So with everything that has happened in Japan

[MrsWildweasel]

Has it made you re-evaluate your preps, and also made you see you need to do more?
I realized we have one more cat that we didn't have and need to make sure I am prepped for her in case we had to leave.
I always try to re evaluate and see what else I might need, etc.

 

[Kurtz]

If something like that happens, lots of canned/preserved food will definitely come in handy, but if you lose your house in a Tsunami or quake none of that would matter (unless you had it stored somewhere else) If your home is unaffected lots of non perishables and lots of ammo is a definite plus.

Edit: lots of water and water purification systems will also be needed.

 

[cockpitbob]

Yeah, I'm re-evaluating. Or, should I say evaluating because we have very little in the way of 1st aid, reserve food, fuel or ways to make drinking water other than boiling.

We just moved twice in 2 years, but are settled now and it's time be more prepared. With CT, MA, NH and VT each having a nuke plant, and NY, NJ and PA having several I think I need to add face masks, iodine, plastic sheeting and duct tape to the list.

 

[GM-GUY]

I ordered my IOSAT 2 weeks ago (1 week before Japan - go figure) still not here yet. My main reason was to finally get some food grade buckets and start putting Rice, Beans, Flour, Sugar, Salt and anything else I can think of away for a rainy day.

However, the place I ordered from had other ideas, all that cool stuff I never knew I needed ...lol

Yes, I have re-evaluated and realize that a swimming pool may not be a panacea for water storage. I have probably 30 gallons of drinkable water stored and 20 gallons for toilet flushing - might need to increase both as if outdoors is 'contaminated' can't get more from the pool.

 

[cockpitbob]

In the worst nuclear extreme, I wonder how good those backpackers water filters are for taking the fallout out of water. Anyone know?

 

[In God We Trust]

Yeah it got me thinking last night. I just got home from walmart witha few cases of water and some extra canned goods for the stash. I feel pretty safe where I live and barring a meteor strike, I think I can ride out any problems at home.

 

[Gonzo]

Not really, aside from not moving to Japan anytime soon.

It has re-iterated some things:

Stay away from urban centers if possible.
Have the tools to get home when that trip home might take several days over really rough terrain.
Know the alternate ways home.
Maintain a network of friends.
Don't centralize all your gear.

 

[Rancho]

I am still having a tough time getting my wife to see the reality of the need to prepare. But she did say something the other day that surprised me, and I quote.. "you can keep your pound of gold and silver give me 200 hundred pounds of food instead" She's coming around and I just ordered a month supply of stuff from www.efoodsdirect.com to add to the other sundries I have ready.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Yes, it has made me go back through what we have, where it's stored and what we need to get. Several reminders have been:

1) Materials to air-seal the house if necessary. Clear Plastic, duct tape and a map of the house outlining every that needs to be sealed.
2) Air filtration if external excersions become necessary. I have fiber dust masks, but nothing in terms of a proper air filtration mask
3) Potassium Iodine - though I do have iodine based water purification tablets
4) Expand water storage capacity (was already planned) Planning to increase from a 40 gallon pressure reserve tank, adding 2 116gal pressure reserve tanks. Since I need about half the storage capacity to maintain sufficient pressure to get water to the second floor, that gives me about 140 gal of continually refreshed water storage after the well pump stops.
5) Look for (not even sure if anyone makes them) storage tanks that would sit in-line with the toilet tank fill line and would be located directly above the toilet so that, in the event of a loss of water or pump power, the resevoir would provide a number of flushes via gravity feed.
6) Expansion of oil lamps and lamp oil storage.
7) Look into possibility of adding a second 275 gal home heating oil tank linked to current home heating oil tank. - If anyone knows any legal / zoning / permitting laws regarding having 2 275 gallong home heating oil tanks with a single fill pipe in a residential home in New Hampshire, I'd be interested.

regarding some of the coments here:

Most radiation is spread through radioactive dust made up of very heavy (dense) particles. If you have an outside pool, make sure you have a pool cover that can completely cover the pool and at the first sign of a possible nuclear incident, cover the pool and put something in the middle of the pool to elevate it above the edges so rain will wash any dust that collects on top of the cover off.
If you need to access the water, run a hose to the pool under the cover and use a pump to remove the water (minimize exposure of the water to the stmosphere) Attached the hose to a float so that the end of the hose is 6-12 inches below the surface - don't draw water from the top (material that hasn't broken the water tension) or bottom (material that has sank) of the pool
If you can, cover the hose, again making sure the cover is raised to direct rain water away from the pool.

Allow pumped water to stand for a minimum 24 hours (48 hours even better) in a holding container. Ideally the bottom 2-3 inches of the holding container is open honeycomb, screen mesh or gravel to minimize disturbing settled particles when you draw water. Skim the surface of the water to remove any floating material.

At this point, the water should contain almost no radioative particles / fall-out and should be safe to boil. (boiling water with radioative contaimints makes a bad situation worse) If fuel to boil is at a premium, add iodine, allow to stand and filter.

Rain-water collectors should have similar bottom filler to described above and allowed to stand. Again, drawing from the middle of the rain barrel will minimize contaminants in the drawn water.

If you have an outside garden, you want to cover it with clear plastic as well to minimize radioative dust contamination of vegitables and soil and build a surface water barricade to direct surface water (which will be contaminated with dust) around the garden.

 

[SheepDog_B]

Yes, it has made me go back through what we have, where it's stored and what we need to get. Several reminders have been:

1) Materials to air-seal the house if necessary. Clear Plastic, duct tape and a map of the house outlining every that needs to be sealed.
2) Air filtration if external excersions become necessary. I have fiber dust masks, but nothing in terms of a proper air filtration mask
3) Potassium Iodine - though I do have iodine based water purification tablets
4) Expand water storage capacity (was already planned) Planning to increase from a 40 gallon pressure reserve tank, adding 2 116gal pressure reserve tanks. Since I need about half the storage capacity to maintain sufficient pressure to get water to the second floor, that gives me about 140 gal of continually refreshed water storage after the well pump stops.
5) Look for (not even sure if anyone makes them) storage tanks that would sit in-line with the toilet tank fill line and would be located directly above the toilet so that, in the event of a loss of water or pump power, the resevoir would provide a number of flushes via gravity feed.
6) Expansion of oil lamps and lamp oil storage.
7) Look into possibility of adding a second 275 gal home heating oil tank linked to current home heating oil tank. - If anyone knows any legal / zoning / permitting laws regarding having 2 275 gallong home heating oil tanks with a single fill pipe in a residential home in New Hampshire, I'd be interested.

regarding some of the coments here:

Most radiation is spread through radioactive dust made up of very heavy (dense) particles. If you have an outside pool, make sure you have a pool cover that can completely cover the pool and at the first sign of a possible nuclear incident, cover the pool and put something in the middle of the pool to elevate it above the edges so rain will wash any dust that collects on top of the cover off.
If you need to access the water, run a hose to the pool under the cover and use a pump to remove the water (minimize exposure of the water to the stmosphere) Attached the hose to a float so that the end of the hose is 6-12 inches below the surface - don't draw water from the top (material that hasn't broken the water tension) or bottom (material that has sank) of the pool
If you can, cover the hose, again making sure the cover is raised to direct rain water away from the pool.

Allow pumped water to stand for a minimum 24 hours (48 hours even better) in a holding container. Ideally the bottom 2-3 inches of the holding container is open honeycomb, screen mesh or gravel to minimize disturbing settled particles when you draw water. Skim the surface of the water to remove any floating material.

At this point, the water should contain almost no radioative particles / fall-out and should be safe to boil. (boiling water with radioative contaimints makes a bad situation worse) If fuel to boil is at a premium, add iodine, allow to stand and filter.

Rain-water collectors should have similar bottom filler to described above and allowed to stand. Again, drawing from the middle of the rain barrel will minimize contaminants in the drawn water.

If you have an outside garden, you want to cover it with clear plastic as well to minimize radioative dust contamination of vegitables and soil and build a surface water barricade to direct surface water (which will be contaminated with dust) around the garden.

uhhhhhhhh.....

some sheeple think I prep hahaha I would go that far if I had the means to but alas, not yet

 

[ShadeWPI]

Sheep,

Main items to store:

Food, Water, Fuel, Medical, Protection, Distractions, Money.

Of those, Water and Fuel pose the most difficult storage and cycling requirements. While I would love to be able to store a 1 year supply of home heating oil on site, I also do need to have usable space in my basement for other things. I currently have a 275gal tank that is routinely filled to about 225-250 with 130-150 gallons by my fuel company. At worst case, that leaves me with only 75-100gal when they refill. In the winter, that's only about 20 days at my current usage. I would very much like to be able to increase that into the 45-60 day range.

For water - my current system only stores abotu 20gal of useable pressurized water before I need to run the generator to restore water pressure. In the winter, this is not an issue because the generator will be cycled more frequently to run the heat, but in the summer it is practical not to run the generator every day if obtaining fuel is difficult and I am blessed to be in a financial situation where I have the means to make such preperations. If my house allowed interior access to the attic, I would strongly consider installing a resevior tank in the attic (likely feeding the hot-water heater to preheat the water and save energy) so that it was able to recover the 10 additional PSI by being elevated above the service locations.

These are extended preparations. Before you start looking into these kinds of investments you should have other basic needs considered and 6-12 months fixed expenses in liquid assets. Investing 3k into your house so you can store 140gal of water and 500gal of fuel oil doesn't do you much good if you can't pay the mortage.

 

[In God We Trust]

For water storage, take a look at these. I am going to get one soon I hope

http://www.waterbob.com/Welcome.do;jsessionid=5EE8A9FF6884937F016AE2B4F3F3075D

 

[SteelShooter]

For water storage, take a look at these. I am going to get one soon I hope

http://www.waterbob.com/Welcome.do;jsessionid=5EE8A9FF6884937F016AE2B4F3F3075D

Nice lead, I like it. I just ordered one from Amazon for $24.99

 

[OPM]

WaterBOB is a nice idea, but do not let it give you a false sense of security. You should have plenty of water stored. During a real emergency you cannot count on authorities disclosing the true nature or duration of outage. In some cases they are likely to delay releasing of the info as long as they can in order to delay panic. Also, in some cases the watermain might break, or be contaminated. This was mainly designed for dealing with potential outages post hurricanes. I guess it could be used for winter-storms, as extra supply. However, the problem – WaterBOB seems to be one-time-use item. Not sure why. If true, it seems too expensive.

 

[SteelShooter]

. However, the problem – WaterBOB seems to be one-time-use item. Not sure why. If true, it seems too expensive.

I'll let you know once I get it, in advance notice situations this will allow me to add an additional 100 gals to my current stored water and potentially let me not dip into it at all.

 

[Knob Creek]

I was in pretty good shape before this. Finally got off my butt and ordered my Berkey filter. I'm looking into how to drill my own well right now. But what has really happened is my non-prep friends finally seeing the light.

Backwoods Home Magazine on driving your own well:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/mcdougall128.html

 

[In God We Trust]

I'll let you know once I get it, in advance notice situations this will allow me to add an additional 100 gals to my current stored water and potentially let me not dip into it at all.

please post your thoughts on the waterbob when you get it. I want to get one, but would really like to hear an honest review on it first.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Company recommends it as a single use item:

When fresh water is no longer needed, slit the side of the liner and drain the remaining water. The bladder should be disposed and recycled.

Most likely this is because there is no effective way to clean and dry the interior of the bladder and prevent mildew & mold growth. If you can solve that problem and make it reuseable, it might be worth while. Also, for it to be effective you need to fill it before you lose water service, which means you should fill it (consuming your bathtube) before every storm that poses a threat to water system failure - and if you didn't fill it, you're out of luck.

For those who have private wells and pumps they can run on a generator, it would make a good tier 2 response. (Power is lost and expected to be an extended outage, line the tube with waterbob, turn on the pump while you fill the storage tank, once it's filled you can turn off the pump and you now have upto 100gal extra storage for that event.) For those on municiple water, you'd need to fill the bladder before the event occurs, or it's near useless.

If you are on municiple water, adding a pressure-tank with a check valve (1 way flow value to prevent you from pushing water back into the municiple water supply) provides continually cycled fresh water that will be available even if the municiple water supply fails. A ball valve after the check valve also lets you disconnect yourself from municiple water in the event of a contaimintion issue (assuming you haven't been running the water and drawn contaminated water into your system) so it can help you minimize your exposure to other water incidents.

The waterbob is a nice idea, but unless you can solve the single-use issue, it's slightly above useless.

 

[SteelShooter]

As far as the single use, I wonder if the cleaning kits made for the camel packs would work.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Might be able to use a camal pack kit. Of course it's also only 10mil (0.010") thick.

Might be worth potentially destroying one to fill it, empty it and attempt to clean/dry it afterwards.

Even if it fails, you can test it for reaction to bleach and iodine in the even that it were to become contaminated.

 

[coastie]

If you have space look at getting water barrels. They are cheap and sit loaded up and ready to go. I currently have several and they work well. I store about 200 gals at any given time. That is about 3 weeks realistically for the family.

I have handled a WaterBOB but never used it. They are single use. From what I saw I do not think that you can effectively clean and dry it out. It isnt durable enough for repeated use. That leads to a dilemma of sorts. If you fill it before the impending disaster and dont lose water/power etc you have now used it and will need a new one. If you wait you wont have the water pressure than you are out of luck filling it.

Ideally an inline system is the way to go. I am looking at having a 2000 gallon tank installed. The lousy part is it would be on the well side of the pressure tank so I need to install a hand pump to get it up to the first floor. But having something like that I would only have to run my well about once a month to replenish it. Would stretch my generator use to years with the amount of gas I store.

I think my biggest take away from the earthquake is that you need to be ready to go. Having a bag that you grab and are out the door in 2 minutes. We keep a basic kit in our vehicles. I am thinking of expanding those a little and reorganizing our grab bags. I have built most of my plan around staying put and I still can only think of one scenario where we would need to immediately abandon the house but it is something I need to update.

 

[SteelShooter]

I have several of the water barrels as well, I tested storing a couple of them outside in an unheated shed over the winter to see if they could take the expansion, and they were able to hold up. That expands my water storing capacity tremendously. When bringing them inside they thawed out in a few days, which is perfect as a backup to what is currently stored in side. As one barrel is used another will be thawed and ready to go. There was substantial amount of 'sweat' that came off the barrels that I have since accounted for when thawing. I feared they might crack, but all is good. I'm going to have the water tested to see if there was any negative affect on them.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Coastie,

If you're going to install a 2000gal tank into the system, why not pressurize it?

Let's say you install a bladder in half the tank and fill it with 1000 gallons of water, then bring the tank pressure up to the 40-50psi that your pump shuts off at. Your water preasure now drops at 1psi per 20gallons, with a 10 psi differntial on the pump, you'd be able to use 200gallons of water before the pump turns on - your pump would only need to run every few days normally - which would really extend the life of the pump, and you'd have about 600-1000 gal of water with useable pressure in the main house.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Steel,

If you can't do an in-line system (or can't afford one yet) storage barrels are great. They just require some maintance (treat with bleach, cycle water periodically, etc) to make sure they're usable in an emergency. They do offer an additional level of protection (especially for municiple water supply users) by providing water that is not contaminated by problems with the water supply - allowing you to go to stored water when the main supply is contaminated - in-line systems only offer that if you're aware of the contamination before it enters the in-line system. Get 4 55gal barrels, fill them up and treat the water for long term storage. Twice a year, use 1 barrel (or empty it) and refill. Mark the barrels so you can cycle through them to keep the water in them fresh.

If you have a pool, each spring start filling the pool with the stored water from last year, then refill the barrels and you constaintly have a 1-year supply.

 

[Blitz1]

Not really, aside from not moving to Japan anytime soon.

It has re-iterated some things:

Stay away from urban centers if possible.
Have the tools to get home when that trip home might take several days over really rough terrain.
Know the alternate ways home.
Maintain a network of friends.
Don't centralize all your gear.

This.

I don't usually reply in this section.

If at Home.

Shit can happen quick, it could be anything. Be prepared to get out quickly and be able take Your shit with You.

I'm thinking your house is on fire, You're sleeping. You wake up then what? That's Go Time.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Blitz,

Absolutely.

Get Home
Bug In
Bug Out

Need to be ready for all three. Also means making sure you have at least some supplies at an off-site location that can be accessed in an emergency. Vacation Home, Hunting Cabin, Work, Relative's House, Garage, Trailer, etc.

 

[coastie]

Coastie,

If you're going to install a 2000gal tank into the system, why not pressurize it?

Let's say you install a bladder in half the tank and fill it with 1000 gallons of water, then bring the tank pressure up to the 40-50psi that your pump shuts off at. Your water preasure now drops at 1psi per 20gallons, with a 10 psi differntial on the pump, you'd be able to use 200gallons of water before the pump turns on - your pump would only need to run every few days normally - which would really extend the life of the pump, and you'd have about 600-1000 gal of water with useable pressure in the main house.

I am tied to town sewer. I have a private well. In a major event I will be sealing my sewer outlet to prevent backflow as the sewer backs up. I dont want to run the main house. The pump would lead up to a deepsink in the kitchen and also a small cistern with a pressure pump. All the grey water for the garden and a humanure toilet. This is a couple years out right now as the root cellar and woodshed are first.

 

[ShadeWPI]

Sounds like a good plan.

I am also on a private well with municiple sewer, but I'm on a hill and several hudred feed above the processing plant, local pump station and multiple relief points so short of a localized blockage, I'm in pretty good shape. Still, what are the plans for sealing off the sewer? Were you able to install a 4" ball valve in series with the main sewer drop?

 

[calsdad]

New England is unlikely to get an earthquake - it CAN happen, but it is unlikely and I am pretty sure the biggest ones they can find in the historical record are in the 6.5-7 range on the Richter scale.

Earthquakes are imminently survivable if the structure you are living in is built up to earthquake code and is not likely to be destroyed by the after effects - like tsunamis', fires, landslides, floods, etc. The downside to this is: Most housing here in New England is very old and wouldn't even come close to meeting earthquake code. Things can be done to "fix" a house and make it more earthquake proof - but you are talking significant re-construction of the house.

If you are of a survalist mindset - building a new home to current California earthquake code - and - current shoreline hurricane code, would be a good thing. You would likely have home that would survive just about anything that New England could possibly dish out for the next 300 years.

For me "survival" in New England is probably going to revolve around more things like societal and economic decay. Making sure your house is not grid dependent (as much as possible) - and having the ability to store things like food, tools, day to day items that are required to live (like extra clothes) - is an important "survival" technique. Having enough and good enough land that allows you to grow some food is important. I've read some accounts of the Great Depression and one of the things that constantly pops up is the food problem. If people lived in the city - they had no -place to grow food. So they were stuck relying on the "system" to get food. If we go into some sort of Great Depression/ German 1920's hyperinflation scenario - having a food cache will allow you to have something to fall back on if food starts to dry up. And in that case I think the best strategy would be to constantly be out there searching and gathering what food you can - but supplement that by eating out of the cache. I think a lot of people operate under the assumption that they would just eat directly from the food cache - and the food cache only, when SHTF.

I live out in the suburbs - so having an alternative form of transportation - like a bicycle, or a motorcycle that gets really good gas mileage, is another survival tool that will come in very handy. Having to walk everywhere will take a lot of time.

 

[calsdad]

For water storage, take a look at these. I am going to get one soon I hope

http://www.waterbob.com/Welcome.do;jsessionid=5EE8A9FF6884937F016AE2B4F3F3075D

That's pretty slick. One of those and a Berkey filter setup and you would have a lot of drinking water stored for relatively cheap money. If you want to store a lot of water - get some old fiberglass bathtubs (probably get them for free from people doing home renovations) - and you could probably rig up a system to store 100's of gallons for pretty cheap money.

I've looked at all sorts of options for storing water (underground tanks, cisterns, etc) - and the basic rule that seems to apply is that it's going to cost about $1 per gallon. A 5 gallon can - is going to cost you about $5.00. A 1000 gallon underground tank - is going to cost you about $1000.