Discussions
Reply to: Do I need more than a whole house generator? Posted April 10, 2022
Reply to: Had a road trip – felt very unprepared Posted December 24, 2021
Reply to: What does prepping look like in your area of the world? Posted January 26, 2021
Reply to: What does prepping look like in your area of the world? Posted January 25, 2021

First, I love this thread!  I’m another one from Wisconsin and I thought I’d add my perspective on how I prep (and the kind of things I prep for.) For context, Wisconsin has a lot of different areas from big city to farm land and woods living.  I personally live in a city so some of my perspective is based on that. 1) As was mentioned, the biggest natural cause of issues is cold weather and snow.  Just today we had a FEMA alert for a pending snow storm dropping 9 inches with 35mph winds tonight. Most Wisconsinites know how to handle it and the civil infrastructure is there to avoid it being a disaster.  We all know to just drive a bit slower and plan for trips to take longer.  However, when it gets really bad you could have freezing pipes, ice on power lines that cause them to snap, car accidents that take out a transformer or light pole, etc.  Biggest risk there is heat being out for a while while power is restored or appliances not working. To prep for that, I have all the major essentials (blankets, flashlights, batteries, Mr. Heater, etc.) but most importantly, a whole house generator with an auto-transfer switch and extreme weather extension cords I can run over to my neighbors house if needed. The generator and most of my appliances run on natural gas which I view as more reliable given the underground delivery system vs. aerial electrical wires subject to the weather. 2) I’m an IT consultant and even before COVID, I worked from a home a lot.  My biggest risk there is loss of power and loss of Internet access since all of my family’s livelihood is based on working remotely.  For a power outage, the whole house generator keeps me going plus multiple UPS’s keep my workstations and networking gear running while the generator kicks in.  For Internet service, I have redundant connections using two different technologies from two different providers being fed into a dual WAN router that does load balancing and auto-failover in the case one goes down.  Both are delivered via aerial wires so I have a backup hotspot that can be used if the disaster was weather related and it knocked out both providers.  No excuses not to keep working for me! 3) Civil unrest became all too real for us this summer.  Leaving all politics out of this, I happen to live in one of the most segregated cities in the country and the civil unrest it has caused hit home this summer when law enforcement asked our school to close for a few days due to planned protests and anticipated rioting in our area less than a mile away.  Police were warning family and friends to stay away from our main mall because they thought it was going to be burned down one weekend (it wasn’t thankfully!)  As I said, completely ignoring the reasons and politics, it brought the need to prep for these kinds of situations into focus.  From curfews and going into lockdown and being hypervigilant about the area and getting news about what was going on the outside, to communicating with family and friends about everyone’s safety – it really opened my eyes to an entirely different type of disaster to be prepped for. I think I have some work to do in this area, without going into the fear zone, I think there are some practical things my family needs to work on. 4) Water safety!  Anyone my age or older in this area will remember the early 90’s when we had an outbreak of kryptospiridium in the municipal water supply and everyone had to boil water and drink bottled water for a while. The good news is that prompted a lot of changes to how water is treated and distributed here and we now have some of the safest municipal water in the country – but you better believe we remember and always have plenty of water on hand just in case. Beyond that, I’m trying to be practical about prepping for life – especially because my spouse and kids don’t share my enthusiasm for the subject.  Various types of insurance, financial and estate plans, house fire preparedness, and of course pandemic are all things we all need to plan for – I’m just glad that wild fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes aren’t on my list! Stay safe folks!

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Reply to: Do I need more than a whole house generator? Posted April 10, 2022
Reply to: Had a road trip – felt very unprepared Posted December 24, 2021
Reply to: What does prepping look like in your area of the world? Posted January 26, 2021
Reply to: What does prepping look like in your area of the world? Posted January 25, 2021

First, I love this thread!  I’m another one from Wisconsin and I thought I’d add my perspective on how I prep (and the kind of things I prep for.) For context, Wisconsin has a lot of different areas from big city to farm land and woods living.  I personally live in a city so some of my perspective is based on that. 1) As was mentioned, the biggest natural cause of issues is cold weather and snow.  Just today we had a FEMA alert for a pending snow storm dropping 9 inches with 35mph winds tonight. Most Wisconsinites know how to handle it and the civil infrastructure is there to avoid it being a disaster.  We all know to just drive a bit slower and plan for trips to take longer.  However, when it gets really bad you could have freezing pipes, ice on power lines that cause them to snap, car accidents that take out a transformer or light pole, etc.  Biggest risk there is heat being out for a while while power is restored or appliances not working. To prep for that, I have all the major essentials (blankets, flashlights, batteries, Mr. Heater, etc.) but most importantly, a whole house generator with an auto-transfer switch and extreme weather extension cords I can run over to my neighbors house if needed. The generator and most of my appliances run on natural gas which I view as more reliable given the underground delivery system vs. aerial electrical wires subject to the weather. 2) I’m an IT consultant and even before COVID, I worked from a home a lot.  My biggest risk there is loss of power and loss of Internet access since all of my family’s livelihood is based on working remotely.  For a power outage, the whole house generator keeps me going plus multiple UPS’s keep my workstations and networking gear running while the generator kicks in.  For Internet service, I have redundant connections using two different technologies from two different providers being fed into a dual WAN router that does load balancing and auto-failover in the case one goes down.  Both are delivered via aerial wires so I have a backup hotspot that can be used if the disaster was weather related and it knocked out both providers.  No excuses not to keep working for me! 3) Civil unrest became all too real for us this summer.  Leaving all politics out of this, I happen to live in one of the most segregated cities in the country and the civil unrest it has caused hit home this summer when law enforcement asked our school to close for a few days due to planned protests and anticipated rioting in our area less than a mile away.  Police were warning family and friends to stay away from our main mall because they thought it was going to be burned down one weekend (it wasn’t thankfully!)  As I said, completely ignoring the reasons and politics, it brought the need to prep for these kinds of situations into focus.  From curfews and going into lockdown and being hypervigilant about the area and getting news about what was going on the outside, to communicating with family and friends about everyone’s safety – it really opened my eyes to an entirely different type of disaster to be prepped for. I think I have some work to do in this area, without going into the fear zone, I think there are some practical things my family needs to work on. 4) Water safety!  Anyone my age or older in this area will remember the early 90’s when we had an outbreak of kryptospiridium in the municipal water supply and everyone had to boil water and drink bottled water for a while. The good news is that prompted a lot of changes to how water is treated and distributed here and we now have some of the safest municipal water in the country – but you better believe we remember and always have plenty of water on hand just in case. Beyond that, I’m trying to be practical about prepping for life – especially because my spouse and kids don’t share my enthusiasm for the subject.  Various types of insurance, financial and estate plans, house fire preparedness, and of course pandemic are all things we all need to plan for – I’m just glad that wild fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes aren’t on my list! Stay safe folks!