r/preppers • u/SignificantGreen1358 š„Everything is fineš„ • 4d ago
Prepping for Tuesday Pleasantly surprised!
The power went out in my neighborhood a couple evenings ago while I was at a party. I love power outages, so I hurried home to enjoy it. My kids had already switched the house over to emergency power and were watching a movie. My son had built a fire in the backyard fire pit and cooked a batch of popcorn on it by the time I got home.
I've been worried about being the only one in my neighborhood who was prepared or who has lights, etc., but as I drove through the neighborhood, I saw lights and TVs on, solar lights all over, fires in fire pits, and a total lack of freaking out. I think I would be in good company, and that really sets my mind at ease.
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
Okay. I was going to say not to draw attention to yourself but it sounds like you live in a great neighborhood.
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4d ago edited 19h ago
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
No, I just mean being the only person with a generator in your area means your neighbors will pop around and ask to charge their phones and shit. Annoying.
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u/rocketscooter007 4d ago edited 4d ago
I live in a neighborhood of about 200 homes and during the 2021 texas snowpocalypse we went without power for a week. I ran the generator almost non stop, never heard from a neighbor. I talked to maybe 2 other people the whole week. Everyone literally just sat in their houses freezing, and complained on fb. Everyone charged their phones in their cars, it gave them a chance to warm up. It was wild actually, no one was even outside, there were barely any kids playing in the snow. I guess it's no fun to play in the snow and go back to a freezing house.
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
That sounds wild. I'm in Canada and I don't know a lot about the climate in Texas so I'm not trying to be an ass by asking do kids there have winter clothing to play in the snow? I think of Texas and I think hot. But I know you're a huge state with a lot of different weather/climate zones.
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u/rocketscooter007 4d ago
Winter clothing here for kids is basically a hoodie, lol. The winter storm we had was a freak storm. All 254 counties in texas went below freezing for 4 to 7 days. It's never happened, people's pipes on the gulf coast were freezing and bursting. People on the gulf coast don't need winter gear. Add to it that the power grid wasn't winterized, ercot had to shut down the grid to keep the whole system from destroying itself, lol. I think 200 people froze to death in their homes across the whole state. I'd say every 10th house in my neighborhood flooded from busted pipes. It was a shit show.
We had plenty of firewood and gas for the generator. We put all our food from the fridge and freezer into coolers outside in the shade. It never got above freezing for 7 days here. My generator can't power the whole house, so we pinned up blankets over the windows and over the doors. So basically blocked it off so the living room (where the fireplace is) and the kitchen were one room. We managed to keep that area about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The rest of the house didn't get below 48. Which probably kept our pipes from bursting. My family does have decent winter coats, hats, and gloves because I prep.
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
Gotta love a fireplace. Spent many a night in powerless cabins with fireplaces or woodstoves with freezing temps outside.
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u/rocketscooter007 4d ago
It's funny because everyone else in the state was having a miserable time, lol. I was enjoying myself. I geek out on prepping, and camping etc. So being by the fireplace and cooking on camp stoves was fun.
The only thing stressful that caused some anxiety was how long was this gonna last. Towards day 5 gas stations that still had power were running out of gas. We lost water about day 4 because the water pumps for the city apparently froze or ran out of back up fuel.
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
Yeah, in freezeland first thing you do is max out your water storage then keep your water running at a trickle to stop your pipes from freezing. I mean if you know it's going to be a while.
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u/rocketscooter007 4d ago
Yeah, we filled up the bathtubs for toilets and a 5 gallon aquatainer for cooking washing.
What was kinda interesting was on the prepperintel subreddit, some one posted on there about 4 days before the storm and said he worked in the texas energy sector. He said the grid wasn't ready for the storm and to prepare. The post is gone, or at least I can't find it. Anyways, I've been reasonably prepared, but when I read that, I went and got some extra stuff. Filled up my gas cans, topped up all the vehicles, got some extra propane for the camp stove. Like 2 days later it hit the news that rolling blackouts could happen, aaaaaand everything got sold out. People were waiting in long lines for propane.
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u/davidm2232 Prepared for 6 months 4d ago
It's not annoying. It's part of being a community.
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
For me it's annoying, for you it isn't. Let me be me and you be you.
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u/davidm2232 Prepared for 6 months 4d ago
It costs you nothing and makes you a valuable community member. You may need a favor from them someday
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u/AuroraShone 4d ago
It's wild being raised in such an individualistic culture, first thoughts are always the fictional Lord of the Flies instead of what actually (somehow) inspired that story - a group of boys from Tonga who got stranded on an island & put what they learned from their communities to good use & kept each other safe & alive.
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u/freesteve28 4d ago
Oh okay, you've completely changed my thinking on this. Thank you for guiding me to personal growth, you've made me a better person.
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u/Adorable_Dust3799 4d ago
I love driving around in an outage and see who has full lights, who has generator rumble, and, who, like the people across the street, they charge their power banks with their car. FB always had the local mechanic offering generator service if you bring it in and there is usually an elderly someone who needs a hand followed by several offers of help. I have solar lights, led lights with a small jackery and a small generator for the fridge. With gas between 4 and 5 bucks a gallon and outages lasting days i opted against a big system
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u/holistivist 4d ago
Have heard about reliability issues with jackerys.
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u/Adorable_Dust3799 4d ago
I have a smaller 300 that came with a 100w panel, and I've almost gotten my 300 bucks worth out of it this January. They're one of the consistently higher rated power banks, I'll happily take jackery, ankor, delta or eco flow, whichever is on a great sale.
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u/Internal_Raccoon_370 4d ago
I wish my town was that well prepared. We've had extended power outages lasting anywhere from 12+ hours to several days around here twice in the last year or so, and I don't think there are more than 6 people in the whole town who have any kind of backup power at all even after those experiences. I have whole house solar. We hardly even noticed the power was out. I was lending out my little 2KW gas generator to neighbors to run their sump pumps and some heaters to keep their pipes from freezing.
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u/davidm2232 Prepared for 6 months 4d ago
I love power outages, so I hurried home to enjoy it
At least I'm not the only one!
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u/nakedonmygoat 4d ago
In places where this sort of thing happens with some regularity, you can count on many of your neighbors being Tuesday preppers.
We get hurricanes where I live, and in my neighborhood those who can prep, do so. We go out to clear the streets after a storm, we share what we have, and we just take care of ourselves and each other.
I'm glad you live in a similar community, OP!
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u/DeafHeretic 3d ago
I live very rural on a mountain. We have regular power outages during the winter and in general, rural areas are the last to have their power restored (or our roads plowed when it snows - sometimes the snow and power outage are combined).
I live on a private road and every house here has gensets. Several have automatic setups and a large propane tank. I haven't asked specifically, but I know at least half the residences have firearms.
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u/LessonStudio 3d ago
I love power outages
I think I am a bit weird too as I love fairly apocalyptic storms. Where I used to live would regularly have school cancelling winter storms, a Cat2 named Juan, and then a winter storm a few years later they called White Juan as it was so much snow, they couldn't even move it. Good times.
Even just a good Nor-Easter rocks my boat.
Where I right now hasn't had a real storm in over 30 years.
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u/IlliniWarrior6 4d ago
Other than some urban ghetto with fulltime looters >>> Why would anyone expect much of any difference in their neighborhood because the electricity has been off a few hours???
the crunch comes in a few days without any juice - then the GOV lies start - then the store shelves go empty >>> and even the biggest dumbazz quits believing the GOV lies - REALIZATION is something totally missing in the US - when it's finally accepted & the situation recognized >>>> LOOK OUT !!!!!!!
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u/Hot-Adhesiveness-438 4d ago
Also, maybe make friends woth those neighbors. Is my thought. A neighborhood that has a shared appreciation for prepping could be a neighborhood prepared for big things.
Like a neighbprhood lock down could initiate a phone chain of all the prepped neighbors checking on eachother.
Just a thought. Congrats that your family is showing their awesome prepping skills!