If the Texas calamity came your way what would you do ?

What would a Firewood Hoarder do if what happened in Texas came your way ?

 

1: Fire up one of 3 generators to keep the boiler pumps & fans running, I keep 2 to 300 gallons of fuel on site at all times.
1.5: Check up on neighbors & nearby family.
2: Break out the saws & chipper & go have a ball in the downed trees.
3: Enjoy the "excuse" to close up shop & cut wood for a week or two.

 

The biggest challenge is knowing when it will end so that I can properly ration generator fuel.

 

We did a threat assessment 12 years ago. Figured out what the most likely event would be, what the most catastrophic event woild be, and then tossed in event stacking. Plans went from there.
We can't possibly plan for every contingency, but even basic planning knocks off a lot of scenarios.

We developed a disaster plan to deal with the lowest hanging fruit (Like filling the tub with water, topping off fuel tanks, etc).

Should a Texas flavored event happen, we too would saddle up, as we did summer of 2020, and go about hoarding. Other than that, sit back, relax and enjoy...being ready to help out if needed.

Sca

 

Continue to stoke the fire. Draw water from the well. Put the food in an ice chest outside. Work the overtime that would be plentiful.

 

This.

Also the local gas station is only a mile away, and they have a generator for pumping gas, which helps until they run out.

 

In that order.

 

I live in Texas and the neighboring cities are just now getting water back online. For me, I live in the country and have well water. I had 40 gals of gas in the barn just in case.... So i had fuel. I fed the house and well pump with a Honda EU7000is and took my Honda EU3000 to my mothers to keep her gas furnace and fridge going. Power was out for 12 hours straight and then on and off for another day. I used about 5 gals in the EU7000 over a 12 hour period, that's running the water well, lights and tv in house and the furnace. We also have plenty of food stored. I also have woodstoves in both shops so if we run low on gas we can move to one of the shops.
I don't believe in expecting others to take care of me. I take care of myself and others. I have delivered water to four different people so far

 

Welcome to FHC! Well done!

 

2nd this. Or 3rd it I reckon. We just had this happen during the ice. Most of my cans on hand were full. But with 3/4 inch ice on everything snapping trees and power poles/lines, especially in southern Va, you don't know how long the event will last. Gas stations that could pump were running out fast. Wife didn't quite understand why I was driving 8 miles to town in questionable weather to fill 2 empty cans when I still had 7 full. I told her you gotta get while you can.

That being said, it's easy to monday morning arm chair quarter back other's situations and events. Hopefully people who have undergone the events of late will use them as a learning opportunity and apply accordingly.

Yeah yeah, y'all dont have to be sarcastic and hate on that last sentence...I know....

 

Mine was off 30 hrs. I have a owb I built several years ago, I have a 2000 watt gen I used to keep frig and freezer going, fired up wood stove and was comfortable, just finished putting together a 15 kw diesel that will run whole house and water pump

 

Geez......well if I lost power I'm going to lose most of our food. The water lines in the house wouldn't break because I can still keep a fire going. We have a water tower in town.....but that means we would be sharing with everyone else in town. That's about 130 people. As far as electricity, we would be screwed......

 

Lived through 14 days without power in the 2008 ice storm. Had a pine branch come through the garage roof. The summer before dad took out the wood/oil boiler and replaced it with a oil only unit. Had also remodeled the area with wood stove upstairs. We had to scramble to get a generator. I learned from that. I will always have a generator and a good fuel supply and a wood stove that does not require electricity to operate.

 

Id move my self and wife out in the shop where the wood heat is. We have a small 2000 watt generator for furnace blowers and maybe a light or two. Wouldnt be fun if it went on that long..

 

Electricity is convenient but it’s easy for me to do without (in the winter).
I have two generators that never get used, from my last profession . I did use them once a little during a 17 day outage (ice storm), for convenience. I went 14 days (ice storm) and didn’t bother.

 

Show up at at amateur cutter ’s place?

With a generator, and wood stove, losing power here would be an inconvenience, but not that big a deal. The internet going down tends to be more of an inconvenience than the electricity going out.

Temperature wise, I heard that Texas was ~40 degrees colder than their average lows. Something similar would put temps at -20 degrees for us. That’s approaching record cold where I am in SW Michigan. The wood stove puts out a lot of heat, and doesn’t have an issue keeping my house 50 degrees warmer than outside. But I don't live in Alaska or even the upper peninsula, so my house isn't built to handle it. Asking the woodstove to keep my house 90 degrees warmer than outside (70 degrees inside when its -20 out) would be a bit much, so I bet I’d be working it hard to get my house up to 60 degrees, and the house would stay 50-60 degrees. Certainly livable, if a bit less comfortable than I’m accustomed to. That raises my admiration for the old timers that did it with uninsulated houses and inefficient, home built fireplaces 200 years ago.

That all being said, it's all about what you're used to. Give us an earthquake, and we'd panic in a way that would make Californians chuckle at our reaction. Give us a hurricane, and coastal Texans would chuckle at our freakout. The thing that I don't know how I could prepare for is a bad wildfire. As heavily forested as it is in the Great Lakes, a forest fire with this much fuel can become a firestorm like what happened with the Thumb Fire or the Peshtigo Fire from 150 years ago, where a million + acres of woods went up in flame in a day.

 

Call the propane company to come out when they can for the generator tank. I have two automatic backup generators, the air cooled backs up the big water cooled unit, which can run the whole house without issue. We are on city water, but have a spring that runs all the time right next to the house that we can use, but it would be some work.

 

Forest fire is our main concern as well.

Incidentally, Harvey is what led us to move away from the TX coast. Hurricanes are miserable.

 

Yep, c'mon over. We all gotta work together when stuff goes bad.