Posted on 07/09/2012 4:27:31 PM PDT by Kartographer
#1) The power grid is ridiculously vulnerable to disruptions and failure
#2) Without electricity, acquiring food and water in a major U.S. city can become a difficult task
#3) Most people are simply not prepared and therefore worsen any crisis
#4) Cell phones are a fragile technology that can't be counted on in an emergency
#5) The internet is wildly vulnerable to natural disasters
#6) Many people have no clue what to do in an emergency
#7) 911 and other emergency services are quickly overwhelmed or completely offline
#8) A national grid-down situation would be far more complex to repair
#9) Modern cities are built on systems that have little redundancy
#10) Mother Nature will humble humanity
(Excerpt) Read more at naturalnews.com ...
I lost power due to Rita, then later when Ike came in.
I don’t have a generator as I have planned for a long time disruption and couldn’t store that much fuel anyway. I will be fairly comfortable in heat and in cold using low tech solutions. I’ll also have water using low tech.
You guys can lift heavy objects;equipment - I can’t. We get almost the same things done, I just have to adjust to my physical limitations doing it another way.
Here’s a trivia question: what about the noise signature of a propane genset? We’re doing decent light discipline, but the noise woudl be an issue.
Land lines are pretty reliable. It all depends if you’re planning for a nuke or a tornado.
Without the generator at the tower itself it’s a moot point whether the landlines are up or down. I do know that after Hurricane Charlie that it was frustrating that cell phones weren’t available.
Odd enough, after one hurricane I had no power but connected my computer and router to my generator and got out to the internet over my cable network. That was a complete surprise.
Nice that you have time and energy to do that but I never have trouble with two year old Stabil-treated non-ethanol gas (although if put in a vehicle you can detect a little ping under heavy load). And treated diesel lasts many, many years for me.
I’m not the one claiming to have all the answers. That’s you. You guys just know there’s a disaster on the way and that you have the solution and that anyone who doesn’t follow your advice is a degerate fool. It’s the height of arrogance. I enjoyed the humbling you received when Y2K didn’t pan out. Unfortunately there’s no deadline for disaster this time — no clear opportunity to test your predictions — so we’re just going to have to put up with you for forever I guess.
My position is that the worst SHTF scenarios are so unlikely that it’s not worth preparing for. I’m talking about the total societal collapse scenarios. For smaller scale stuff, like say a regional weather disaster, you don’t need much more than a week or two of supplies, at worst, to get you through the acute phase.
This smaller scale prepping seems sensible to me as a practical matter. It also doesn’t require the arrogant, antisocial attitude that you see so often in the harder core preppers. Unfortunately it’s the hard core types who lead the movement and do a lot of the writing, and their attitude gets dispersed to even the smaller scale crowd.
The only reason Y2K didn’t “pan out” as you call it, is because computer programmers around the country worked up to 20 hours per day to correct the problem. They did a great job but got no credit because people like you didn’t think it was a big deal anyway. They saw it coming and did something about it. Thanks guys!
Yes and no. For example, in my basement the fiber comes in from outside, and connects to a module. That module plugs into an electrical outlet, and internally has a battery backup. The inside-the-house copper phone wiring that your hard-wired phone plugs into, runs down to that module in the basement.
If you lose power, that module runs off the battery and allows you phone service for a few hours. If you have a UPS or generator, you can plug the module into that. You can't, however, replace the expired battery with a few D-cells.
I’ve heard of a philosophy of generator usage that’s along the lines of what a diesel submarine used to do. When necessary and safe to come to the surface, they come up, run the engines full bore, charging their battery banks, then submerge again to run on the batteries.
You’ll need a battery bank, of course, and run minimal usage off the batteries, and get your hardcore electrical usage done during the “surface” times.
An acoustically insulated structure around your generator would help, as would some noise “breakers” like rows of trees. You can extend the exhaust pipe to somewhere where it would be quieter, too.
You are correct!
The thing with people wanting to point to Y2K as an example of why there’s no need to prepare is a misnomer, yes nothing happened, but not because there was no problem. Nothing happened because companies and governments spent millions of dollars and IT people spend thousand of man hours fixing the problem before it could occur.
Taking heed of a problem and preventing a disaster does not prove disasters can not happen.
If a farmer stores bails of sand bags and water pumps in case of flooding and one spring the Weather Service announces a river crest that’s 6” over the levee that protects his farm, and then he and his neighbors work together and raise the levee a foot. And between the sand bags and the water pumps the farm which is below the river’s crest doesn’t flood.
Does that mean the farm was never in any danger of flooding. Was the farmer and his neighbors fools for working so hard to sand bag the levee and keep the pumps running? Hell was it foolish for the farmer to store the sand bags and the pumps to begin with? Was the Weather Service wrong in issuing their Flood Warning?
Pointing to a disaster averted is NO PROOF that disasters can not and will not occur.
That was a bloody miracle.
Big software projects do not get done on time.
“That’s right — your neighbors are the enemy.”
I live in Wyoming now where my neighbors are great people. But I used to live in California where our neighbors used to shoot at each other. Just because you and I live in nicer places doesn’t mean that everyone else does, too, and it is quite naive and paternalistic of you to chide me for not assuming that everyone else lives in Mayberry.
The one I got is less than 80 dbs according to the literature. Sportsman Propane Generator
Another advantage is that propane burns a ton cleaner than gasoline so there's much less danger of carbon monoxide generation especially if it's adjusted correctly. If you keep it outside a vented soundproofed enclosure probably would really cut down the noise.
Ping
“I understand that a few FReepers have a grudge with Mike Adams...”
There are some who do not like Mike Adams because he does a good job of promoting natural health and zings the FDA, AMA and pharmaceutical companies. And btw, in my opinion, he does this well.
The NaturalNews article posted as the subject fot this thread is excellent, even if we who are prepping already know a fair bit of what is here in the article.
Costco has a 12KW natural gas electrical generator for $2500, including auto-switch (power fails, it kicks on, all you see is lights flicker a few seconds). Makes me wonder how competitive its output is vs. standard electric power costs.
“5. Buy a large enough firearm with plenty of ammo to protect it.”
Good post. Good points. regarding protection for the generator, might consider a few claymores... :)
There are some good solar systems out there that would provide most of the power requirements, and I would consider a good generator, natural gas, as backup.
“Water is the absolute hardest thing to prepare IMO. I can’t come up with good ideas for water storage for long periods of time. A week maybe...forgetting about anything but basic washing, of course.”
I have a 25,000 gallon storage facility for water - it is called a swimming pool. We do not use chlorine; we keep it purified with hydrogen peroxide. Nice to swim in, and a few drops of hydrogen peroxide or SSKI (potassium iodide) will render it safe for drinking.
“Need recommendation on a solar generator that’s at least 1800 kw.(1800, 1801 whatever it takes). Can work inconsistently with sunlight, but needs to be relatively inconspicuous. Is there one like that?”
I met a fellow who designs and installs large capacity solar systems (20 to 40 KW is what we are considering)...$10 to $20,000, turn key. Freepmail me if you are interested after I get more info. The series of panels would take an area maybe 15 feet by 25 feet with uninterrupted southern exposure. We are also looking into storage better than the normal lead-acid batteries...like capacitors.
They don’t have generators in the hood. Just the fact that a generator is involved means you’re talking about a middle or upper middle class neighborhoood, which probably means reasonably decent neighbors.
If I happened to have a generator when the SHTF, I would hope to at least have the decency to let the diabetics on the block store their insulin in a fridge powered by it, or use it to power a radio or recharge peoples’ batteries or whatever. The impulse to hide the generator strikes me as incredibly selfish and vindictive — IOW, pretty typical of the prepper crowd.
Not sure why he keeps showing up on these threads. Just likes being a jerk I guess.
You keep prepping like the rest of us.
I've been dealing with the massive power outages being a generator tech and all.
Was talking with a tech from a different company. During the height of the outages, he witnessed multiple fist fights in the store over the last few portable gensets that were left.
Yes, most folks were well behaved throughout the ordeal, but it only takes a few to stir things up. Once food becomes scarce, all bets are off.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.