.

I don't mind childproof.  What I mind is making them so hard to use that I end up spilling fuel.

In the end, with a simple siphon, I've solved that little problem, too.  Thus, pre/post fuel cans really don't matter much to me.

This is some good gouge.

Bump

Yes, and may those assholes die of testicular cancer.

bump

bump

"Not only secondary roads, but everything down to back country logging roads, and have a vehicle that can navigate them. I know just about every logging road and state forest access road in my county, and patrol them regularly to keep up on their conditions, and wont hesitate to use them if the need arose. I bet that almost no one else would even think about those roads."

Be sure to have up to date information on the back roads you plan to use.
Go for a Sunday drive and mark on your gps or paper map changes in the road conditions, new home construction, gates (locked/unlocked).
And don't believe the paper maps.  See for your self.

Our forest service road appears to go down our mountain to the highway.

It does not.

We have taken to keeping our gate locked most of the time due to the number of RV's and lost hunters trying to get to the highway.

After a heavy winter of snow and rain the road conditions are very poor and often require the use of 4wd.

Too bad the tally taker from the goverment came up in a small sub compact car to find out the numer of folks at our place.

Dear husband had to pull him out of the bushes after the older fella got stuck trying to turn around.


If you join your CERT or Red Cross chapter you can often get a vehical id pass to use when you need to travel to your assigned duty station.


J

BTT

Thanks Bama for the tips...Tagging this thread. I will say the biggest decision is wheter to bug-in/bug-out depending on events. Sometimes the desecion time is litteraly a few mins at most. My wife and I have a plan in place and meeting points setup to meet up in the event communications, (cell phones/radio/etc,) are down. If conditions warrent the first place is the meet at home asap with other points setup as conditions permit, for my wife I made her a "play me" cd for her car with instructions in case of emergency. Now that I think of it, that info is a little out of date so I need to refresh it.

In short, keeping a low profile while getting the hell out of a dangerous area is the first priority. My only worry about using "back-roads" to get to my final hold-out is bandits praying on people. No one wants to be involved in a shootout in the backwoods.

TAG

something i did a while back.

no matter what shtf event we need this.



"water"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R69bTSuYK7E

I'm glad I surfed onto page 53 and saw this thread.  There's a lot of good input from members here...

ETA:  Needs more First-Aid info though.  Packs, kits and essentials.

Great thread from an always engaging ARFCOMER..

Was hoping this would show back up....

Thanks for the info, Bama.

Taggig ow.

holy thread resurection Batman

Here's a forum for first aid discussion. I've posted to it before, I think, but it's worth posting again.

http://zombiehunters.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=43

And this is a great thread. I'm pleased to see it resurface.

Kind of relevant,considering what's going on in Egypt. Sure its still a remote possibility that something like that would happen here, but it makes you think of being prepared none the less.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I'd rather see people actually searching for and resurrecting old threads that apply to their question than the endless and repetitive creation of similar threads that we see.

One thing you can do for water storage is store it in 2 litter soda bottles or 1/2 or 1 gallon juice bottles. They are much more durable than milk jugs. I have had a few milk jugs leak, but soda bottles take along tim to go bad. For storage, throw them under a bed and forget about them til you need them.

tag

I recently bought three more shitty 5 gallon fuel tanks from Wal-Mart.  I figure, worst case, I'll put a siphon hose in them then pour the rest out through a funnel if the normal spouts don't pour.

Why not spend what you spent on those to buy a 'real' tank?

 

If you don't already have one, do yourself a favor and buy a super siphon. It's a plastic hose with a copper check valve on the end. To fuel a vehicle with one of these and a plastic gas can you just sit the can on the roof of your car, stick the hose into your tank and the valve into your can, and then jiggle it up and down until the siphon starts. Works great.

During Hurricane Charlie I was sitting on I-4 down by Disney when the local am radio station said there was a tornado warning.  The report said they spotted a funnel cloud right where I was stuck in traffic.  Us locals started looking in our mirrors and out the windows.  I jumped into the grass median and took off.  I looked like the Pied Piper. After about 3/4 mile the traffic cleared and I got back on the pavement and out ran the 1st squall line to the house.  In closing the median and grass shoulder will support the weight of the everyday 4 wheeler.
 

Come on, Bama, how often does a nuke plant meltdown happen?

Just buy a case of water bottles. It's cheap, and I have no problem drinking water that has been stored in a hot Phoenix storeroom for several summers. I keep maybe ten cases on hand in 2 different sizes, and I make sure my mom has 4-5 cases in her garage.



I have some serious bulk containers too, but commercial bottled water is versatile and pretty rugged.









 

I read this three years ago now and remember going out and adding all this to me DD/BOV/Trail Rig Xterra. Since the tornado's up here I have had 3 punctures from roofing nails and fixed all of them in less than 5 minutes each using my kit. Love this thread Bama and thanks again for posting it.

tag

Good thread. I am by no means an expert. I dont have a bunch of high dollar cool guy gear but I can get by on what I have. I lived, grew up and worked most my life far from town and learned to make due. The unknowns is what bothers me and my unknown is ppl or how ppl act during a crisis. Hearing yours and others experiences along with the pictures really puts things in perspective.

A couple that stick out, that have been covered here, but still almost bit me in the ass. First the situation-
The tornado's missed my home by just about 400 yards and hit while Mrs. Racer and I were on our way home from work. She frantically calls me on the phone as I am entering our neighborhood to tell me she is stuck less than a quarter a mile from home and that every road she has tried is blocked by either downed trees or power lines no way forward and no way back. She gives me her location and I tell her to stay put and I will make it to her. So I start trying roads and everything I find is blocked no way around. Cell phones have now stopped working and I am using my Iphone to use the map/GPS feature so now I am slightly lost as I have traveled into an area I am not wholly familiar with. I finally regain my bearing and finally get to her location only to find she is gone. I try the phone....not happening....suddenly I get a text from her that she is home and all is well so I retrace my route and make it home.
Where we failed.
Lack of cell phone service - I have read it a million times and seen it posted just as many that if you can not get a call through to text message! Sure enough I get home and we try it a dozen times and even though the calls would not go through the texts went through every time. Knowledge we had but failed to make use of.
Depending on a smartphone map - Yeah I'm a tard. Never even occurred to me that I would not be able to navigate roads just 5 to 10 miles from my house. I sometimes like to just go for a drive or take different routes home because I like the song on the radio so I thought I was pretty familiar with my area. The way things look tends to change even with heavy rain much more so when debris are strewn every where and trees and houses have been removed down to dirt they stood on. Once things have calmed down here both vehicles will have maps of our counties and the surrounding ones. Mrs. Racer will also be coming with me on some Sunday drives to become a little more familiar with our county.
Staying at the Agreed Upon Location - What ended up happening was a local farmer, who I have now met and thanked repeatedly for his help, walked by my wife's car while she was crying in a parking lot and asked if he could help her. She explained that she was only a quarter mile from home and that all the roads were blocked. He told her that if she followed him he could get her home. She followed him and he opened a gate on a pasture and took her across a field on a gravel/dirt road and to another street bordering his property and from there she was able to get home.  The only issue here was that I was still crawling my 4wd over small downed trees trying to get to a location she was no longer at. I'm not mad that she was gone but rather that we had no coms as to how the plan had changed because we both forgot about trying to text each other. I would like to be able to say we screwed up here but the place she was at was not damaged when she left it but was when I showed up. So apparently in the intervening 20 minutes from her departure and my arrival a tornado or straight line winds had come through that area causing some moderate damage.
The Big Fail - She was a quarter mile from home and could have walked to the house in relative safety. She was really freaked out and just did not think of it, I'm really freaked out because I know there are rain wrapped tornado's all around the county and if anything happens to her that I'll just fall apart. Again retarded.
Power - My house is wired with a disconnect for generator power but the agreed upon plan has always been to use one of the generators from work, with my bosses prior approval. Problem was that all the generators were loaded in trucks for departure the next day and the trucks would not return for a month. My OWN shiny new Honda should be here in a week.
Where we did not fail.
Food and Water - Plenty of both on hand but more specifically food that did not require refrigeration. We had enough ice on hand be able to fill two large pots with ice and placed one in the fridge and one in the freezer and that allowed the perishables to last four days. We took Iphone pics of the contents to minimize the time the doors were open and we ate those first.
Lights - Plenty of Surefires on hand and two boxes of batteries so good there. Coleman lantern and plenty of candles to provide most of the light.
Security - We both carry so other than that an AR came out of the safe to be out while we were home. Mrs. Racer "qualifies" every two months on her CCW, the house Glock 17, and an AR 15 so I was not real concerned on that front. Where I was concerned was that on day two I was leaving for Utah and then California for the next 7 days. A quick walk across the street to talk to my SHTF buddy fixed all that and he came over and checked on her periodically while keeping an eye on the house.
Fuel - For the generator I did not have and the vehicles was on hand so no problems there. The city of Athens did not lose power during the storms and five hour waits for fuel were common and they ran out quickly as the 3000,000 plus folks from Madison, Huntsville, and East Limestone county came to Athens for fuel and everything else.
Ice - Not really in our plan but for those who do have it as there means of keeping perishables alive be forewarned it disappears from local outlets instantly and if there is no power does not easily re-appear.
All in all we achieved my main goal of not having to go out and fight with the masses for the rapidly dwindling supplies and we dodged a major bullet and were able to learn from it and hopefully be better prepared for next time.





 
 
 

Racer,
Glad y'all came through ok. I'm in Huntsville and we actually found (in our area, at least) that texts were often very slow going through. Slow as in several hours of lag, which really surprised me. What went through reliably for me was gmail sent through the Droid and iPhone apps over 3G. Why? I have no idea. I fully expected SMS to be faster, but it wasn't. So, if you're in an emergency and can't get through by voice or SMS, try email from your phone next before reverting to smoke signals or yelling really loudly.

ETA:



Agree completely on this one. My Coleman was indispensible.I lit it up every night around dusk, then turned it down to a low glow and left it on the porch until bedtime. A partial turn of the knob then gives you a really nice, bright area light. I used it mostly for working on the generator and getting greens out of the garden for dinner. I'll be picking up a spare lantern, parts, more fuel, and hard cases.



Watch the classifieds and Craigslist for the next couple of months. Lots of folks will sell the generators they just bought. It's mind-blowing, but I guarantee it will happen.

I have a Droid phone & have a touch to talk app on it, as do some of my friends on their Droid phones.

I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I wonder if it would work when normal voice service doesn't, since it is an app...

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I'd love to know the answer to that. As an aside, the FM tuner on my Droid Aria is absolutely brilliant. It's got a great scanner, channel memories, and excellent reception. It uses the headphones as its antenna. I wish it received AM (and SW bands would be nice, too ), but that's a small complaint. (I'm talking about the software interface to my phone's hardware FM radio tuner here, and not an over-the-web radio app.)

How well do you gentlemen think bottled water would store in an attic?

It would probably store ok and be drinkable, but it would likely have a strong plastic/chemical taste to it. Some bottles seems to be better about this than others. Some definitely degrade in sunlight, so keep them out of direct light.

I'd store it in a crawlspace before I'd try the attic (unless you're on a slab.)

We have a crawl.  I have thought about building a storage area that is accessible from inside the pantry down there as it is not the easiest to get in and out of.

Would you guys recommend keeping them in their packaging, or using plastic bins?

I would suggest keeping them in a bin with airspace around them, so that they would be less exposed to the hot air.

 

I found numerous holes in my bug in plan with the tornadoes and no power.

Also, there were positive notes.

We had a minor SHTF in the Seattle area in 2006. Power was out all over eastern King County; gas stations had no gas; etc.

I heard on the radio that there was a mile-long gas line at the only gas station in Bellevue with power - the AM/PM on NE8th (auto row). I drove by and sure enough, long line of cars with people standing around looking fucked. The Safeway in downtown Bellevue was crazy - lines around the block.

I got on 405, crossed the lake on 90, and every gas station in Seattle had gas and power. I topped off and went to Costco - again, power, no lines, no craziness.

People on the east side of the lake were so fixated on the nearest solution that they sat in line for hours to buy gas, when a 10 minute drive on the interstate would have gotten them to gas stations with no lines. They were lining up to buy whatever was left at the local Safeway, when a Safeway on the other side of the lake was fully stocked. The Costco in Georgetown had everything you need, when the one in Kirkland was all dark and mad-max in the parking lot.

I live in Algiers, the westbank side of New Orleans.  Shortly after Katrina I came back and was the only one in my area.  I spent one night there and got the hell back to Lafayette La.  When night came the whole place was empty and quite.  I mean I couldn't hear harldy a sound.  Not ever a barking dog.  Creepy!  At about 11:00pm I shut the generator off to refuel and I realized the generator would be the thing that would bring people to the house.  So I didn't run it anymore.  The next morning I was cleaing up and seen a few people drive by.  Just them seeing me in the yard was enough to bring some of them to the house and it made me neverous like I've never been.  The few that stopped probably got bad vibes from me and were on their way.  One thing I've learned is people leave you alone if they think your crazy and crazy people will leave you alone if they think you are more crazy than they are.  At about noon I was on my way back and didn't return until more people came back.  

Anyway, don't stick around and be the only one in your area.  There is nothing to do.  Go to another area and take it easy.  Go out to eat, go see a movie, hit  the pawn shops for guns, and when the power is back on then go home.  If you stay get a generator that is quiet.  And don't get one that uses about 15 gallons a day.  Get one that will run your fridge, a few lights, and the TV.

Yep, same way it was here in this area.

A couple years ago, we had a fuel shortage, and as soon as the local news media mentioned it there was a run on the gas stations.  People were lining up and filling their cars, every gas can they had, and their boats.  Didn't take long for stations to start running dry, and that got people even more worked up about having to get all the gas they could find.  Stations along the interstate in neighboring counties started getting lines and running low.

I hit a two lane country road, drove to the second small town on the other side of the county line, and filled both tanks in my pickup.  I got the impression that the station had seen a few people from out of town, but there were no more than two or three other vehicles at the pumps while I was filling up.  With the amount I was usually driving, both tanks full was enough to keep me going for about 3 weeks.