To keep more porn in hard copy , with computers and Internet down it was damn near impossible to get my fix.

 

Ha ha! You youngsters gotta learn sometime.

 

I was prepared for two weeks without power. After that it would start getting tough.

 

Prior to the storm we filled all five cars, filled all fuel jugs (about 30 gallons), made sure the generator ran good and had my house and my neigbors house wired-up are ready for the looming power failure. My generator ran non-stop from Monday through Thursday. I was not worried about it being stolen, it is bolted into my car trailer and the gas tank is seperate. With everyone being home and that generator being so damn noisy, EVERYONE in my neighborhood knew when it ran out of gas between 5 and 6 every morning.

 

Had PLENTY of ammo! I have more than the local police. Have two people that know how to use the guns and hit what they aim at. She is better with a hnadgun that me, so she had the 686 in the nightstand next to her, I had my CX4 with 6 full mags next to me and a spar shotgun under the bed. I explained to both the kids what we had in the bedroom so they knew. We never had loaded guns in the house before. I've always had the ability to get a weapon loaded quickly, just never left them loaded.

 

Only had enough water for two weeks. If the town lost it's water supply it would have been tough after that. We had plenty of food, all types. Three propane tanks for the grill in case we lost our gas supply.

 

So, between us and my neighbor we shared our generator with, we had 150 gallons of gas. Used about 10 per day at most. Fridges were going 24 hours, so was my heat and hot water.

 

Had plenty of flashlights, candles, batteries. I never turned the tv on, forced the kids to suffer! They are 17 and 19, they could do without it. We had no cable so no phone/internet/tv. My cell phone worked 90% of the time through Wednesday, 100% after that. The wifes cell phone did not.

 

Had enough cash on-hand though there was no where to use it anyway.

Why run it 24 hours a day? That feels like a waste of gas to me.

One of my fridges is old and cycles on and off a lot to keep things cool. Time for a new one. When the generator isn't under load it doesn't use much gas. When the frigde kicked-on it lugged the generator down, you could hear the engine. Not sure about my neighbors fridge, but all of our food stayed good.

Well, one thing I had confirmed is my camp tramp beats the crap out if a hatchet. A knife intended for chopping is only slightly lighter and has a MUCH bigger sweet spot which keeps you safer when tired.

 

With one tub, and your heat and hit water working, the water bob is a hard call. I need to consider something beyond the rotating cases of water for water.

 

Keep more emergency cash in small bills. I didn't run out of small bills, but I thought my shtf cash was well denominated and got damn close to using up the small bills. Many of my neighbors were not so lucky.

 

I need a bigger battery charger for my rechargables. I ran into issues getting much of my aa stash back in service while at work.

 

More things are getting UPSs. It's convenient for dips, but they were critical in keeping the cells charged.

 

I need to finally figure out what I'm gonna do about a generator.

 

Toddlers are HARD without power, they don't understand and aren't inclined to accept adjustment to their routine too well. After a week he's adjusting and I'm curious to see if going back in the morning will be easy or hard.

 

Entertainment. Books and a deck of cards only goes so far.

 

Once you find out everyone is alive, turn off your cellphone when you can. You really don't need to know how stupid your family really is in an emergency, so minimize the opportunity to have it illustrated a hundred times a day. There's a reason you don't live with them anymore.

 

Headlamps really are useful enough to outweigh their dorkiness.

 

There are probably a ton more.

Headlamps really are useful enough to outweigh their dorkiness.

 

A big +1 on that. I own the Surefire 6P, G3 & Fury, Streamlight L2D & Fenix PD30. They all worked great, but I used my dim, cheapo head lamp 3 times as much as any of my handhelds. As you say, it was just so useful to not have to hold my light source.

Illegally. Haha

 

It is perfectly legal to give ammunition to somebody else whether they have an FID card or not. In fact, NJ's "show me your papers" law for ammunition is not a law at all. It's something that the state police made up on the fly and forced FFL's to do.

 

Find me the section of 2C code that makes it illegal to give ammunition to somebody and I will give you a box of ammunition.

2C:58-3.3b???

Finally back after 6 1/2 days without electricity.

 

Fortunately I have gas hot water and stove but had no heat. For light I depended on AAA and AA flashlights.

 

Fenix LOD AAA great light with 5 power settings Medium-low-high-SOS-strobe very small.

 

Mini Maglite 2XAA with 3 led's instead of the stock bulb. Used this as a candle and night light.

 

Fenix P3D 2X123 I love this light for it's adaptability low- medium- high - SOS and tighten the bezel down and you get Turbo and strobe. On it's lowest setting batteries will last days I used it mostly on medium to light a room because it does stand upright.

 

Streamlight Twintask 2X123 this light is 1 incandescent light and 3 LED's. I used the batteries from the Fenix P3D when they were getting dim in the Twintask using the 3 LED's and would get another night or two usage.

 

Finally I also have a Coleman AAX4 lantern and this was good at lighting up a room. I used it for 4 nights before replacing the batteries which were Eneloop's that already had been used. http://www.coleman.com/product/4aa-pack-awayreg-lantern/2000009291?contextCategory=10454#.UJk_BWdy-uI

 

I like the AA and AAA batteries and found that Target and Walmart were both sold out of C and D batteries but had lots of AA and AAA available.