Saturday, October 05, 2019

A hole in my "preps"



As a "prepper" I have a dark confession that puts my "prepper cred" in doubt: I don't have an emergency generator.

Not only that, I've never really felt the need for one. Yes, I think they are pretty cool and feel I should want one in case TSHTF. But I would rather learn to do without electricity than to lean on it so much that I end up with another motorized mouth thirsty for gasoline.

So, I try to have non-electric alternatives or methods on hand (or in mind) rather than being dependent on electricity. I have kerosene lanterns and candles, wind up flashlights, and even a wind-up Victrola-type record player for "entertainment". I can make an evaporative cooler for refrigerated items, and could even bury frozen stuff for a little while. I could cook over a fire until my wood ran out (then scavenge from the park, perhaps).

Not sure how well that would all go in the long term.

I would miss A/C in the summer.

The one concession I made to electrical prepping is that I have a lot of rechargeable batteries (AA and AAA and C and D adapters) and a couple of battery chargers that work with my solar cell USB chargers. And I even feel a little silly about those, prepper-wise.

Of course, without electricity, the town's wells won't work-- I don't know if they have back-up generators, but I wouldn't count on it. So, since there is an utter lack of surface water in this region-- except during and immediately after rare rains (I say this as we've been having heavy rains and flash flood warnings all week!) this area is not a long-term good survival environment without electricity.

So, a generator might not even help me that much, since a reliable water supply is the real hole in my preps.
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