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AndyC1911 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:24 pm

2farnorth wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:26 am I'll probably catch a bunch of grief for this statement but what the heck; A year from now most people will have forgotten that it happened and will be no better prepared for the next event.
Most families have only 3-5 days food on hand. With out electricity much of that will spoil.

2farnorth wrote: ↑Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:26 am Keeping gas in cans for more than a couple of months is not advisable since it to will "spoil".

I actually did an experiment a few years ago:

I filled a 5-gal can with regular gasoline in July 2015 and added 2 oz of Sta-bil (from AutoZone) as per the instructions - cool little measuring method in the Sta-bil bottle, btw. In late November 2016 I used it and my car engine ran perfectly fine - pretty interesting considering that that gas had been stored in my garage for 16-1/2 months and gone through half a summer, a full winter and then a full summer again.

I'm not fond of the idea of keeping a flammable substance like that in the garage, but 1) I had no other place and 2) consoled myself that it was in a new military, metal jerry-can with good seals.

we store all of our gasoline in the storage barn metal building, its not insulated, but has vents and gets HOT as hades . i use stabil in each 5 gallon jug and so far never had an issue. i never store gas in the rv garage. only exception is the chain saw premix fuel. It gets a cool spot by the back door mudroom in the rv garage

carlson1 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:31 pm This is just me, but I don’t believe we were caught by surprise. The News Meteorologist did an unusual great job. We were told at least a week in advance of the weather coming and it was weather like we haven’t seen in decades. I don’t know how many people listened and prepared, but we did.

We had more food than enough. We had water that was adequate for us and senior neighbors. That is without touching any of our emergency supplies. We had our generator ready along with 20 gallons of gas ready for our generator. I don’t know how long we could have went, but I feel we were prepared.

I know a lot of the parishioners of my church had a hard time. Having a 4 wheel drive F-250 became part of my ministry as we tried to take care of our elder members. It was definitely the storm of a century. A lot of of lessons should have been learned. Self preservation rather than government preservation.

we watched the weather reports and prepared a bit, we didnt believe the weather people, because it just didn't get that cold here before. when it did arrive and we had 1F to 4F for 48 hrs it was a shocker.

we did have food, 4x4, took care of my parents next door, as well as neighbors. we made a few trips to the grocery for the folks on our street that got caught unprepared.

we have 100 gallons of water and fuel for generators. we were lucky and had power the whole time. had flickers on off on off sat and early sunday but the power company fixed it. we get our power from henderson plant and it runs on natural gas.

i can run the big generator for 16 to 18 days on 100 gallons of fuel, and can easily double that if we cut to run times to just, to recharge batteries and re chill freezers. having the bus in the garage is really a big help in times of outages and the like
take away for future
Have a bit more non perishable items , a warmer coat and gloves. and listen to weather folks
i have 3 propane tanks for grill and one was empty prior to the event, so next time all 3 will be full also have a 100 gallon propane tank to use for aux heat or cooking.
we did loose water pressure all week (10lbs or less) so i could trickle refill the 100 tank, but parents had to relay on bottled water. Used up a good bit of my supply to keep them in water.

we are also beefing up insulation in the rv garage, reload room, man cave area. while it was 1-4 outside i kept the heat at 65 and it was fine, but could have been better. this past week i added additional insulation to the rv garage and now have r35 all the way around.
main house was actually hot, with temp set at 51, its very well insulated (6" spray foam all walls and roof, r 19batts in walls and r 30 batts in roof).

it was a learning event for certain.