Prepping And Dealing With Long Term Power Outages

hey everybody welcome back today we're going to talk about prepping and dealing with long term power outages before during and after they happen hey everybody welcome back so we're gonna talk about getting ready for and dealing with long term power outages I know a lot of my folks that subscribe to me live in California and you're dealing with this right now and you're preparing a little bit of dark for who knows how long three to five days maybe 48 hours you never know because of the looming strong winds and the high fire danger so PG knees cutoff homes and business isn't like 36 counties I believe for 48 hours or longer so my theory my theory is if you're preparing for a long term power outage you really got to think of how that power outage would affect you personally so the first things when I think about is it will disrupt communications might disrupt your water might disrupt transportation it's also going to close retail businesses grocery stores gas stations banks ATMs may cause food store spoilage and water contamination and it might prevent you from using medical devices so given that given we know that we've got to think about how to stay safe when a power outage threatens you so you really want to take an inventory of items that you need that rely on electricity the first one we're gonna start with is our electric garage door opener you got one of these in your house you know what this is you've seen it before so I'm just gonna hold the camera up here and show it to you you have a release right over here that you can snap if the power's out you pull it down normally it comes with a string I tell people to take that string off because you can go up along here and pull it and a burglar can get in your house actually the string is up there but as a general rule that's the easy way to open them I tell people you don't know how strong you're gonna be you don't know if you've done this before you don't know how hard it is to do it get your car while powers on out of your garage take it outside close it with the power on and leave it out there you may be able to pop it and do it now I also have solar in here so I can run this on solar I have my backup solar power which is low hated over there so that will run that does that'll open that up but that's the first order of business you want to get this garage door popped your car outside and in front or in your drive alright so back on the table here sorry for moving you around like that I know the camera has image stabilization in it now but I hate to do it off off the tripod anyway um the first thing you're going to want to think about is get foods that you can cook that don't need to stay cold in other words non-perishable foods an example over here you've got soups some canned chicken potatoes Chef Boyardee whatever we've been through that a thousand times you kind of know what kind of items to get you want to have a stock of that so you don't have to worry about that that's non-perishable food next up good old cash this happens to be a hundred bucks that I have stashed away for emergencies that I carry in my vehicle or on my person at all times you want to have cash because ATMs may not work your local grocery store may be only taking cash that's it if you have to run out and get something that you forgot and trust me we all forget something you'll want cash next up talk to your medical provider about power outage if you were alive on medical devices ah basically any kind of refrigerated medicines anything like that find out how long the medication can be stored at higher temperatures and get specific guidance for medications that are critical for life also if you saw the first-aid kit this is my little roll up first date you know that's an in screen this is my first favor all up kit make sure you have a good first aid kit so you don't have to run to Urgent Care for the slightest little injury or anything like that times like this it may be overloaded it may be super super busy and that's not something you want to get into a moment so let's move on to the next angle if I can keep this flashlight standing up next up batteries and alternatives to meet your needs when the power goes out I have three items here batteries and again all the stuff is representation this isn't all the batteries I have stored this isn't a brand I'm telling you to buy just a representation I have a little battery bank here that has a little solar panel on it solar panel will take forever to charge it but you get the idea we're just pretty well I also have a solar panel they can charge up your phone this is a 20 watt solar panel this can charge up your cell phone or any other devices you might need that run off of USB so you definitely wanna get that stuff set up and running next up water store water again this is nowhere near enough you need one gallon per person per day but you get the idea okay you want water your treatment plants may stop working if you're on a well your well pumps may stop working you definitely want to have water store ahead of time before anything again this is stuff you do before a power outage strikes when you know it's coming next up you want to sign up for local alerts and warning systems okay you can monitor your weather radio you can sign up with your local agency whatever you know your local town city for any kind of power outage alerts I believe PG&E has a page on that a whole entire page on power alerts letting you know what area is going out what areas staying staying powered up also this is where if you live in an area where the scanner is not encrypted a scanner is very very very handy you definitely want to get yourself a police scanner so you can listen in to what's going on around you and this is also where ham radio comes into play because communications are gonna be cut down you want some way to communicate out and of course you have to get your license first but a ham radio comes into play there too because even if you don't have your license and all you have is a cheap twenty dollar Balfanz you can listen you don't have to talk you can listen in here what's going on so let's move on to the next one now camp stoves to cook here's a little representation of one of course you probably use a bigger one if you have a family I have a like three different coleman stoves that I'd probably got out on my counter if you're going to do that install carbon monoxide detector with a battery backup in a central location in your home where you'll be cooking I have two or three in the Miranda house just to make sure you're not getting too much carbon monoxide inside your house and do it in an area that's well ventilated next up you want to determine how long your home phone will work if you have a landline now home phone landline phones generally will work for quite a bit of time after a power outage they usually are powered by very huge batteries at some head end and it's very low current there used to be an item you could plug in to the phone line to actually use the electricity from it and it only powered very small items it wasn't gonna power like your your house lights or anything like that but it would recharge your cell phone it converted the I think it's five volts in the phone lines if anybody worked on the phone lines you can let me know it converted the electricity to the right the right devil to tree for recharging but determine how long they're gonna work if they run off huge batteries they may last a good long time but what's nice computer control grounding systems and lines your home phones could be down as well that's where ham radio comes into play now the next up is going to be flashlight with extra batteries for every household member I have these Oh lights here you know you had a nice big flashlights headlamps come into play here make sure you have batteries or they're charged up this one takes doublea's this one charges up and also takes rechargeables if you want to do that that way so make sure you have your lighting set up and lady go with it you also want to make sure that you have like any kind of lanterns and again these are much safer to use indoors these are electric lanterns real simple if you're stuck in attention this is all you have it will work just make sure again you have ventilation you know these run on Coleman camp guess of the stuff here Coleman lanterns with the mantles make sure you have it in a safe place where no one's going to touch it this gets very very very hot on top and the glass can break so a little bit safer to use out leaving inside so let's move on to the next thing now conventional wisdom they always say to put a thermometer inside your refrigerator I'm gonna tell you a little different because I worked in the foodservice industry for a long long time years and years ago and this was my best friend this is a little portable thermometer you can stick this in two items you can get temperature they say anything refrigerated so it gets over 40 degrees needs to be thrown out sometimes that's true sometimes that's not depending on if you're gonna eat it right away so if it's been down for 24 hours and you go in there and you poke this into some hamburger meat and it's 39 degrees I was just cooking that pretty quickly but I wouldn't throw it out you know generally if you keep your fridge door closed you'll be good for about 24 hours it will start to heat up in there a little bit but you'll be okay now the first thing of course you want to do is start cooking that stuff and getting it used up means all right so last up at least for what you can do beforehand is to keep your mobile phones and your other electronic equipment tablets whatever charged up and that's where again these items come in handy you can stick this solar charger out in the Sun if you have battery backup if you have a solar power type system you can charge up off that most inverters now that you can buy do have a USB plug in them so that's kind of handy too and almost everything I have there's some USB plug in it'll but I have a lantern that has a USB plug with five thousand milliamp battery charger so it's really not too bad you also want to be able to top off if you can safely store some gasoline and top off your car the biggest thing you can do really is to top off your car and make sure it's topped off but if you can safely store gasoline where you live if you live in a tiny little apartment on the 34th floor of a building don't store gasoline if you really don't have a use for it but if you have a generator or something like that definitely if you have a place to do it store some gasoline for the generator store some gasoline for your vehicle you may need your vehicle later and the pumps may be down for who knows how long so surviving during the power outage next up we're gonna keep the refrigerators and freezers cold like I said they'll usually keep the temperature for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours depending on it you can use ice if necessary and you can monitor the temperatures again with a thermometer or a little regular thermometer you can by name stick in there something else it's kind of handy and this is an aside I'm gonna move you over to it is to have an icemaker and to have a small like a little college dorm fridge so let me show you my stuff alright so in front of you you're gonna see that on top that's an icemaker that will run off of my solar power backup system that way it doesn't take a ton of power it makes likes very quickly excuse me and you can get a nice big bunch of ice out of that in a very short amount of time within two hours you can have a couple of bags full of ice that can keep your freezer and stuff cold the other thing on the bottom is just a cheap little dorm fridge both of those somebody gave me both of those I was really thankful because they would have to spend money on it they gave it to me a few years ago and the fridge was already kind of beat-up and so it doesn't matter it just lives out here I just keep water in it for now but if I have say some expensive cuts of meats or whatever that I just bought and I don't want to eat right away I can toss them in there again run it off the solar power and that's kind of a backup system remember these aren't required this is not something you have to do this is just a nice thing to add on to your preps already you can also just buy a 12-volt cooler like you use in your car while you're tailgating or something so again if you have medications that need to keep frigerator like say insulin or something having something like that really handy let's get back to the tape something I did forget to mention in preparing for the power outage is make sure you have enough fuels butane gas propane isobutane we're never gonna use to cook whatever you use to power your heating devices if you need to heat make sure you've got that already set up ahead of time now next up you want to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning we talked about this you want to keep your generators if you're running them at least twenty feet away from any open windows propane gas stoves if you have ventilation and you have a safe place to use when your house like my house my kitchen very high ceilings I have a door right there to my back screened-in patio I can leave it open I got lots of ventilation lots of cross ventilation if it's gonna be freezing cold out or really windy or in the middle of a hurricane and you live in a very small safe small little studio apartment not the best idea if you can crack the window open and get some ventilation and a fan going a little bit safer so you can use propane and stuff like that to cook on inside with caution you don't want to lock up your house all tight and then start pumping house you know four or five propane guess gas ovens you never want to use a gas stove top or oven to heat your home could really lead to problems you want to check on your neighbors during the event older adults and young children especially they can be vulnerable to extreme temperatures you may have an older neighbor next door that relies on some kind of medical device if you've got power if you've got a way to help them maybe you can help him out it's a good way to kind of network during AEI during a disaster if worse comes to worse okay and if the cold is just too much for you or you need electricity and you know you're I don't know your oxygen generator or whatever whatever kind of lexical device you use if you need that electricity go to a community location with power if it's just too much for you I don't want to tell people to tough it out at home and be the hardcore survivor and have them die if you really feel like you need to go somewhere go somewhere and don't don't let false bravado take over get yourself some help so let's move on so now let's talk about after okay the power is back on and you want to see it what's the damage outside if it was a weather event whatever um the first thing you want to do and you want to remember this well powers going off is to unplug everything so when the power comes back on it's not a huge spike um I don't know that it will damage your own personal stuff something some sensitive electronics might be but generally I don't worry about it that for that but also because the spike like that can cause another outage at your head and yet wherever you're getting your electricity from everybody leaves everything on in their house and forgets to turn it off when the power comes back that's one heck of a voltage spike so you want to help everybody out turn everything off make sure everything shut down and you're safe now after wind out throw it out that's my motto for food if something looks funky if something smells funky if you open your freezer refrigerator or your freezer and it stinks toss to food yeah it's expensive yeah it stinks but it's better than poisoning yourself or really hurting yourself it's just safer if the power's out for more than a day and you have medication that needs to be refrigerated unless the drug label says otherwise I'd probably give it a pitch and unless it's life-saving stuff it's something you need to take and there's no doctor around it might be worth the risk of taking it but as a general rule I pick out stuff that's might be bad you could always talk to your doctor ahead of time and see if you can get a little extra and maybe like I showed you my little freezer over there you can pick something up like that they even make a little small ones like about this big little you know they're about the size of that that gas can over there and they have a little door on them and you can stick that in and they run off twelve volts so you can have a way to store your medication safely but if it's if it looks funky if it's bad toss it out it's better to be safe than sorry and check on neighbors again make sure everybody's safe make sure your house is okay you know did you have a big weather event is is part of your house missing you know windows broken whatever make sure your streets are clear you know if you have lawn furniture I know this is because of high winds are doing this in California stuff's blown out in the streets you may want to clear it out basically you just want to walk around and make sure everything is intact and everything is okay and you may want to start to put your stuff away to take care of it clean it off put it away now if you have to evacuate and this is kind of important this is why I tell people have a bug-out bag my idea of a bug-out bag since I'm fairly remote here is for situations like this it's for I have to run there's a fire coming it's not for I have to run to the woods and survive because somebody in New York blew something up you know it's just that's not the mentality I'm not a run for the hills type person because I don't have a bug-out location this is my bug-out location my home so in a worst-case scenario you've got your bag packed ready to go and you can leave but a good idea is to always stay aware of your environment this kind of fire grows really really quickly with those high winds so you want to know what's going on you want to leave as soon as it's recommended generally you can judge that for yourself sometimes areas will tend to over recommend but you know I'm saying Oh leave the fire is 50 miles away you know you can kind of judge that for yourself but as a general rule you'll want to be the first one out you don't want to be stuck in traffic with the fire coming up behind you so that's general yet I hope you guys enjoyed the video I tried to put together some things it's not a be all end all this by any means and like I said the stuff on here is really just representation of what I want with me I probably want a whole lot more gas a whole lot more water different types of lanterns a whole lot more food than that but you get the idea you know it's it's a representation it shows you some ideas to get to to get the the synapses moving in your brain anyway folks I hope you enjoyed it thanks for watching don't forget to check out our links down below our amazon link as well you can click that link if there's nothing that you like you can shut as you normally would using that link and it helps up channel doesn't cost you anything don't forget to check out our thrive life if you're just getting started out in some freeze-dried food I'll link is right there and don't forget to check out our allied store it's tons of interesting stuff in there lots of cool flashlights pretty much all I use and revokes thanks for watching stay safe and stay prepared

Channel: Iridium242

Views: 65,094

Rating: 4.9302197 out of 5

Keywords: Water-Filter, hiking, camping, Survival, Iridium242, iridium242, bugoutbag, prepping, preppers, bushcraft, camp, preparing, prepper, backpacking, bug out bag, prepping items, preparedness, bug out preps, bug out gear, bug in preps, bugging in, affordable prepping, inexpensive prepping, preparedness tips, Disaster Preparedness, California power, power outages, electric grid, power loss, backup power, how to prep, prepping for power loss, prepping for outages

Id: YfMUSOCg-8g

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 28 2019