How did you do with winter storm Fern? We did well, but that’s mostly due to the electric and gas companies keeping the lights on and natural gas flowing. This brief video discusses some of the aftermath that many Americans endured:
A lot of the troubles occurred in the southeast, from Texas to the Carolinas, because of the ice buildup, which I’d imagine most of these people rarely experienced. Apparently, a million homes were without power, roads were impassable, lots of flights were grounded, there was some panic buying, and more than twenty fatalities resulted thus far from what I read this morning. All of this was to be expected if you paid any attention to the news. Sadly, I did not.
It was only last Thursday when I realized that a major winter storm was about hit the good ol’ US of A. My mother-in-law sent me a video to watch (I think it was Thursday night when I watched it) that I realized I should do a few things.
So, aside from accomplishing small tasks, like filling water pitches in case we lost water suddenly, getting the wood stove ready (we hadn’t used it yet this winter), and even downloading some TV shows to watch on my tablet, I was about as ready for a winter storm as I was going to be.
Perhaps the biggest problem we had was keeping the chickens . Because we can’t use the garden hose when it freezes, we have to haul buckets of water down to the chickens and ducks, which is a real pain. And when it gets really cold, we have to do it twice a day so they have water until bedtime. But they seem to have done fine even as I write this with it being below zero here in Kansas City right now.
To keep potential problems at bay, we dripped a faucet all weekend long (and are still doing it), propped open sink cabinets along walls that may freeze, kept the wood stove running all weekend to provide supplemental heat, kept on top of chores (dishes, laundry, etc.) so they don’t pile up in case of a power outage, and tried to entertain the dogs, which is exceedingly difficult when one of them is a Border Collie.
Although I wasn’t horribly concerned about losing power since there was no ice expected in the area, it was on my mind. I made sure power banks were charged, dug out my power inverters and extension cords, filled all cars with gasoline, and began to consolidate refrigerators. I also primed and tested another set of Berkey water filters because of my latest filter troubles, just in case I needed them. I’m sure I did other little things, but they escape me at the moment.
Thinking about things more, it would’ve been a real pain to have lost power for any extended length of time in such brutal weather. Yes, we would’ve survived but it would’ve been a chore. The truth is that power is crucial to everything in modern life, and we don’t realize how much so until it’s gone.
Think about food and refrigeration, something we take for granted. Sure, we could’ve moved a lot of refrigerated/frozen food outdoors, which would’ve worked for frozen items, but I wouldn’t want most of my refrigerated foods to freeze, like milk or eggs. (There are more problems with moving food outdoors, like attracting wildlife and pests, freezer burn due to repeated heating/cooling, and the possibility of food spoilage for other reasons.) And considering that we have a giant chest freezer and three large refrigerators (don’t ask why) that would’ve been a lot of work.
Similarly, I wouldn’t want my canned goods to freeze, either, because that could crack or burst seams, even in ways you might not notice. Just keeping canned food from spoiling in below freezing temperatures would’ve been a real pain because we have a lot of it! And that’s only one small aspect of how crucial electricity is to life. Thankfully, we probably wouldn’t have died for reasons I stated here, but just food-related concerns would’ve been rough without power.
Water is another huge problem in sub-freezing temperatures. Like I said above, I took several proactive measures, but if we lost power for more than a few hours, I would’ve had to take more drastic actions, like turning off our main water supply and draining the house pipes, and moving water pitches and cases of water to be near the fireplace so we had water to drink. Interestingly, I checked on our stored water in the garage, water we keep in 55-gallon barrels, and it still wasn’t frozen, like I expected. This has been the case in previous winters, but I wonder how long of a cold snap it would take for this water to fully freeze? Thus far, I haven’t found out.
I might have also needed to bring our cats indoors, not because they got too cold – they’re used to it – but because they would not have had access to water that wasn’t frozen in the garage. (We use a heated water bowl in the winter for them.)
Anyway, I don’t need to detail all the little things we did or problems that could’ve occurred. I’m sure you have your own. But I did want to share what’s been on my mind the past few days, while hoping that the weather warms up soon.
Hope you’re surviving too!
I don’t want you to think the worst is over, either, because it appears that another storm may be on the way (I jumped ahead to the important part):
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