Saturday, May 26, 2012

This will out my location some, but what the hell.

Looks like we may be in for a bit of fun. I doubt anything will come of Subtropical storm Beryl where I live other than a bit of wind and some rain but I’m using it as a practice run for the kids. (I can hope that it takes out the butt-ugly leyland cypress my husband won’t let me cut down though, right?) We’re filling our (extra) water reservoirs, cooking entirely from the preps, going through and making sure the BOB’s are in order and packing them in the car, getting out the non-electric entertainment and baking bread since the storm is sucking up all the humidity that normally screws it up in the summer. I am not turning off the electricity because I’m not willing to go without ac if it’s available, I’ve been canning all day and the house would be miserable if it was shut off. If the husband was home he would probably insist on it so we can’t cheat and turn on the tv or computer, but he’s on nights this week and besides, he wouldn’t be here during an emergency anyway. During any sort of “event” he has to go in to work and lock down the facility as his privately owned company has an on-site power plant that provides juice for the power grid, among other places. They’re usually there for 36 hours for small hurricanes. Yup, that means I get to run the show in case of emergency. He keeps talking like the hurricane plan is for the kids and I to bug out and head for family 400 miles away. I keep telling him the house is inland so it won’t be caught in a storm surge, it was built with hurricane straps that have held the roof on through 4 hurricanes, including one Cat 4, it has hurricane glass and shutters on the windows and it’s safer for us to stay home playing yahtzee and canning everything in the freezer than trapped in the car being detoured all over creation. If it were a Cape Verde-type hurricane I’d probably be more interested in leaving but Beryl will have to eat everyone’s Wheaties to make it to a cat 1 before it falls apart.

*edited to add* I was feeling more than a bit housebound tonight so I hopped in the car, grabbed a bag of grease and headed on over to my husband's place of work. I called him and he met me in one of their yards. I explained to him that I wouldn't be comfortable leaving and why, he explained to me that he wouldn't be able to concentrate on his job if he didn't know we were safe. We struck a deal that involves the origins of the hurricane, the direction it has to travel to get to us, and the category level when it's approaching, and then made out for a while to seal the deal. Oh don't look at me like that, it's not like you haven't snuck away for a little private lip time. And if you haven't, for heavens sake go find someone and try it, I'm pretty sure you'll like it.

4 comments:

  1. Ah, now I know where you live....and you me. Lip time is nice.

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  2. We've used bad weather situations several times over the years to practice... those practice runs have drastically changed what and how we carry in our BOB's... and it's a good time to rotate certain items like the MRE's out...

    Dann in Ohio

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    Replies
    1. Dann, what changes in your BOB's have you made? One thing I'm insisting that we add is bug netting and a better bug ointment. We also discovered we need to rethink how we pack them as some of the medical supplies were vacuum packaged and the tablets were crushed by the mess kits, and a few of the bottles of tea tree oil had some seepage issues. We also need to update the dog supplies we have, they were packed when we still had my big yellow dog, who out weighed both of my current dogs put together.

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