I believe the requirements to use electric appliances and not gas was for new construction. I don’t think gas is going away soon, it’s just being discouraged. 

Jessie, great article and great videos! They stuck with me after I saw them several months ago. I came back and decided to learn how to do them. For the past few weeks I’ve been keeping a 3 foot piece of paracord on me so I can practice my knots throughout the day. During Teams meetings, while watching TV, going on walks, I’m just tying knots.  For the other commenter regarding the figure 8. Yes I think it’s one of strongest knots. It’s also easy to see if it’s tied correctly. I would definitely keep the fig 8 in my arsenal for critical situations. I like the bowline and sheet-bend because they’re faster to tie and they’re easier to untie. Although to be honest I haven’t had to untie either after they’ve been put under a tremendous amount of weight like I have with the figure 8 so I might be comparing apples to oranges.   I just saw the video on the cinching knot. I’ll be adding this one to my list next.  The techniques for using sticks and the grommets on the tarp is genius in the video for the truckers hitch.  I recommend anyone seeing this to bookmark the article!

I went with a three pack of these: Motorola T260TP Talkabout Radio FSR/GSMR +NOAAThey operate at less than 1W of power so you’re free to use all of the channels without a license including the GSMR channels. But correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll edit this post. Source: https://midlandusa.com/6-things-you-should-know-about-fcc-changes-for-frs-and-gmrs-radios/ I’ll admit these are probably less capable than what many people here are looking for but they fit our needs pretty nicely. They’re small, easy to use, and they’re easily carried and packable, they charge with USB, they’re inexpensive and easily replaced.We tried them out in Yosemite in the early summer and I was pretty satisfied with the range. We were talking pretty clearly with each other at a range I would guess of 3-4 miles. In a bug in or bug out situation I think they provide plenty of range to venture out and explore if traveling by foot. My thought is if radios are necessary then this means cell service is out and the grid is probably down too, so there won’t be much competing interference from other radio sources like cell phones and home WiFi networks. Which would make it easier for low powered radios like these. 

I think 56 gallons of water not 112 for a family of 4. 4g per day x 14 days = 56g 112g would get you 4 weeks which is even better. 

Thanks Stephanie! Keep us posted on the food rationing in China.

Update on my freezer. I got a call this week and they said they could reschedule my order for an earlier date. I chose the soonest available and I’m happy to say I got it today (September 13). So from the order date until delivery it was 3 months and a week. 

I ordered a 5 cu. ft. chest freezer from Home Depot on June 6. It was on back order to be delivered August 16. Now this week I was notified that it won’t be delivered until October 27. 

Costco has been carrying boxes of Mountain House emergency meal kits. I’ve  picked up a few boxes over my last couple of trips to Costco. I think they were around $65 if I remember correctly.  sorry for the sideways pic, I’m doing this from my phone  

It’s a reflective dish antenna, the same as you would find on satellite dishes. the dish and phone would have to be properly aligned to point at the cell tower. Seems like a good solution for a static location but probably unwieldy and unreliable as a prep. As an analogy think of a flashlight. They always have those reflective parabolas behind the lightbulb. The reflector focuses the light and makes the spot brighter or more spread out. The reflector itself doesn’t use any power, it’s just a mirror with a special shape. For the booster, the big dish is the reflector and the cellphone is the lightbulb. 

When I flew about a month ago I didn’t notice anyone clean the bathroom. You can see my previous description above. I need to make the same trip this Friday returning Monday (Aug 7-10). I’ll report back what I see.  I don’t think people should be flying if they don’t need to. 

I’m perfectly fine with less expensive gas cans for home storage. If I planned to travel with gas cans then I’d be much more inclined to pay more and go with metal. A gas can with a leak could mean disaster. With the California CARB law I’ve pretty much given up on using the spouts, so the defective spout and loose gasket in the video wouldn’t be an issue for me. I now use a shaker style siphon like this https://www.amazon.com/Safety-Siphon-Safe-Multi-Purpose-Priming/dp/B000BG1X54/ Now I just put the gas can on the car roof. Open up the cap. Insert the siphon in the can on one end and the car’s gas tank on the other. Shake the siphon, then let gravity do the work. No more standing there having to hold a 5 gallon can up to the tank. For those that are security minded, using a siphon frees up both hands and also increases your situational awareness since your back doesn’t have to be turned while you’re filling up.

Not really an urban hack, more of a suburban hack. I have enough drinking water for 2 weeks for my family, but I don’t want to waste it on things like flushing the toilet or washing. We have a community pool in my neighborhood, so after an earthquake and once things are safe my plan is to take the water out of the pool and store it in trash cans lined with garbage bags. The hack is a folding utility wagon that can carry three to four 5-gallon buckets of water. I figure if the water supply is shut off and I have time on my hands I can snag a bunch of water to keep at my house. I think the wagon could also come in useful if there are long gas lines. Rather than wasting gas driving my car I could just stand in line with the wagon and a bunch of gas cans. Also if it turned into a long term thing where drinking water had to be distributed, the wagon would greatly multiply how much water I could carry. Finally if I just had to bug out on foot, the wagon would allow me to travel more miles per day since I wouldn’t have to shoulder so much, and my youngest daughter would be able to ride on it if she was tired. A step up from this would be a rickshaw, or something designed to be pulled by an adult with better ergonomics.

I saw an episode of Undercover Boss and they were supposed to clean a whole airplane in 6 minutes. I realized if the person who sat in my seat before me was sick then there’s no way anyone would be able to disinfect the seat in such a short time. I’m not a germaphobe but I really don’t like the idea of getting sick while traveling so I started wiping down my seat area. Yeah I’m sure I got looks in the past but now I’m vindicated.

I just flew outbound on Sunday from LAX to Salt Lake City to Great Falls then inbound on Wednesday from Great Falls to Salt Lake City to Seattle back to Los Angeles. Honestly I’d say avoid traveling if you can. I opted for an N95 mask without the valve. It was the real thing since it came from my earthquake kit that I put together 10+ years ago. I wore it as much as possible, but I took it off both in flight and in the terminals to eat/drink, or scratch an itch. I was very tired on this trip so I dozed off multiple times. At least 3 times I woke up feeling like I was suffocating because of the mask. It’s a pretty disturbing feeling. For several years I’ve been wiping down my entire seating area with Clorox wipes and I continued to do it on this trip. I also used antibacterial gel before I touched my face. As part of the security screening you need to remove your mask to show your face. Just FYI. For the most part people were doing a good job of being careful. There were some questionable face coverings but these were the exception not the rule. Seattle had the most hard core PPE. Multiple families were using masks + face shields. One guy had a full hazmat suit without the head cover. I flew Delta. The middle row was empty. They boarded back to front. When they passed out snacks they included the food and a small water bottle in a ziplock bag. So the flight attendant only touched the bags. They also provided a handy wipe when boarding. Overall it was about as good as could be expected but I still wouldn’t recommend traveling if you don’t need to.  But I’ll need to make the trip again in a few weeks and I’m not sure what more I can do.

Running a c-pap off grid is a solved problem with an off-the-shelf solution. I was looking for a way to keep my family’s electronic devices charged for an upcoming camping trip and found that the portable power stations look like a good solution. According to the reviews a lot of people need to power their c-pap machines off grid and it sounds like these people are happy with the solution. The one I bought is from a company called Jackery. It was only $110 but I went for low cost and portability. The nice thing is they also sell matching solar panels that go with their line of power stations. Since your use is for a critical application I would go with a little more power capability. My model is rated to 100w and 160wh, and it uses a modified sine wave inverter. Take a look at their bigger units with more power, more storage, and pure sine inverters. Although I haven’t really put it to the test yet, I can come back in about two weeks to say how my power station worked out.

The COVID updates keep me coming back daily. We’re in the middle of a once in a hundred years event and it’s literally one of the things this site and the people who visit were preparing for. It wouldn’t make sense to stop having regular updates. In the first few months everything was new and unknown so it made sense to have daily updates. We’re hitting cruising speed so it might make sense to lighten up a little. I’d prefer 3 days a week over 2. But I imagine come September there could be reason to go up to daily again. The value in TP is the quality of the analysis. I have a hard time believing other sources because they seem either to doomsey or too rosey. Mixing in other links would be a good change of pace.

As always, you have great unbiased information and you explain it well. Another great article!

I wanted to have a gallon of water per day, per person for 14 days for my family. Four people so about 60 gallons. I mentioned it to my wife and said for less than a couple of hundred bucks we could have a good safety net of water in case of an earthquake, so she agreed. When the Aquatainers came in the mail I didn’t realize how big they would be. I quickly hid half of them in the shed and put the other half in the livingroom. When my wife and daughter saw them they had a huge laugh like I knew they would. It looked pretty ridiculous. I didn’t bother to tell them it was only half of what I bought.