Today, as you go about your daily routines pay special attention to all the times that you use the following: electricity, natural gas and tap water…
Imagine that they all stopped working at the same time…
How would that impact your life? There are many situations where these utilities could be cut-off for an indefinite period of time– Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, electrical grid failure, financial panic, etc.
You should have plans in place to live for AT LEAST a month without any utilities at any time of the year (very hot to freezing cold depending on where you live).
Electricity and gas is used for heating/cooling (shelter), cooking, hygiene (hot water), lighting, communications (tv, radio, Internet), security, powering tools, entertainment and many other things.
You need to have alternatives in case of an emergency. This could be a generator to run a portion of your electrical needs, along with plenty of fuel to power the generator. It could be propane camp stoves and grills and plenty of propane tanks for cooking. It could be a wood-burning stove and plenty of wood to keep you warm. It could be a lot of blankets and cold weather sleeping bags and space blankets as well. For light, you might stock lanterns that run on kerosene or White gas. Or flashlights and lots of batteries. Or decent emergency candles that last a while. And you do have plenty of matches, and lighters and maybe even spare cans of butane to refill them…
In the case of water, you can’t survuve more than about three days without it. The average person needs about a gallon a day including cooking and cleaning needs. So, for each person in your family you need 30 gallons to make it a month. Bottled eater is one way to store water for a long time and it is relatively portable (and heavy) if you need to evacuate.
Think about it, would you be able to survive OK without utilities? for a week? for a month?
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
The shortcut method is to cut off all your utilities for a small period of time and see what resources you have to overcome the difficulties. Most of us live in a bubble of comfort and convenience and simply aren’t prepared for the world to be cut off.
History has shown that these are lessons we will learn the hard way in the next 5 – 10 years.
Steve Chambers
Business to Business Sales Training Expert
What a thought. We take a lot of things for granted, don’t we.
Robert Martin
http://www.carbuyinghq.com
Not looking good for the family surviving much more than a fortnight.
We’ve got lots of camping stuff, including camping gas and water purification tablets and the fridge is stacked full of chocolate bars and cheese – don’t ask me why!
The scary thought is for my son who is Type 1 diabetic and needs 4 insulin injections a day and glucose for if/when his blood sugars go too low. We generally have about a month’s supply, but the consequences of not having enough would be be catastophic.
Blog-on
http://www.martin-wright.com
I am waiting for the next earthquake in SoCal to crumble the house I live in. Have you heard of the Triangle Method of protecting yourself in an earthquake?
Future Philanthropist
In this current recession your advice is golden!!!
I can’t even take it when the lights go out for an hour. I hope I am never in a survival situation. How the heck would I use my hair dryer?!!!
Lisa McLellan
Babysitting Services – Babysitters and Nannies
Dude! Don’t make me think to hard…
In reality you’ve got some very sage advice. Thanks
Bert
BusinessAndMarketingMakeover.com/blog
We would be fine, but only because I’m tough and because I have a 12 year old survival freak living with me. We have a store of water which would last a couple of weeks. My survivalist son can build traps, owns a slingshot, and fire is easy to make here. Since we are all vegetarian this would take some adjusting to.
Keri Eagan
Anything Alternative
Annually I go off on excursions that allow access to natural water sources, but no other utilities, that I can handle. In school we’d lose power for 4-6 days in the winter and 4-6 days just as the summer heat was swelling (North Carolina has the worst gov’t services DESPITE a crazy high state income tax….). That was a small disaster. We did still have water. I’m fairly confident as long as I have water and shelter. A 12-gauge wouldn’t hurt.
Learning about detox, Katie
Planning to be without utilities for a month . . . a week or two, but a month seems far fetched. With American resourcefulness I’m not willing to believe we’d need that long to get order restored – too many capable people to step forward.
That being said, I’ve noticed a little atlas shrugging in the past 2 years. Keep giving the good guys grief – the creators of our economy – and all you’ll get in return is their silence. I’m thinking about flying low to the ground in CO. Anyone with me?
Pushing companies from good to great, Kate
Right now, we wouldn’t be prepared. But, I’ve showed your post to my wife and we are going to work on getting there.
Health, Fitness for Working People — Darryl Pace
Rob,
A great post to think about.
I think if you have kids or sick family members you will have more things to work around.
We have been without for weeks before when Fran blew through in the early 90s and the few snow storms.
Lynn Lane
http://www.Warriorofsuccess.com
Hi Rob,
I have to say I am gasping and laughing at the same time. NO INTERNET!? Man, what, are you kidding me? Completely laughing at myself. Having lived in Northern California at the time of the 1989 earthquake where we DID lose utilities for awhile, plus hurricanes that would hit Long Island out at my grandmother’s house when we were there for the summers. We would lose electricity etc for a day or so.
A DAY or so.
Water I have. Water I know from earthquake preparedness to have enough. When I moved from Silicon Valley, I did finally throw out the bottles.
The water storage: you can refill bottles and store in for example bookcases in the garage. I would refill the large 1 ltr fizzy water bottles with water.
Most of us Las Vegans have about a days worth of bottled water with us at anytime simply in our cars because in the case of a break down or SOMETHING heat prostration and dehydration are what kills motorists stranded waiting for help.
And BOOKS. NEED BOOKS for non-utilities based entertainment and brain stimulation when we can’t watch DVDs or the TV.
PHONE: have ONE old plug in phone, not a cordless ONLY, if you have a home phone line still these days. Most cordless phones are partially electrically powered. Often phone service comes back before electricity. And you won’t be able to use your cordless phone without the electricity. Again, I kept that in the back pantry or by the door in the garage.
Flash light. Batteries.
Post earthquakes gas leaks are a potential problem. Must have non flammable light sources.
Stay safe!
Happy Dating and Relationships,
April Braswell
Single Baby Boomer Dating Success Expert