If power grid failed....

[churchmouse]

That used to be the case... but not true anymore. EPA regs forced many of the NG power pumping stations off-line, to be replaced by electric pumping stations. Don't believe me, look at the Texas ice-storm/blackout several years back. People with NG heat assumed they would be ok as long as they had enough juice to power the blower and control board on their furnace. That was the rude awakening that when the power goes out, so does the natural gas...

Exactly. Plus distribution has to be controlled. The controls are electric.

 

[hoosierdoc]

This is not normal??

It's a ghostbusterms line

 

[2A_Tom]

I have looked into Generac whole house generators and one thing that surprised me was that they actually run more efficiently on LP than NG.

Has anyone looked into banks of deep cell 12V batteries for lighting and recharging batteries.

 

[churchmouse]

I have looked into Generac whole house generators and one thing that surprised me was that they actually run more efficiently on LP than NG.

LP has more BTU's per cubic foot than NG.
2 of our genny's are Generac's.

 

[Rookie]

"The study finding suggested that 90 percent of the cars on the road in 2004 would suffer no ill effects at all from an EMP, while 10 percent would either stall out or suffer some other ill effect that would require driver intervention."

https://www.lifewire.com/would-your-car-survive-an-emp-attack-3903248

 

[indyjohn]

Has anyone looked into banks of deep cell 12V batteries for lighting and recharging batteries.

You mean solar and wind energy? I'm close to operational on that front.

 

[Leadeye]

I like the Generac, it's not very noisy, runs everything I would need in an emergency and being out of sight from the county road helps. As others have said trouble might come to the lights and sounds. Living on the road to Aintry helps discourage casual troublemakers.

 

[JollyMon]

I hope it does.

 

[indyjohn]

I like the Generac, it's not very noisy, runs everything I would need in an emergency and being out of sight from the county road helps. As others have said trouble might come to the lights and sounds. Living on the road to Aintry helps discourage casual troublemakers.

 

[churchmouse]

You mean solar and wind energy? I'm close to operational on that front.

I have built up about 4 multi-batt emergency power sources. 6 to 8 deep cycle marine rated batt's and dual inverters. They were not solar or wind. They were for after dark use so the sound of the genny's would not attract the walking dead. You might be surprised how much you can actually run on these.

Thing is every time I built one someone had to have it. Friends with remote locations off the grid. I made money on them so off they went. Now my source for motor home inverters has dried up. Those units were pretty stout.

 

[KittySlayer]

The West coast will be the target. Enough concentration of people there to disrupt the entire nation. Assuming a near nationwide total outage were actually possible...

Lets face it, Mexico and Canada cannot feed 360 million extra people and the other Continents cant ramp up production and get it here in time.

I have not done my research so my questions come from the survival fiction I read more than facts. It seems like there is some magic border (wall?) around the US that an EMP cannot cross. No one ever mentions the impact on Mexico or our 51st state (Canada). While I realize our electrical grid is interconnected it would seem like only regions would be impacted by an EMP rather than the entire country from sea to shining see. Especially if launched by Lil Kim. Why wouldn't bug out plans be getting to a region that still has power?

I will read the links provided above in the thread when I get time (hopefully before the electricity goes out).

And the more important question. If our power grid failed today, where or how would we harvest ice? Serious question. Where did ice come from in August in Indiana in 1800?

Great question by the OP. This is the kind of thinking outside the (ice)box that will need to occur if the EMP hits. No electricity = No refrigerator = find a means to important keep things Cool (insulin, food, beer, bourbon).

 

[churchmouse]

I have not done my research so my questions come from the survival fiction I read more than facts. It seems like there is some magic border (wall?) around the US that an EMP cannot cross. No one ever mentions the impact on Mexico or our 51st state (Canada). While I realize our electrical grid is interconnected it would seem like only regions would be impacted by an EMP rather than the entire country from sea to shining see. Especially if launched by Lil Kim. Why wouldn't bug out plans be getting to a region that still has power?

I will read the links provided above in the thread when I get time (hopefully before the electricity goes out).



Great question by the OP. This is the kind of thinking outside the (ice)box that will need to occur if the EMP hits. No electricity = No refrigerator = find a means to important keep things Cool (insulin, food, beer, bourbon).

Domino effect. Remember the east coast black out in the early 00's. It was 1 small cog in a huge wheel that brought all of that section of the grid down. It was a lack of human intervention if memory serves that allowed the chain reaction that put a lot of people in the dark. Did that roll up into Canada...??? I am not sure.

If several sections were hit out west who knows what the end result would be. Possibly stop at the Mississippi...??

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

We have a gasoline-powered generator and we keep enough gas on hand to last us a couple of weeks, if need be. Considering that I wouldn't run it 24/7, but just enough to keep freezers and fridges cold, sump pumps (if needed), and air conditioning (we have a room unit that we'd use).

But I've always looked at the generator as being one of those preps that would be mostly for ice storms or other local power outage situations that are always a possibility. We've experienced several, with two lasting more than a week. The generator allows us to avoid having to take my mother-in-law, who is a quadriplegic, to a hotel, and to not have to worry about losing freezers full of food.

I've always figured that, as soon as the realization set in that we were in a major, long term, grid down situation, we'd probably shut down the generator and save what gas we had for real necessities.

 

[SMiller]

Why would people even need fuel? Our cars won't start and most people won't be able to get money for fuel anyway..........since they need to use a debit card and have no cash, gold or silver. Most generators will be destroyed by the EMP. Diabetics will suffer. Nursing homes and hospitals would have serious issues. I have no doubt I can hunt deer and fish to survive but my problem would be keeping the meat from ruining, hence wondering how ice would be supplied. I really was never taught how to survive without power, how to preserve meats, etc. I doubt if dad or grandpa ever gave that a thought when they were teaching me how to feed myself.

Salt/smoke, zero ice needed...

Never heard of a smoke house? Meat last for a long long time...

 

[JettaKnight]

Im sorry, I dont mean to poke fun at you or your post.... But Im quite curious as to why your first thought was "how do i get ice?"
I mean, at the thought of a major power failure my thoughts are do I have enough food/water and fire wood to last long enough for the city to clear out? Also do i have enough ammo, to ward off any looters? Having a nice cold drink is pretty far from my concern.

Hey now, ice is important.

My ice maker was off and my cocktail service came to a crashing halt!

There's two really good podcast about harvesting, storing and shipping ice before refrigeration that I highly recommend to everyone:

The Memory Palace's special episode (more poetic):
https://play.radiopublic.com/the-me...6?utm_campaign=buffer&utm_content=buffer45c55

The 99% Invisible episode (more technical):
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/frozen-assets/


Both are always excellent, well produced (i.e. not two guys babbling into cheap mics for an hour) podcasts.

 

[JettaKnight]

I been doing some work for an electrical engineer and he was talking the other day about NK using EMP to knock out our grid. Then today I read an article where some Dr.s say it would kill 90% of population in 1 year. Then that led to me looking at some book called "one second later". Guess I have a couple of questions. How real is this stuff?

So, what type of electrical engineer was this? There's a lot of disciplines of EE and almost all of them (esp. my discipline!) have no qualifications to talk about EMPs.

And what type of doctors? The one that claim vaccines cause autism?

 

[bwframe]

Can't help but hear the neighbors running their generators and see their electric lights on when the power has been down around here. What is the strategy for not becoming a target if this was SHTF?

To the OP; If a power outage had no apparent ending, I'd get to work canning all of the freezer stuff. The same with harvested game. I try to keep a balance of not refrigerated food anyway, with power outages in mind.

 

[woowoo2]

Can't help but hear the neighbors running their generators and see their electric lights on when the power has been down around here. What is the strategy for not becoming a target if this was SHTF?

Inverting genset (quiet as a mouse) and black out curtains.

 

[Leadeye]

I have built up about 4 multi-batt emergency power sources. 6 to 8 deep cycle marine rated batt's and dual inverters. They were not solar or wind. They were for after dark use so the sound of the genny's would not attract the walking dead. You might be surprised how much you can actually run on these.

Thing is every time I built one someone had to have it. Friends with remote locations off the grid. I made money on them so off they went. Now my source for motor home inverters has dried up. Those units were pretty stout.

You must do pretty good work if everybody wants them, ought to be someplace where you could scare up some inverters.

 

[cosermann]

I have built up about 4 multi-batt emergency power sources. 6 to 8 deep cycle marine rated batt's and dual inverters. They were not solar or wind. They were for after dark use so the sound of the genny's would not attract the walking dead. You might be surprised how much you can actually run on these. . .

Would make a cool INGO "how to" article/thread if one were so inclined.