wiring, or plumbing). Only thing I'm a bit short on is if someone else comes to the door and wants what I have.

What do you think one should have on hand whether it's being on grid and losing some of it for a time, or if a natural disaster comes to visit?

We've had a few mild natural disasters here (flood, loss of power, ice storm, wind storm). We're pretty well prepared for plausible natural disasters. Not prepared for meteor strike, zombpocalypse, or things of that nature.

Tyler Ludens wrote:We've had a few mild natural disasters here (flood, loss of power, ice storm, wind storm). We're pretty well prepared for plausible natural disasters. Not prepared for meteor strike, zombpocalypse, or things of that nature.

So, how are you prepared to ride out flood, wind, grid goes down, ice?

Since 30 July last year, we've had two floods (one I took water over 1.25 of my 2 acres, I am talking LAKE plus RIVER), wind over 60 three times and last night was the first tornado warnings of this year (two in different corners of the county, and did we get hail at my location). I found myself only minorly short in that I didn't have matches but was able to pinch-hit my way around that; and got a new box of everstrikes today.

One thing permies will have during the zombieclase, is a lot of our foods won't look like foods to those that depend on the grocery store, and they won't look like traditional gardens. Food forests are a major advantage there, to the uninitiated they don't look like a standing pantry which is what a good one IS. Some of my gardening looks like just that, a real garden; and some of it is natural and doesn't. My spouse had a major freakout for Y2K so I started keeping a 3 month pantry and made hiding places for foodstores (we lived major urban at the time) and learned a few other things. Here it is a town but we are very rural agricultural so I am not as highly tuned or secretive.

One thing I forgot to mention, is I invested in Nokero lights. These are a solar rechargeable inexpensive light meant to last 12-18 months in continuous use and shed light for some hours, to replace kerosene lanterns in third world situations. There after dark lighting is very important and kerosene is very expensive. A Nokero will replace a lantern and pay for itself in a month of kerosene. If you have a simple not slab cellphone, there are some versions that will also charge a phone. A couple of those hung out for at lest six hours a day will extend your evening lighting without a fire hazard. I have purchased a few of the flywheel flashlights (crank them and they light and charge a small battery) and after not long they tend to lose power, they are backup and fine if you have to go check a thump in the dark but cranking them continuously is tiring.

We've been "cut off" for only a few days at a time, so we try to always have on hand at least a week's worth of easy to prepare food, plus plenty of pet food. We have about 3000 gallons of rainwater and a filter, woodstove and wood. In a cold winter when inadequately insulated pipes burst, we didn't feel much inconvenience using water from a rain tank. We didn't use the filter, we just boiled the water on the woodstove.

We were not prepared for the windstorm a few years ago that took out my pastured poultry pen and all the chickens in it.

We might get a big flood this weekend; a system is bearing down on us with flash flood watch. I'm excited to see how our various brush dams, rock dams and earth berms perform in a flood.

I went through a big peak oil prepper/doomer panic a few years ago, so we have a bunch of stuff we've never used, such as solar panels, that water filter, and such.