Have a Grid Down Weekend

You’ve prepped for the “big one”, you have your emergency food rations, water, and lighting, along with a lot of other “tools” to help you get through a storm, disaster, civil unrest or just plain old WTSHTF. The big question is, have you tried to eat those rations, and used the emergency lighting and other items in “real time” to see just how effective they are? If you answered no, then you’re in for a rude awakening. Having things on the shelf “in case” is a lot different than using your tools and skills during a real disaster. A friend of mine recently decided to put his “prepping” to the test and go a weekend without power to test his gear. He pulled the main breaker on his house on a Friday to see where it would lead, and two weeks later he’s still “off grid”. I also consider this guy the “Yoda” of prepping, as he has the skillsets required for a broad range of contingencies from plumbing, electrical, building, solar, gardening, emergency medicine and so on. Up here 7000 feet in the mountains, we’re used to power outages and major storms. Over the past two weeks, we’ve had several storms that have dumped well over three feet of snow, my powerless friend reported four feet on his roof, and twelve-foot drifts, and he’s heating and cooking with wood only and doing fine. When the power goes, I go to the box that has “power Outage” written on it and pull out temporary emergency lights for each room, while I prep the solar generator for a longer outage if necessary. The bottom line is, if you think everything will work exactly as the sales pitch on the emergency gear you purchased and put up, you are in for a shock. The first thing you will probably notice is that you don’t have anywhere near enough light to feel comfortable. The darkness is unnerving, to say the least, and if you think your emergency flashlight or candles will provide enough light, you’re mistaken. With a solar generator, and numerous rechargeable LED lights, coupled with my Ryobi work lights, we have unlimited lights in the house, enough (To finish go to www.proficientprepping.wordpress.com )