California Burnin'

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping.

Yes, California is on fire again, but the fires aren't as close to me as in previous years. While that brings me a small amount of comfort, it still means major portions of this state is being destroyed. So here's a reminder to check your Go Bag and evacuation plans.

Gotta Go and (Maybe) Never Coming Back

That was what happened to a relative who was planning to retire soon to Northern California. He had a bit more warning than people in the town of Paradise had, but the results are the same.

Greenville, California before:

   Greenville, California after:

(If you'd like to see more photos, go here.)

 

While this wasn't their primary residence, it was where the family spent lots of time enjoying the beautiful scenery and the historic town. As you'd imagine he's not really interested in talking about what happened, but I'll try to get info later on how his evacuation went down.

I'm taking this as a reminder to my household to review all of our plans for getting safely out of our house.

What's First

There are two dogs here that will be tossed into the first car headed out. I have all my important items in a tote in my closet with a tag that says IMPORTANT.  That's the first thing I'll grab, and if there's time the rest of the totes will be grabbed as they are stacked in order of importance. 

A bit of good fortune is that Purple Pack Lady has her important papers at her place, and I'm going to ask to put duplicates of my papers there as my folks' place used to be my off-site storehouse. I'll also suggest she puts duplicates here, if she wants. 

Finally, here is a post talking about keeping buildings safe. 

What's Next?

• Update my paperwork and where I need to keep everything.
• Consolidate everything into as small a package as possible. Having to Get Out Of Town or a burning building could mean a lot of people wanting to save things important to them.
• Have everyone realize the importance of doing something to prepare for a disaster, and sharing where their important things are.

Recap And Takeaway

• Follow through on your plans. I certainly am.

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Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

Prudent Prepping: Even More Disaster Planning

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping. 

On our Facebook group (join us, we're even nicer in person!), our esteemed Founder and Editrix posted a Bloomberg article which stated that my local utility is planning to cut power to sections of California if and when there is an increased fire danger.  I was asked what my immediate plans would be and I gave a quick answer, but that's not the only thing I'm doing. 


What To Do When The Lights Go Out
The California utility doing the planning is Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), and as of last week it was found to be responsible for two of the recent and largest wildfires in CA recorded history.  They have published a plan detailing exactly what is in store for areas most likely to be hit with a wildfire. The rather long PDF doesn't show where the power might be cut in a wildfire, instead listing all the things that may occur in the event of a wildfire.

Think about that for a minute: with the location of several recent fires being in or near populated areas, this plan is good for any area served by PG&E. This makes sense when thinking where certain fires have started, such as the Camp fire (Paradise CA) and the Tubbs fire (Calistoga and Santa Rosa CA). I posted about another fire several years ago that might have been prevented if a plan like this was in place, but nothing is a sure thing when dealing with natural disasters.  As long as I'm not in the direct path of a fire, losing power for one to possibly several days is not a problem. If there's the chance I'm going to be in a fire, all bets are off and a full Bug Out is in order. 

First Things First
If I get the power outage warning, which PG&E said will be as much as two days before but possibly less, I'm heading to my parents' house to see how they are doing. They're both in reasonably good health for their age, but I want to be there to make sure everything is in good shape. My family traveled and camped when we were kids so there's still a lot of useful gear around, including a generator that's used to power my parents' travel trailer parked on a time-share campground. That generator is big enough to keep their freezer and refrigerator going, and by keeping the freezer closed and not opening the fridge, the generator should need to run for only four to six hours to maintain good temperatures. Based upon what my Dad tells me about the generator's gas usage, that's about a gallon of fuel for each 4-6 hour cycle.

Food
My parents have food stored and ready to load into their truck to take to their trailer when it's camping season, so I'm not worried about their food supply. 

Water
This, however, is going to be a problem if power is out for longer that a few days, especially if it's in the middle of summer. I have enough water to keep everyone going, but not enough for comfort (such as bathing), so I need to convince my folks to buy some water jugs as a supplement to mine. I'll be giving them a Sawyer SP181 filter and showing them how to use it next month. I really like Sawyer filters (see my review of it here) because of how much water they'll filter and their ease of use. 

Shelter
Fortunately this isn't likely to be a problem, since we are well away from the expected fire zones. If worst comes to worst, though, bugging out to their trailer could be a big problem as it is near the Redding-Red Bluff CA area that burned last year!


The Recap

• This is another example where proper planning will pay off in fewer headaches and much less excitement.
• Nothing was purchased this week, but a Sawyer SP181 $49.99 from Amazon with Prime is going in my Shopping Cart.

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Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

Prudent Prepping: Reflect, Review and Prepare

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping.

It’s time for me to clean up and check my equipment as I move, and in the middle of the mess I hear a report that a dam in northern California may be releasing water very soon due to all the rain and now snow melt.

Reflect

Yes, it’s the Oroville Dam I talked about in these posts. The thing that has the locals worried are the cracks in the face of the spillway, similar to the cracks that caused all the problems mentioned in the news articles (linked above) from February 2017. The state water department says everything is just fine, but area residents are understandably worried. After a billion dollars spent to repair and supposedly improve the dam, everyone believes it should work much better than previously.

This was what caused me to go down the rabbit hole of explaining to the people I’m living with why I have emergency gear and food. This is a conversation I wanted to have, just not quite so soon. I thought it could wait until everyone was settled, unpacked and rested.

Review

Everyone to whom I’ve been talking remembers the dam problem and knows what a flood looks like, at least from news reports. Only one person was living in the San Francisco Bay area for the Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire in 1991, but the recent fire in Paradise and fires elsewhere in the state were real wake-up calls about what can happen in an urban area close to open spaces. My new place backs up to open space/grasslands with scattered trees, but the lack of trees isn’t a guarantee against winds blowing embers onto everything. My friends have several fire extinguishers from previous rentals, but I don’t know how current they are. These are for the kitchen, laundry room and garage, and don’t count the one I have for my room.

New meet-up locations have to be set, alternate places to stay found, emergency phone numbers for friends passed around, along with everyone learning the locations of the water meter and gas meter, as well as how to turn them off.

I’m making a list of everything the Master Chief and I had worked out as the starting point for where I’d like to see everyone in one month, six months, and a year from now.

Prepare
Oh boy, where to start? I’m going with personal safety at the top of my list. I have a fire extinguisher and first aid kit, but I’m on the second floor and I seriously hate being off the ground if there is a fire. What I’m looking at is something like this, the First Alert EL52-2 Two-Story Fire Escape Ladder.

https://amzn.to/2I8pj0u

I like this model since it has stand-off legs. From the Amazon listing:

• Easy to use two-story 14-foot fire escape ladder
• Fully assembled, ready to use
• Strong steel construction, tested to 1,125 lbs
• DuPont Cordura nylon strapping for extra strength and maximum durability.
• Complies to ASTM standards; 6-year limited warranty; For sill widths of 6 to 10 inches.

My window sill is less than 10” deep, so I’m set, but I need to convince my friends on the other side of the house to get one also, which shouldn’t be too difficult. As I really do have a Blue Collar Prepping budget, this will be my first order for my new place.


The Takeaway

• Never stop thinking about how to be safe.
• Planning isn’t expensive; figuring things out under stress can really cost.

The Recap

• Nothing was purchased this week, but next week one First Alert EL52-2 from Amazon for $34.97 with Prime shipping is going to be on my porch!

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Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned or given in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

Prudent Prepping: December Round-Up

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping. 

I have several things that need mentioning and can't make them a separate post.

Son of First Aid
My first post on first aid and its follow-up received many comments, all of them appreciated. I have no problem being educated on topics I know very little about, like first aid and tourniquets. In fact, I have no problem with listening to anyone talk to me about most anything related to prepping!

https://amzn.to/2Uat0q2

My two pack of tourniquets arrived last Sunday, and so I'm returning the loaner to the Master Chief. Next on my list is learning the proper way to use them correctly. Google and YouTube may be a friend, but I need a life saver to walk me through the proper steps. My local Red Cross doesn't have anything going until the new year, so I have to wait.





Disaster Relief
My local Food Bank, Contra Costa/Solano County is directly helping the people displaced by the Butte County/Paradise fire. They've been delivering food to the area since the 20th of November and are now in their usual drive to help the local people too. If you have a mind to donate, the information is in the linked web page. Thanks!

Holiday Gift Ideas

Crank Flashlight

Go and check out your local Big Box store for special buys and close-outs! I found this Emergency Flashlight just by walking down the aisle.

This has been shown before and is now a Special Buy, non-stock item in my two closest Home Depot stores. It works as advertised and is almost sold out! If I didn't have any backup power plans this would be under my tree or in my stocking!

Look for the large selection of under $10 battery flashlights too. There are some reasonable sized AA and AAA lights that I'm giving out to friends this year.

The Takeaway

• As we have all said and Chaplain Tim said last week, there is nothing wrong with starting small and getting big, step by step.

The Recap

• Nothing was purchased this week, but the two pack of tourniquets is still a screaming deal and in limited supply when I checked.

Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

Prudent Prepping: Get Out Of Dodge

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent 
Prepping.

California is on fire again...  or perhaps "still on fire" is a better way to describe what's happening.

Here are some stories from the N. California fire:

• November 7: Nine dead in Paradise Ca Camp fire.
• November 9: 29 dead in Camp fire. 
• November 12: Deadliest wildfire in Ca. history. Warning! auto-play video! Turn down your sound. 

The final report lists 42 confirmed deaths and over 200 missing.

I only have one thing to say about this entire year's fires in California and the disasters around the country:

What Were They Thinking?
I can only talk about the situations here where I am, and this latest fire in Butte County follows the Oroville Dam disaster, so the Sheriff and the local people know how to handle mass evacuations. The Sheriff ordered an evacuation when the fire first reached the edge of the town, and while it took some time to burn into the center of town, people had time to leave.

I have close friends who live there and they lost everything, but they're safe. Why? Because they left when told to! They listened to the warnings and left as soon as they could. From what I understand, since basic items were already staged, my friends were able to get many sentimental items out with them. 

What Can Be Done

• Double and triple check your plan! Verify your designated meet-up spot and have a 2nd or even a 3rd in mind. 
• Know how to get out out of your neighborhood. Have all the routes memorized! 
• Have your BOBs ready, along with what is really important close by. 

The bloggers who were here in 2015 picked our favorite or essential items in our own personal BOB or GHB and put them in a blog post. We've added several more people since then, and everyone has written about their own setup. The Discerning Shootist has several posts about gear, starting here with a definition of what all those initials mean.

 If you want to spend time looking at what else is available to read, a look up "BOB" in the Blogger search box (upper left corner) on the Blue Collar Prepping page. There are 44 articles just with that term, and "Bug Out Bag" shows 74 and "GHB" lists 115! That is only the posts with those terms in the title or tags. Everyone has written about their gear, and I feel it is important to read what is different in each person's bag. Not only do you have different climates, there are enough differences in climates to make "What's In the Bag?" a fun rabbit hole!

I highly recommend a search by author name on our blog. You'll see we have many things in common, and some that might make the proverbial light bulb go off and trigger an AHA! moment.

The Recap and Takeaway

• There are few heroes in a disaster, most people are better off to get out with their group. 
• Have A Plan. Hell, have 2 or 3! Just make sure your group is on the same page! 
• When the authorities say it's time to leave, leave. Right then. 

Nothing was purchased this week, but if this latest round of fires starts those extra dollars burning a hole in your pocket (heh!), see below on how to keep us here!


Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.