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Hardened – just to piggyback on your wildfire smoke “theme”; wanted to relate our past week here in Indiana.   My DW & I drove back from South Dakota for a family event this past Tuesday (6-27).  I failed miserably at situational awareness – driving across Iowa we could see that the smoke cut the horizon to within a few miles ( I’m terrible at judging distances).  Thinking that the car AC would provide adequate filtration was way wrong.  By the end of the day, my throat was burning quite badly & that didn’t dissipate fully for about 36 hours.  Then, just a couple of days later we were hit by the derecho that blew thru the Midwest.   Our power cut out abruptly – along with about 149K other Hoosiers.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too hot that day & our house is well sealed as the air quality was still atrocious.  (AQI of 225 or so).  We were incredibly lucky – our power was only out for three hours  – some folks were in the dark for three DAYS. Things to think about!!   #1  Have to more seriously consider a generator.  #2 Glad that I had some MRE’s/hiking food on hand so we could have a hot meal.  I could have used my natural gas grill for cooking as well.  We have a Berkey, so clean water wasn’t an issue.  #3.  Have to put more thought into how to keep cool in a power outage scenario during the summer.  #4.  What are other options for keeping persishables cold?  We have a towable RV, but it is stored several miles away -without traffic lights, that might not be an easy option to retrieve that. As several articles have related, we have not seen the last of the smoke, so make sure you have some N-95’s  & up for outdoor wear this summer.  I still have my COVID 3M respirators from my hospital work  – also have some fairly snug fitting googles (the smoke burned my eyes as well). I’ve often said that I learn more from failures than successes – the lessons stick with me longer.


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Hardened – just to piggyback on your wildfire smoke “theme”; wanted to relate our past week here in Indiana.   My DW & I drove back from South Dakota for a family event this past Tuesday (6-27).  I failed miserably at situational awareness – driving across Iowa we could see that the smoke cut the horizon to within a few miles ( I’m terrible at judging distances).  Thinking that the car AC would provide adequate filtration was way wrong.  By the end of the day, my throat was burning quite badly & that didn’t dissipate fully for about 36 hours.  Then, just a couple of days later we were hit by the derecho that blew thru the Midwest.   Our power cut out abruptly – along with about 149K other Hoosiers.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too hot that day & our house is well sealed as the air quality was still atrocious.  (AQI of 225 or so).  We were incredibly lucky – our power was only out for three hours  – some folks were in the dark for three DAYS. Things to think about!!   #1  Have to more seriously consider a generator.  #2 Glad that I had some MRE’s/hiking food on hand so we could have a hot meal.  I could have used my natural gas grill for cooking as well.  We have a Berkey, so clean water wasn’t an issue.  #3.  Have to put more thought into how to keep cool in a power outage scenario during the summer.  #4.  What are other options for keeping persishables cold?  We have a towable RV, but it is stored several miles away -without traffic lights, that might not be an easy option to retrieve that. As several articles have related, we have not seen the last of the smoke, so make sure you have some N-95’s  & up for outdoor wear this summer.  I still have my COVID 3M respirators from my hospital work  – also have some fairly snug fitting googles (the smoke burned my eyes as well). I’ve often said that I learn more from failures than successes – the lessons stick with me longer.


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