05-12-2015, 12:07 PM
I feel the need to second the "cash" recommendation. After Iselle some places were only accepting cash because no telephone for the credit card machine. They had a big sign that said CASH ONLY NO CHECKS. Sure enough the guy in front of me thought he could sweet talk the clerk into accepting his check ("but it's local"). No cash, no carry.
We had to loan a 5 gallon water jug (full of water) to a family who didn't realize how complicated it was to get water out of their catchment tank and make it drinkable without any electricity. And all they had was small bottles. Not so good for fetching clean water. We also butchered one of our chickens for them to eat because their food went bad and the kids were working chain saws all day and needed protein.
I was surprised at how many people were only prepared for a 12 hour (at best) "emergency". 12 hours without anything isn't an emergency, its an inconvenience. Really the mindset should be, how am I going to fare if I have no other access to food/electricity/water/medicine/lighting/etc for the next few weeks? A backup generator is great. But if you are talking long term, the backup generator becomes a generator. Then, do you have a backup generator? I'm not saying that everybody should have two generators, but you should have at least two plans. Help comes quickly only in the best of circumstances.
We had to loan a 5 gallon water jug (full of water) to a family who didn't realize how complicated it was to get water out of their catchment tank and make it drinkable without any electricity. And all they had was small bottles. Not so good for fetching clean water. We also butchered one of our chickens for them to eat because their food went bad and the kids were working chain saws all day and needed protein.
I was surprised at how many people were only prepared for a 12 hour (at best) "emergency". 12 hours without anything isn't an emergency, its an inconvenience. Really the mindset should be, how am I going to fare if I have no other access to food/electricity/water/medicine/lighting/etc for the next few weeks? A backup generator is great. But if you are talking long term, the backup generator becomes a generator. Then, do you have a backup generator? I'm not saying that everybody should have two generators, but you should have at least two plans. Help comes quickly only in the best of circumstances.