Our sweet girl Maggie many years ago saying, What is going on? We were always moving things about the house and still do today.
Charles and I have been studying our Generations before us for over twenty years. I have been sharing what we know from how it was when we were growing up and what we have learned from our Generations before us that lived without running water and electricity and those that never had all of "This" that we have today.
Hurricane Helene has caused horrible destruction and this is an historic event that will take years to recover from.
Our Granddaughter is 7 months pregnant right now and she and her husband had to leave their home and come here to Dothan, to stay at our Son and Daughter-in-laws house. As of today they are being told that it might be a month or longer until electricity is restored in her area of Georgia. They had damage to their home so they will need a new roof and many other things must be replaced. We hope they can be back in their home before the baby is born.
My last post I had said that we still had two people in our family missing. They were rescued two days ago. They were trapped in their cabin outside of Hendersonville North Carolina. Trees were down all over that area and there was severe flooding. The police had the road blocked and would not let people through but their son-in-law and grandson explained the situation and they were elderly and no word from them so they let them go through.
The bridge was washed away on the road that went to the cabin and so their son- in-law and grandson that are both firefighters went through the water and hiked to the cabin. They were so happy to see them coming up the hill to rescue them. They are in their 80's and had to hike out and yes, go through the water to get to the trucks to get out after going through that terrible storm and flood and being without electricity and running water. I can imagine what a bath, warm food and a comfortable bed felt like after their ordeal and over a 4 hour drive to get back home.
Just a day or two ( I have lost track of time) after the storm passed, there was a large bio-lab fire/explosion in the state of Georgia that caused a shelter in place situation. At this time I am typing this post, we now have a Port Strike here in the United States that can cause disruptions and critical supply chains. Also, there is another possible storm that might develop.
Here on my blog there are many posts about our generations before us, how they lived without electricity and running water. You can click on the menu on my blog and scroll to the bottom of the page and there are numbers that will take you years back. Living like the past section has the posts living without electricity.
I could go on and explain all of the many wars and floods and disruptions in this world but we know this. We know that things happen and usually when we are comfortable and not expecting it.
We all need to take personal responsibility for ourselves and for our family. The best way to learn is to let ourselves become uncomfortable until we figure things out.
When we have outages from some kind of natural disaster or event, we are not owed help. Help is for those that have severe damage, have had a injury or have lost their homes and or their emergency supplies. We need to prepare and stay prepared so we can stay out of the way for those that "Need" help. We can help others by preparing our home to get ourselves though a crisis.
My suggestion, turn off all your electricity for a full 24 hours. Do not use any water at all from your faucet or use your toilet.
Draw up enough water for your one day practice. One day will give you a little time to think about what you will need to do to prepare a meal without electricity or running water and how you will you wash up.
Then set a date, and do one full week without power and running water. We need a full week because this is how long it would take to learn and develop a routine and fully know how to cook meals, heat water, wash dishes, hand wash some laundry, how to dry the laundry, bathe our body, and what we are going to do for lighting and what we do for a toilet. How and what would we feed our pets? They need emergency supplies as well.
Our generations before us lived without electricity and running water, and they raised families without it. We can do this even today, we just need to "learn" how in a uncomplicated way as they did.
If we do not make it through a full week, then we need write down why and what we need to get through a week and start again until we can get through that full week.
After our practice we should know what we need to be able to do to get through a long term outage and also we need to keep learning and practicing until we are good at it and have off grid days off and on to not lose our skills.
I urge everyone to do this, make it an adventure and embrace what we are learning. It is very empowering to know that we can survive a crisis or at least know we gave it our best shot. Be the prepared person during a crisis that can say, we are okay here, we have provisions so you can help someone else that truly needs it.
Store water, stock shelf stable food and buy portable cook stoves and the things that are needed to live without electricity and running water before spending any money on entertainment and non essential. Don't forget we need seasonal provisions, because a disaster in winter or summer we need different supplies.
Also do not forget to have a emergency backpack or suitcase, something already packed to leave in a hurry if needed. Do you have camping supplies?
What have you done to prepare for a disaster or outage? Have you ever had a survival drill? Do you have a family plan? Have you faced a disaster where you live?
Here is a old post that I am linking below that I did in 2016 about using less grid.
https://gdonna.com/living-like-the-past/grid-options/
Grandma Donna
