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I know bits and pieces of this subject have been posted all over the place, so forgive me if this is a redux. We have plenty of people on C-D who have the knowledge of how to survive off-grid, and independently.
What are your suggestions say, if all county/city services were cut off for a lengthy period of time, what sources (heating sources, modes of transportation, stockpiles of food, etc) would you gather? I am referring to the vast majority of the population who live in urban areas.
What would you do if your task were to prepare for a possible grid failure, or what have you aleady done?
"Lengthy period of time" shuld be defined a bit, a week without service in New York will be worse the a month witout it in rural minnesota. Also what season will your outage take place? Winter or Summer. I'd just a soon see it happen in the winter, it's eaiser to clean up hard frozen bodies then limp mushy ones.....
I know bits and pieces of this subject have been posted all over the place, so forgive me if this is a redux. We have plenty of people on C-D who have the knowledge of how to survive off-grid, and independently.
What are your suggestions say, if all county/city services were cut off for a lengthy period of time, what sources (heating sources, modes of transportation, stockpiles of food, etc) would you gather? I am referring to the vast majority of the population who live in urban areas.
What would you do if your task were to prepare for a possible grid failure, or what have you aleady done?
My husband and I are in the process of building our own Off Grid home. Our goal is to become self sufficient. We knew there was trouble on the horizon for our country and we didn't want to get caught without being prepared. We just started building in June and we are almost done. We used to live in FL, sold our house 3 years ago, and we have been traveling the country in our motor home and searching for the perfect piece of property. We ended up in the east TN mountains where we used to live. It always felt like home here.
Anyway, I have been posting our entire story with pictures on the TN forum. This is the link if you are interested.
I have family who live in the Missouri Ozarks. In the past five years there've been two families who've bought acreage near them, and built or are in process of building off grid homes. I was really curious about the timing and all...seems a lot of people are getting the same idea! I'll check out the link you posted. Thanks for the info, younglisa7 ~
Also what season will your outage take place? Winter or Summer. I'd just as soon see it happen in the winter, it's eaiser to clean up hard frozen bodies then limp mushy ones.....
You must be a deep thinker ~ the thought never crossed my mind! Hmm, I think seasonal outage disorder could be the next big thing! But I'd definitely prefer fall, not too hot and not too cold. Just right for cleaning up!
I know bits and pieces of this subject have been posted all over the place, so forgive me if this is a redux. We have plenty of people on C-D who have the knowledge of how to survive off-grid, and independently.
What are your suggestions say, if all county/city services were cut off for a lengthy period of time, what sources (heating sources, modes of transportation, stockpiles of food, etc) would you gather? I am referring to the vast majority of the population who live in urban areas.
What would you do if your task were to prepare for a possible grid failure, or what have you aleady done?
I can say with certainty I'm not ready were it to happen right now. I am working towards self-sufficiency though a little at a time.
I live in an urban area as in I can walk to the nearest major intersection and see the highrises of downtown a couple of miles away. I'm far enough away though that I have a fairly good-sized lot, a little under 1/5 of an acre.
One of the reasons we moved here, closer to downtown, was to be in a neighborhood without association restrictions. The master plan for the front yard is to turn it into a potager garden. So far, I just have a small vegetable bed and an herb garden, but it will grow year by year. I'm also learning about seed-saving which I think will become ever more important as we face loss of variety in available fruits and vegetables. I'm in the subtropics, so I'm also able to grow citrus here and have a variety of young trees already producing fruit. Composting is another way to be self-sufficient in the garden.
I don't have a lot of room to stockpile food and I'm not so sure that I'd want to anyway. We always keep a good supply of cans on hand (we live in hurricane country after all, so we face potential grid loss every year ). Long term though, I think the ability to make food - through seed saving and growing food - will be more valuable than being able to stockpile food that will eventually run out or be taken from you.
For modes of transportation, bicycle and canoe/kayak are my best bets. I can launch into the river just 2 blocks from my house, so having a mode of water transportation could come in handy.
Cooling is more important than heating where I live, and unfortunately, cooling is dependent on electricity. Eventually, the plan is to have the house run on solar power, but that is a longer-range plan that will be part of the overall renovations. This house has an old oil-heater chimney from the 40's that we'll retrofit with a woodburning stove (run a liner up the flue) as an alternate source of heating. I'm also doing a massive landscaping overhaul and tore out a ton of non-native invasive weed/tree species and am in the process of replacing them with native trees located to assist with passive heating/cooling as the seasons change.
When we lost power for 4 days this past summer, access to information became vital. The cable was out as was the electricity. We have a small battery-powered tv someone gave us one year, so we broke that out - good thing we still had an old tv antenna . I also had access to the internet through my cell phone. A neighbor had given me his PDA just weeks before this Tropical storm event, so I was lucky to have internet access during the outage. Some of my neighbors had gas-powered generators, but those things are very noisy and the fumes are awful, so we're avoiding those. There are some good battery options out there, so I'll probably invest in one of those by next year's season.
I'm glad you made this thread, it's something I think about a lot actually . Sometimes I'll read those survivalist forums and think about how much preparation I really could (should? ) be doing.
I'd really love to hear others ideas of what do to about work/money should we lose grid power indefinitely. Just hypothetically, if you could no longer go into the office because the whole building had no power, what would you do for a living?
I know bits and pieces of this subject have been posted all over the place, so forgive me if this is a redux. We have plenty of people on C-D who have the knowledge of how to survive off-grid, and independently.
What are your suggestions say, if all county/city services were cut off for a lengthy period of time, what sources (heating sources, modes of transportation, stockpiles of food, etc) would you gather? I am referring to the vast majority of the population who live in urban areas.
What would you do if your task were to prepare for a possible grid failure, or what have you aleady done?
Okay you'll probably say I'm being too negative but here it goes anyways: I think anyone could prepare and survive short term in a city. By that I mean a week or less, though even that won't be pretty. Cities are not sustainable at all right now, and you can't survive long term in one. Firstly, there's the issue of water. You can only stockpile so much water, eventually you need a source of water. Water treatment plants, pumps, etc., all depend on electricity. So you either won't get water, or it will be very unsafe to drink if by chance you're in a spot where it'll flow by gravity. Second, waste disposal. Sewage that is. This past summer in my small city there was some flooding and a power outage. In the low lying areas of the city, where the sewage system relies on electric pumps, sewage literally flooded people's homes as it backed up and sprayed out of toilets, sinks, tubs, etc. (luckily I'm on one of the highest spots in the city so I escaped that misery). Of course one other thing to note: raw sewage was being dumped into the large river that flows through the city when the power was out and the rain dumping into things overwhelmed the system, so the water supply was contaminated and unsafe also. It may be possible to install a shut off valve where the sewar line comes into the house, below any drain, to prevent that from happening but if you're renting that won't be an option...
Energy: depending on where you are, heating or cooling. I'm in the North so I'll focus on heating. I'm a big supporter of alternative energy but despite that I have to say that it's highly unlikely you could heat a home in the North with a solar/wind system, unless you have one very big and expensive system. Furthermore, with a breakdown in services you may see violence/riots/looting/etc. and your vulnerable solar panels would definately be a potential target. Wood is a great heating source but in a city you're not going to get enough wood to heat your home unless you have it stockpiled (and 5 to 10 cords of wood takes up a lot of space when you're in a city) or you start breaking up houses and furniture to burn (unwise due to paint/etc. on the wood). A 55 gallon drum of kerosene or better yet two split into smaller containers in case moisture should get in it so you don't lose it all would possibly get you through it with a kerosene heater but eventually that will run out, and will you be able to get anymore of it?
Food: using intensive methods like square foot gardening you could grow a lot in limited space but you're still not going to be able to grow enough for all your needs on most city lots, and you need it well fenced in to protect against vandals and thieves. And that gets me to: people. Too many people. Even if you are well prepared you know most are not. Do not underestimate how dangerous the people in the city will be, the unprepared. They'll loot, they'll get mad at those who are not suffering like them, they'll be hungry, etc. Be armed and practice with the guns, it may save your life.
One other thing: the laws/rules in cities are made such that they discourage self-sufficiency. They want and force you to connect to their services (water, etc.) and be dependent on all the various "services" and utilities, you generally can't keep livestock even chickens, there's tight land use regulations that may stop you from doing things you want, high taxes keep you from having much land (apart from the prices alone), etc.
The plain and simple truth is that the majority of people simply are not cut out for self-sufficient living, and would be foolish to even attempt it on their own.
After Wilma went through Florida, we went through a couple of weeks without power in near-perfect comfort, - hot water for showers, refrigerator never went off, lights, tv, computer, etc., using systems I had in place, and about 20 gallons of gas. Tallrick goes one better and doesn't even buy gas because he uses a gasifier. Short term survivalism is a piece of cake.
Long term is a whole different matter and can be a lot uglier. Those medications your doctor prescribed? Chances are you won't be able to afford them. TV, Internet, phone? Bye-bye. Insurance? fuggedaboudit. Water, food, shelter. Anything beyond that is gravy. Safety and security become big issues. Stockpiles of food and goods can be stolen or expropriated.
Best advice? Choose your neighbors wisely, and interact with them to form security zones and neighborhood watches. Act as a tribe or extended family where people are utilized according to their skillsets and resources. Going it alone is a weak position.
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Hmm, I think seasonal outage disorder could be the next big thing! But I'd definitely prefer fall, not too hot and not too cold. Just right for cleaning up! 
) be doing.
