We are in the midst of Tornado season, here in Alabama, and I am not prepared. I was going to post about the use of Corn Gluten as Weed control and another homemade personal care product recipe but I decided to post about what I’m actually doing…freaking out.
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Well, not exactly freaking out, but trying to prepare just in case another round of awful tornadoes come through the area and we’re without power for 5+ days. I’ve made a few checklists, however I always feel as if I’m missing something. We have a few things on order that should arrive this week including more canned beans, 1/2 gallon mason jars for filtered water storage, and more mung bean noodles. The GWLW (guy we live with, you know…the hubby) is planning to obtain gas for the generators to keep the freezer and fridge running (in the event that the house is still standing, sans power) and I’m making muffins for the freezer also. Our diet is so limited, I really cannot think of anything else to have on hand. If the gardens manage to survive the storms then we will have fresh produce to eat. I’m also gently encouraging the GWLW to build an outdoor fire pit. He was slightly opposed to the idea but after some discussion I think he agrees that it would not be a bad thing to have.
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So, here’s my list:
- Canned beans
- Mung bean noodles (cook quickly)
- 8 Gallons of filtered, safe water
- Gasoline for generators
- Frozen muffins
- Vegetables from garden
- Frozen vegetables
- Glow sticks
- Flashlights
- Extra Batteries
- Gauze, cotton swabs, compounded ibuprofen and diphenhydramine
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What am I missing? What are some items on your emergency preparedness checklists?
What frozen veggies do you use? Are they from your garden? I’m new to being corn free, about 2 months into this nightmare ;( and I was thinking I had been told that all store bought frozen veggies have corn on them.
I have to be GF also and I worry about things like this, we have power outages in winter due to ice storms.
Thanks,
Moe
Hi Moe,
Thus far most corn allergic individuals from the Delphi Forum have gotten away with the Bird’s Eye “Pure and Simple,” single ingredient, non-sauced frozen vegetables. Not all in the line are safe, the brussel sprouts come to mind because they contain citric acid and some of the blends contain corn kernels. The bags and boxes will not say “Pure and Simple” but they are the vegetables that do not say Voila or Steamfresh.
Here is the information I posted to the Delphi Forum and the associated thread concerning the Birds Eye “Pure and Simple” vegetables: http://forums.delphiforums.com/avoidingcorn/messages?msg=11170.1
Most other vegetables have been washed in a citric acid bath or soaked in citric acid. Some have salt (dextrose anti-clumping agent) included but it is not labeled. Some have citric acid right on the label. You have to be careful.
We eat the Deluxe asparagus and broccoli usually daily without issue.
Make sure you have a non-electric can opener. And there are a lot of different battery operated lanterns and lamps, that are really useful during power failures. I have several of them. You can even read by the light they give off. An assortment of small flashlights, that can be kept in every room in the house is useful. I hated when the power went off after dark, and I would have to feel my way in the pitch darkness to find a flashlight. Now, I have them and the other battery powered lights stashed where I can find one in any room I’m in. Don’t forget to have a battery operated radio, or weather radio on hand, so you can get weather bulletins when the power is off. We get bad storms and power failures up north, too. They are a pain in the rear, and can be downright scary at times.
We have the non-electric can opener and the battery operated weather radio. I hadn’t thought about the battery operated lanterns and lamps, thank you. I have oil lamps, but I remember how bad those smelled when I wasn’t very sensitive. I’m not sure how I would handle them now. We have a few flashlight but I will make sure to get a few more.
Thanks, Donnie!
What about those besan pancakes that you make…I wonder how would they freeze?
Don’t forget coffee! And to have plenty of beans already ground so you don’t have to worry how you’re going to make coffee. If you don’t use a french press already, maybe get one. All you need is hot water.
Being a Mississippi native, I’m surprised that I had never heard of weather radios before moving to Virginia. Even though we don’t get many tornadoes here, I don’t mess around with those things so I got one. I set it up so that it only goes off for tornado watches and warnings in my county and those that border it. That things is AWESOME and will wake the dead (read: me when asleep). Mine looks like this one:
MIDLAND WR300 Weather Radio
I also have a hand crank radio in case we lose power so at least I can listen to the news. Some models have a short wave radio included. I can’t remember where I got it, but I seem to recall the price being somewhere around $50. This is the model I have.
Grundig FR200 Emergency Radio
I think they make hand crank cell phone chargers…..?
The pancakes would be good. I’ll freeze some of those also. Yipi prefers those over the muffins anyway. I’ll remind the hubby about his coffee, I don’t drink it, still nursing.
We already have the weather radio. We decided to get it last year after the April 27th tornadoes. I’ll talk with the hubs about the crank radio, he wasn’t too keen on it last year after a failed attempt at using one on a camping trip. Hopefully the house will still be standing and we can use the generators. I know I shouldn’t count on that but…I really, really hope this is the case. I just keep thinking about all that meat in the freezer.
I have been wanting some of those flashlights that you can shake to power them. I’ve forgotten what they’re called, but they work like a crank radio…..We have flashlights in every room and try to make sure there are spare batteries charged at all times. I agree with Donnie about the lanterns. We keep a small one I got years ago in the bathroom because it’s so much handier than trying to go to the bathroom with a flashlight. We each have our own flashlights so we can reach them when the power goes out, but we always have one hanging in the kitchen. We tend to use the flashlights to get from place to place but the lanterns work well for playing cards or something. So far our power hasn’t been out long enough for my laptop to run out of juice but one time. We live near a prison so I think we might be high priority for getting power restored.
I do worry about tornadoes here, too. We are so dependent on our freezer but we have no generator. If we bought a generator, we wouldn’t have enough money to put meat in the freezer so it’s kind of a catch-22. I know I could build a fire pit in the backyard if I needed to, but I should try to find a grate to use for cooking. I don’t have any water stored, but if worse came to worse, I could collect rainwater and put it through the Berkey or get some from a nearby stream. Are you going to just put water into the mason jars and seal them up or will you be pressure or water bath canning them?
I have the lanterns (two) on order and I ordered three more flashlights, with 8 additional rechargeable batteries. I hope that enough. Hopefully we’ll get our fire-pit built this weekend.
I’m thinking of adding just a couple drops of food grade hydrogen peroxide and pressure canning the water; but I’m not sure which canning method is the best choice. I have the jars now and it takes the Berkey a while to filter the water.
Let us know what method you decide to use. I’m trying to keep three pitchers of water in the fridge all the time in case we want to make broth or tea or something. I could use some better pitchers. I’m also trying to wash produce in a dishpan full of Berkey water with baking soda and salt. I bought a beautiful old fashioned graniteware dishpan in a local hardware store when I lived in the sticks and I have gotten so much use out of it. I wish I had two more!
Will do. That graniteware dishpan sounds really nice! I’m going to look for it online.
I have some nice graniteware that I bought from Lehman’s online. They have a lot of stuff that is very useful during power failures and other emergencies.
http://www.lehmans.com/
Donnie
Thanks, Donnie. I’ll check it out later today.