Seems like a dumb thing to do, at least to me it does. I'm no major prepper but I do have stuff in place for an emergency and a couple small cashe's set up. Nothing "super prepper" style though. No bunkers, no massive preparations , just common sense food stores, fuel,ammo, guns, cooking options and a plan ect. That's just about all you can do, I don't expect any major invasion, nor will I prep for one, just more worried about nataral dissasters more than anything else.
Ireane opened my eyes to this. And my preparations I had in place worked quite well during that, and even allowed me to be able to help out in neiboring communities that were hit worse than here. Everything I had planed for like power outages, food, fuel and other day to day needs were all covered with no issues. We lived through it just like a normal routine other than activating a couple stand-by systems I had in place, like a battery sump-pump, and a 12 volt/inverter system for lights. I do need a better solar collector though, the one I have is inadiquite for what I need for longer term use, I just have a portible one to charge a couple batteries, not enough. The power outages were sporadic so refidridearation didn't end up being an issue, but it could have been,I need to do some work there.
I spent over a week, closer to 2 weeks, going around helping out with the ATV delivering food, water, meds, supplies ect, where roads were washed out and there was no other way to get through. Our ATV club did allot during this storm as did allot of us doing things on our own or in with conjunction with FEMA, National Guard and local Fire Departments. Everyone around here pulled together real well and everyone made it through the worst of it pretty well other than the folks that had there homes washed away. Some of the rivers were unbelievible for sure, and that took setting up trams to get across some of those in places. It was kinda nice in a way to be able to break out some of the rescue gear and climbing gear and utilize it again, it gave me a chance to put all these years of training through the FD, Forest Service, and Military to good use. It also gave me an opertunity to find any weak spots in my own preparations and to just use some of the things I do have on hand. I was starting to get a bit rusty with my rope work and had to refer to my riggers hand book a couple times, been a while sense I set up a respectible tram way!!! Just something you don't normally do every day!!!
Remember you want to be prepared to help out others too, not just to worry about yourself. I think this will be the most likley senario for the future, more than "boots on the ground",and Ireane opened my eyes to this. But at least, other than a couple weak points I need to address, my systems worked very well during this storm and aftermath, so I'm pretty confident with how I'm set up.
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