January 13, 2007
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Even though the precipitation's whapped Dallas and is moving east, They keep saying more will form and move in overnight and tomorrow, meaning look for it to get Really Bad.
Therefore Don has shrugged himself into his down-filled jacket, pulled on his gloves, and headed off to the store while the heading is good.
"So? What do you want me to get?" he inquired, looking at me expectantly.
Drat. I hate questions like that. Hmmmm....what do we need to buy in the event we get iced in for an unspecified length of time? How the heck should *I* know? Figured we'll call out for pizza tonight, and I've enough for dinner the next two nights. Milk. Sprite. Cat food. Toilet paper. You know....the usual stuff.
Truth is, we don't get homebound by bad weather often enough to learn to think like that. I don't go to the store on a daily basis, but it's unusual for me to let more'n two days go by without stopping in. In any case, there's always the unconscious recognition if I forget something it doesn't really matter, as I can either run down to get it or have Don stop on his way home or something. Trying to think of what we might need because we might not be able to get out has always been difficult for me.
Was there 'ere such a city mouse as I?
Comments (6)
After one particularly bad winter and on the advice of FEMA, I decided it would be a good idea to stock up for 7 days' worth of suppies that could be prepared without electricity. We have a generator, so all I needed was to have something that I could do on a stovetop. Canned stuff keeps about five years. Think soups, stews, canned veggies and dry milk. Oh, and chocolate. FEMA actually recommends having chocolate on hand, which proves that not everyone in DC has oatmeal for brains.
LOL!!!
Faron's becoming with the idea of needing a generator. We've never had a long power outage in our house. Our neighbors often have them, but for some reason, our house - the oldest in the neighborhood! - doesn't get zapped with those big storms. We're usually only affected by transformer problems.
As for stockin' up before a storm, within 24 hours before a storm you'd be hard-pressed to find a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk or rock salt in any store around! Fresh fruit is also something that we usually think about, too, for some reason, perhaps because we know we'll be living on canned stuff for the duration.
Once we made pizza over Sterno during a power outage. I'd had the dough prepared before the power went out, and the radio newscasters were all saying it could be 24 hours or more before the power would come back on, and Jason was scheduled for surgery the next morning. He'd specially requested pizza before his "hunger strike." Sterno's another good thing to have on hand.
me<><
Just got back from a trip to the store myself. Plenty wet and the temp is beginning to fall now. Checked out a couple of NWS radar models and there's definitely more on the way. Just went shopping Friday, but wanted to make sure we had enough of the important things--Oreos, Cap'n Crunch. Actually it was just a junk run, but I managed to grab a few rolls of Charmin and Bounty and some drinks. Making a pot roast with roasted veggies today, so that should keep the place nice and toasty! Be safe over there in my old hood!
There is a basic underlying preparedness theme in this area, so it's unusual for families not to have their year's worth of canned and bulk foods in a spare room downstairs. Used to be three years was commanded by the LDS leadership, now it's one. And a 72 hour kit, which includes a gallon of water per day, per person, first aid stuff, a change of clothing per person, any medicines a person might need (insulin, epi-pen, etc)
Heh. Makes me think we might make this a family project soon.
I confess I do almost nothing for preparedness. I do go shopping if we're really low on food and the storm is threatening to interfere with my normal shopping, but if I have a couple days' worth of food around, it doesn't occur to me to run out and get anything just because there's threatening weather.
Maybe it's complacency, but the thing is, no healthy person of moderate or better economic standing has ever, to my knowledge, died or been permanently disabled by lack of preparedness for a snow or ice storm in Erie, PA. The heat and power always come back on within a day or two (they haven't been out more than a couple of hours in the 14 years we've lived here), and we have relatives with a private gas well within 15 miles. And snow and ice are really the only things we have to "worry about" that are at all predictable.
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