Sandy is no zombie apocalypse (at least not yet anyway), but this sort of thing always gets me in a “disaster readiness” sort of mood, where I’m likely to be found rotating the jerrycans of gas (old gas into car, new gas into jerrycans), testing our small “hail mary” generator, and doing a quick check of that canvas bag that contains flashlights, candles and that hand crank radio from ages back.
I engage in a lot of routine maintenance of this stuff, but a coming storm always bumps the maintenance interval a bit. It takes less than an hour, and it has never made the slightest bit of difference…so far anyway, but like so many things (insurance, kevlar, seatbelts, armored riding gear) I’d feel pretty stupid if something did go sideways and I had failed to make even minimal preparations.
(Truth be told, my preparations ARE minimal compared to some – and boy do I wish I was that committed to things).
See you after the storm.
[Edited to add: Really? That's it?]
Was watching the radar, and it looked like you guys got quite a bit of rain!
We were out there with the chainsaw this morning, cutting up the branch that crashed onto our back fence. And out there, again, to repair the damage to the fence.
But these huge weather systems are difficult to predict. Could have been much worse (some of us are old enough to remember Hazel). As they say, ‘Better safe than sorry’
So … ‘zombie apocalypse’ goes mainstream … LOL!
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/national/Hurricane+earthquake+zombie+apocalypse+thirds+Canadians/7470506/story.html
I haven’t been active on the Zombie Squad forum for years, but the basic premise was that if you’re ready for the zombie apocalypse then a flood or a power failure wasn’t likely to throw you too much.
I’m still a big believer in basic prep. We have our generator, oodles of canned goods (always buying extra on each grocery trip as stuff is on sale), a BOB (bug out bag) which has a few days of concentrated rations in it (much lighter than the water weight involved in the canned goods), and of course we have passports, insurance documents and a quantity of cash on hand in case we had to bolt to higher ground (or whatever disaster equivelent applies).
I suspect all this effort is likely never going to come in handy, and I DO have an issue upgrading our existed efforts (transfer switch and larger generator as one example), but it is nice knowing we’d at least hit the ground running if there was a problem, rather than being just another panic shopper at the grocery store after a problem has become imminent.
No point going crazy on this stuff, but like insurance, pay a little now and save a bomb later. If the kit stays on it’s shelf unused for 5 years then it was worth every cent (That’s $30 a year).