Gunner Quinn
(Continued from Part 3. This concludes the article.)
After securing water and safety, climate control was my next concern. Prior to the storm, we had weather in the 80s and low 90s. Our home sits in a field along a north-to-south bearing. Morning sun isn’t too intense but the long evenings, lots of floor-to-ceiling windows and western exposure were making me nervous about getting the house cool enough to be comfortable in. I was also concerned about the potential for mildew to take hold given the humidity and lack of central air conditioning. Fortunately, the temperatures stayed mild and the humidity quickly dissipated.
For the daylight hours, we placed box fans in a pair of the eastern facing windows pulling air in and a second pair of fans in the western windows pushing out with the blinds pulled down to the tops of the fans. After sunset, we reversed the western fans to blow the cooler night air into our bedroom. A pedestal-style oscillating fan was kept on anytime the generator was running to move air through the central portion of our house. After not having fans running the first day, it became an Easter egg hunt around the farm trying to find forgotten box fans in the various buildings for the second day. Our habit became to turn off the generator around ten.
I really missed my ceiling fan the first night. On day two I remembered buying a pair of 12-volt clip fans at Advance Auto several years ago for a situation such as this. Given that I have become slack in keeping written records of where different preps are stored, it took me half an hour to find them. The fan cords are terminated with what I still call male cigarette plug ends. Digging through my 12-volt miscellaneous box I found a pair of the female sockets that have wire leads terminated with alligator clamps. I took our bistro chairs at my brides’ suggestion, set them at the foot of our bed and clamped the fans on the upper cross bar of the back rest. Next, I placed a marine deep cycle battery on the floor between the chairs and attached the alligator clamps (Photo of night fan setup). The little fans pulled less than an amp each and the voltage of the battery dropped from 12.8 VDC to 12.3 over the first night. I noticed that with each nightly use, the battery’s voltage decreases lessened as did the time required to recharge the battery each day. Is there a benefit to exercising this type of battery?
Here is another bonehead confession, for the first two days I carried the heavy battery out to the generator to recharge. Only on day three did it occur to me that I had the bedroom circuit on the generator and it was wholly foolish to be carrying the battery in and out of the house when I could plug the charger in only feet away from the fan set up. Tunnel vision anyone? We slept comfortably with just a sheet while awaiting electrical service to be restored. After the power returned it took two full days for the central air to draw the humidity down to an unnoticeable level inside.
For lighting in rooms not on the generator or for when the generator was shut down, we each carried a Nebo rechargeable flashlight and placed a Luci solar lamp (shown in the header photo) on our nightstands and in each bathroom. I have been a fan of the Luci solar lamps for years. I once had someone ask how long the lights will burn on a single charge and after all these years I still don’t know. These inflatable lanterns have a small solar panel on one face along with a charge indicator button and the high/low/strobe/off button. I have opewrated them for four hours in an evening and not noticed any dimming of the light. My wife took the lights outside each day and tied them onto a patio chair in the direct sun to maintain the internal batteries (they were tied in place to keep the wind from blowing them away).
We sat out other lighting options the morning after the storm but with the exception of a headlamp we kept for turning off the generator at night and the rechargeable spotlight I use for nightly chores we relied on the Nebo’s and Luci’s. Prior to shutting down the generator a single lamp with an 8-watt LED bulb burned in the living room and the same bulbs were in our bedside lamps. Concerned that someone driving by at night might be tipped off to the presence of a generator, I walked the road on a couple occasions and given the lamp placements, our house didn’t stand out as any different from our neighbors using Coleman lanterns or candles. Twenty years ago, I melted the plastic finish off of an upper kitchen cabinet by carelessly placing a propane Coleman lantern too far back on the countertop. My wife has not forgotten that yet.
Years ago, I purchased a set of 100-watt solar panel kits from Northern Tool. Other than setting them in the sun to ensure the panels generated a voltage prior to storing them, I never used them. The kits came with a charge controller, 600-watt modified sine wave inverter and the panel. I set two of these kits up in different areas of our yard, charging a pair of marine batteries. Weather the first week post-storm was heavily overcast and cloudy. Though a desirable condition for keeping homes cool, the collection/charging potential of the kits couldn’t be easily quantified. Each battery reached 12.9-13 volts over two days of exposure so there was benefit but the rate was slow enough that I didn’t find the time or energy to really explore what I could do using the setups. I have noticed since bringing the batteries back into the shop that one of them has developed a heavy salt layer around the cell caps and across the top of the battery. No idea what this means but the indication is something went awry. Trying to figure out the meaning is another line on the “To Do” list.
We managed to stay out of town for personal needs until some power and services were restored, though each of us did have to go in briefly for work. In my case, a client called me to replace a service entrance weather head so her power could be turned back on after a tree broke the original. Local stores were doing cash transactions only and some of the windowless retailers were personally escorting customers who proved that they had cash on hand. I saw multiple cashless customers walk away in a huff.
The most ridiculous exchange I witnessed though was a man who purchased multiple extension cords and demanded to know how he would return them since the clerk couldn’t print out a receipt. My thought was why the expletive are you buying cords you don’t think you will need in the first place when someone else will have a true need? There was no appreciation for the fact employees volunteered to come in to work, escort customers by flashlight to help us quickly find what we needed, track the price of items with pen and paper, then tabulate our purchase on a basic calculator. For all of the considerate and caring people we encounter, it is the knuckleheads who stand out.
Now for the what did I learn wrap-up. First and foremost, most of your friends, family and neighbors are not prepared to take care of themselves if the worst happens. They may quickly adapt and do fine, but very few of the people I interacted with or have spoken to since were prepared for up to three weeks without electricity. Living in a rural area I had higher expectations for my community’s readiness and I was far too optimistic and sorely disappointed. Too many people griped that there was no one coming around to help them, that they were out of X, Y, or Z and that their children or grandkids didn’t have anything fun to do without the internet. Even family who initially assured us they were prepared or in good shape eventually admitted to having very basic needs they couldn’t meet and asked for help.
We found that time flies by when having to clean up damage, help family and friends, make checks on equipment, and work long tiring hours. I slept hard at night and am still tired. We created and settled into a new routine quickly and found we needed to keep/make lists to ensure everything that needed doing received attention. As with normal life, there were priorities that had to be identified and it took trial and error to smooth out the new routine. Our appetites seemed to flag and we had to be intentional about eating healthy and not falling back on snacks or junk food. On a couple of nights, I mixed and drank glasses of water with Liquid IV electrolyte replacement to stop muscle cramps. We tried to be diligent in our actions not taking risks at all until word that the local hospital had reopened reached us then working slowly and smartly thereafter.
We realized that we use lots of devices with rechargeable internal batteries and it takes multiple USB charging ports to support these devices. I mentioned the automobile battery jump boxes earlier. The combination units we originally carried in our vehicles have two USB charging ports in addition to the 500-watt AC outlet. We charged these daily from the generator and used them to recharge lights, phones and other devices. Having replaced these old bulky tools with newer lithium battery jump packs, I would never have imagined how useful they would be in their retirement.
Speaking of phones, it surprised me how quickly the batteries faded when there was no signal for the phones to link to. For future help with charging, I purchased a replacement receptacle that has built-in USB charging ports alongside the standard 110 VAC slots. I need to decide what the best location for it is on either of the generator-supported circuits. In a similar vein, our printer is wireless and without a network connection we could not print from my computer or my spouse’s tablet. Though by no means critical, we are so accustomed to being able to print, in fact spoiled by the convenience, that I may look for an inexpensive black and white printer with a corded connection.
We found out that heavy Fall rains caused the yellow jackets and fire ants to re-emerge in droves. The fire ants are just an unfortunate fact of life, but the suddenly swarming yellow jackets made cooking outside more challenging.
We realized having some type of remote thermometers with set point alarms that we could leave in the refrigerator and freezers could help us moderate our generator usage. Early in the week we “felt” the refrigerator wasn’t staying cold enough during the nightly shut-down. Eventually, we began sticking ice bricks we could re-freeze during the day into the fridge around eight o’clock pm to help keep the contents cold overnight. This extended test also puts a common prepping myth to bed for us. We have two medium chest freezers and a large upright freezer, all three of which are completely filled. Were it not for the generators, we would have lost the vast majority of our frozen meats because there is no way we could have gone into pressure canning mode hard enough to save more than a token quantity. We were so busy reacting to the new conditions and looking after loved ones that putting time and energy into canning more than a few runs a day is laughably improbable.
As for supplies that would have been nice additions, some type of soft-sided water jug with a spout that could be “turned on” to serve as a hand washing source in the bathroom is needed. Our standard hard-sided water jugs were too large and overhung the sinks quite a bit. I tried using a solar shower for this purpose, but the spout position didn’t work out. I remember a clear collapsable water jug my parents had when I was a child so I know they once existed, now I need to locate a source.
We plan to research portable air conditioning units. It was a blessing for the weather to be cool and cloudy in early October. Had the power gone out during high Summer, our misery would be guaranteed. I believe it will be worthwhile to figure out if there is a way we can sleep in a cooled environment.
For morale and hygiene purposes we will be getting a manual carpet sweeper. Since purchasing our home, we have had one of the robot vacuums that runs every day. Without its service, our floors became dirty and covered with bits of everything one can track in. Sweeping seemed to kick up dust so we are hopeful one of those small pseudo-vacuums will help us keep the floors maintained.
I need to purchase a large set of durable keyed-alike padlocks so we can have a single standard key. There wasn’t any theft or trespassing that I am aware of around us during the recovery period. That said, I locked the generator to a tractor each night. We also use padlocks on my work shed and a storage Conex. At this point it makes sense to simplify security and not have to keep track of multiple keys.
Lastly, I need to replace the oil, gasoline, and diesel fuel that we used. All told, I emptied two five-gallon gasoline cans and seven gallons of diesel. Changing the oil on the generators and setting extra aside for the irrigation pump repair will take a couple of quarts of 30-weight oil. I’m looking into bulk gasoline and diesel storage, would like to add a few hundred more pounds of propane and anticipate that with many short-sighted folks having purchased generators that soon there will be plenty of slightly used units for sale at a discount. I picked up two additional chain saw chains when I bought the pole saw and I already had three gallons of bar oil on hand. I should also purchase a couple of additional bars as during the community clean up lots of chain saw bars have been pinched or damaged and the shops are currently out of replacements.
My extended family is already addressing food and household shortcomings while memory of needs or missing supplies are still fresh in our minds. For all Hurricane Helene took, it also gave me and many others an opportunity to test our preparedness. Thank you for your time and please continue to pray for the resident of North Carolina and Tennessee who lost so much to Hurricane Helene. Lastly, thanks as always to the editors of SurvivalBlog for their hard work.
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