Cool and less humid today, and yesterday for that matter. NOW Fall is here. It got warm in the afternoon, but morning was glorious. I hope for the same today.
I did some auction stuff earlier in the day, then did a couple of pickups in the afternoon. In hindsight, I shouldn’t even have bid in the one auction, but I forgot how far away it is. And that they misrepresented the condition of a bike I bought from them (which I still haven’t fixed.) I won’t make that mistake again.
The rest of the day got eaten by ducks.
Today should be a pickup or two, some ebay stuff, and getting ready to head to the BOL for two weeks of foundation work.
Of course for south Florida, and central Florida too, today is the beginning of cleanup following Ian. Looks like they got hit pretty hard. Several of my ‘daily read’ bloggers are in affected areas, and my mom is a bit north. She should be ok, but hasn’t checked in yet. My best wishes to all affected. Hopefully your damage is minimal, and your preps were good. Anyone who is a regular here, who is affected and has unmet needs, please let the group know. And if you’ve got some AAR or lessons learned, please share those as well, as you move into the Recovery Phase. There are always lessons to be learned.
One that I learned after Ike, here in Houston, you will need more water than you have. That’s when I got serious about water storage. The old standby of one gallon per person per day is WOEFULLY inadequate for anything other than bare survival. You will want a LOT more than that for cleaning, hygiene, cooking, cleaning, and cleaning…. It doesn’t have to all be potable- flushing, washing, cleaning can all use clean but not treated water or minimally treated, in any case. You will want lots of potable water for drinking, cooking, and kitchen cleanup too.
Don’t forget to stack the things that will allow you to get and treat more water. Filters, bleach, containers, buckets, laundry tubs, pots, turkey fryers, propane, and transfer pumps, hoses, siphons, along with tanks of some kind, will all help you replace what you use. Hot water on demand is one of the signs of civilization. The propane fueled instant hot water heater I’ve been using to shower at the BOL has been an incredible convenience. It’s relatively inexpensive, leverages the propane infrastructure I’ve been building out, and has been incredibly useful. A camping shower, or something improvised with a coil of hose and sunlight will work too. As long as you have what you need to make it work…
So stack some stuff. Water (and the means to collect, store, and treat it), food (and the means to collect, store, preserve, and cook it), shelter, medical, etc…… Get busy. Sooner or later, you’ll need something from the stacks.
nick