On Wednesday, August 2nd 2010, I caught a warning on-line that I immediately posted to NDE.
"Yesterday morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a 'filament') erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae — a solar storm is coming."
So this would make an excellent time to test the grid-down hardiness of the Secret Underground Lair and surrounding compound. All the reading on last century homesteading, the plans, all can be put to the test. I did not rush out and stock up at the store, I went with what we had already on hand, for better or worse.
The only problem I had was that for the past four days as well as the next two, our area was under an Extreme Heat Advisory. I know some readers from the SW United States will scoff at 105 degree temps but here in the SE US, these temps have to be felt to be believed, so as a result I killed off all power except the AC (which we set to 77, later it was struggling to maintain 80) and power to the refer and freezer. (Freezer is outdoors, subject to more heat). To simulate water being unavailable I wrapped painters tape around the knobs and faucets of all receptacles.
In the countdown to grid-down we alerted loved ones that we would not be on line and made preparations, pushed the project truck out of the metal-sided shop and placing the new(er) pickup in the shop in hopes that the shop would shield it, simulated moving much of the ammo to the house (one case instead of all of them), turned off the power to all the outbuildings, locked them and having everyone place their personal weapons out where they can get to them. I stopped short of constantly packing a sidearm as I didn't want to alert the neighbors as to what we were doing. (Alabama has open carry except in vehicles, that requires the CC permit.) Next up I had my son fill the bathtub with water , fill the six gallon water containers down at the shop and put them in the bathroom “just in case”. I then flipped all the breakers for my shop and the house (except for the aforementioned AC and refer/freezer) and listened to the deafening silence.
We ran down our necessary survival items.
Shelter? We had the house and other buildings around the compound, check.
Water? Four Aquatainers (at seven gallons each), 12 gallons in just stocked water and roughly 400 non-potable gallons in rain barrels, check.
Food? Well the fridge is always scheduled to be eaten out of first, however there were very little left overs and the rest was useless as a “food”.
A refrigerator full of condiments and no food, how embarrassing. I had canned goods of course and the garden was still producing so we were OK there for a while, probably a few months.
Fire/cooking? Well the range is electric so that was out, I had the gas grill outside as well as the Coleman camp stoves... and if worse came to worse I can cook over wood.
Security? In Glock we trust.
Right at the beginning we hit our first problem, in preparing the Aquatainers many months ago we apparently put too much bleach in the water to keep the nasty bugs out. Drinking a 16 oz glass of water left a very distinct burning sensation in your throat. Good for sanitation but bad for drinking. Luckily I had placed some 2 liter and one gallon bottles away in the top of a closet, I used these to cut the Aquatainer water 50/50 and we had drinkable water again.
In order to save the potable water, I took to washing my hands with the rain barrel water, then smearing some Germ X on my hands after, the point being that the rain water got the dirt/oil/etc off and the Germ X got off the icky things in the barrel water off.
I tried to get myself and my boy back into our normal routine however he soon got a case of the “I'm bored”. Those of you with teens know this one, anything that is NOT what they want to do is “boring”. Work in the garden? “Nah” Read a book? “Boring” Count the canned goods outside? “Boring” Go work on trucks? “Nah” but this didn't last long. No TV and no computer he soon started to help out. My routine was to start looking at/working in the garden this time of day. After squishing bugs, training vines, picking peppers about 45 minutes I came back in near exhausted. With the AC set to higher temps it took longer to cool down even using some hand fans we scrounged up. If you are not familiar with Deep South Heat in August, come visit sometime. Not those nice ocean breeze Panama Beach temps... come sit in the sun drenched woods where there is no wind and you are just as wet as if you went swimming.
The temperature gauge on the back porch, out of sunlight at 6pm the first day.Looking back on it now, if we weren't quite so addicted to air conditioning and the fact that we can have things ice cold when were are burning up, I could probably have gotten used to the heat in a longer running event. As it was we adopted the older method used pre-AC where you work in the early morning then take a rest after lunch resuming work in the late late afternoon when the sun is behind some trees and night is approaching. This results in not so much heat stress on your body and allows you to rehydrate for the afternoon's activities.
Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. The first night's cooking was left to me, I decided to use another method of what I like to call double up cooking. I cooked two days meals for one instance of heating the grill. I cooked chicken, pasta, peas and bread on the propane grill all at once using one burner on low to conserve propane.
The pasta pot required the use of the side burner and to finish the bread we had to turn on another internal burner. When time came to drain the pasta water, I strained it through a colander and into a stock pot for the meal in two days time, I covered the pot with cloth to keep nasty things out. Into this pot would go the bones from first and second night's chicken along with some carrots and potatoes for soup on the third night.
During the prep time and cooking of this meal is when I fired up the generator to charge the refer and freezer. Running for about five hours in the night after I'm done cooking, it cooled it down just fine. In keeping with the idea that we were rationing, everyone got a chicken thigh, a cup of English peas, a cup of pasta and a hunk of bread. Surprisingly no one complained of not having enough.
Doing the dishes could wait till the next morning as we were now down to using the kerosene lamps or personal flashlights for illumination. The family gathered around the table for dinner and a few games of chess afterward before bed, it was barely 9pm.
The next day I awoke and started the generator again for a morning without coffee is truly a tragedy, this will also charge up the refer/freezer for the coming day. Breakfast was cold chicken and yesterday's bread, again adding the chicken bones to the stock pot. The previous night's dishes and breakfast were washed with rain water and potable water. We half filled old kitty litter plastic tubs (about four gallons in size) with rain water adding detergent to make this the “wash water”. Once washed they were then rinsed with the bleach water and allowed to dry on the rack.
This day saw more garden work (earlier than yesterday) that brought in enough beans to be added to the stock pot the next day. In an attempt to get a head start on the next Aquatainer's bleach problem I pulled it down and opened it up to allow the bleach to breath out and as expected it was just as strong as the other container. Busy work was done and books were read during the heat of the day, lunch being cold pasta and a can of soup from the stockpile. The afternoon brought us a much needed thunderstorm bringing cooler temps and more importantly, WATER. Water for the garden and water for the rain barrels to fill what we had used.
All told we used around 10 gallons of gas, maybe 15 gallons of non-potable water (most of that was for flushing) and six or seven gallons of potable water. We washed in the pool outside since it's pretty chlorinated already. The food impact was negligible, four leg quarters, eight thighs, a quart of peas, three cups of dried elbow macaroni, three cans of Progresso Soup , a few bananas, a musk melon and cashews.
What does it all mean?
I finished with the knowledge that we can go a few days without grid supplied materials but no where near the six months target I have set. I might be able to get six months on food but I am lacking in other consumables, notably fuel. I could sustain this level of consumption for about five days before I would need to start scrounging for fuel. Perhaps if I worked more on salting or smoking the meat in the freezers, I would not need as much fuel. This did not take into account any fuel I would need to save for the rototiller to make more crops, or the chainsaw to cut up firewood for winter (yes I have a propane insert, but I'm still collecting cord wood for “whatever”). The rain barrels really saved us, not using the potable water for flushing made things much easier, I have plans to expand my storage capacity. The “EMP” vehicles that run on points worked, but not as well as they should have, one over heated and the other is suffering some surge problem where it works for a long time, then acts like it's out of gas and quits, something to work on later.
