Gulf Coast Residents stock up on water now

[BOSSHOG]

before its off the shelves. Fill up the empty space in your freezer with bottled water. If the power goes out the water will keep things cooler for a longer period of time. And if we don't have any power outages come the end of the hurricane season we'll have ice cold water available. Lets hope that will be the case.

Keep an eye on Chris, he's sneaking up on Cuba now.

[Virginia Dare]

1. Hoping for the best for you BOSSHOG....

the season is just heating up, could be in for a bumpy ride this year. Best to stay prepared.

[Maddy McCall]

2. May I add to your advice?

Also, if you have any empty milk gallon bottles or laundry detergent bottles, rinse them well and fill up as many of them as you can find with water. Put them in your carport or any other out-of-the-way place. This will be good to use to flush your toilet, should you lose your water supply.

If you have any big rubbermaid tubs rinse them out with bleach and water, put them in your carport, and fill them with water. You can use that water to bathe with or even to cook with if you should lose your water supply.

Buy batteries.

If you have a little extra money, buy a coleman propane cook stove and ten or twelve bottles of propane. It's cheaper than cooking on charcoal, and more versatile. You can actually feed your family hot meals, if you buy the propane stove and fuel.

******
BOSSHOG, wishing you the best. :hug: Let's hope that Chris stays away from Mississippi.

[malaise]

6. To add to your advice

start setting and storing ice in pots, whatever and then place in garbage bags and then wrap with newspaper before storing in igloos as power is switched off. Use a separate igloo so you don't have to open often. The larger the container you set ice in the longer it will last.

You can also freeze bottled water and do the same.

sp.

[Maddy McCall]

18. That's good advice.

I have not ever done that. Thanks! :hi:

[BOSSHOG]

7. Hi Maddy

Before we evacuated for Katrina we filled up the bathtubs for toilet use. But your suggestion is a great one. I have 5 gallon buckets out in the garage; they sure come in handy. We got home the next day and it was (almost) humorous, all the neighbors had the grills broke out and everything in the freezers was being cooked up. It made sense and we all ate good for a couple of days. We have flashlights all over the house with new batteries. A lot of people find it hard to believe but propane is a lot cheaper then charcoal for barbecuing. Wishing us all the best and thanks for your suggestions.

[drthais]

8. Back In The Day....

first thing we'd do (and still do)
is fill the bathtub with water.
If you have two bathtubs, fill em both

[bullimiami]

9. what every floridian knows.

plug and fill the bathtub with water before the storm.

[theHandpuppet]

14. Another list: Foods that don't need cooking or refrigeration

Peanut butter
Dried fruits and nuts
Small boxes of fruit juice
Beef jerky
Canned beans, including baked beans (I don't mind them cold)
Small cans of meats that can be eaten at one sitting (sardines, tuna, etc.)
Cereal or granola bars
Chocolate
Cookies, especially ones such as fig newtons which actually have some nutritional value.

Also, powdered milk and powdered eggs are good to have on hand if you can still cook. Powdered eggs can be found in the baking section of your store. A can is fairly pricey but they go a long way since one can is equivalent to several dozen eggs.

[CottonBear]

17. The milk in cartons for non-fridge storage in the pantry is good too. n/t

[BOSSHOG]

20. We have Meals ready to eat stocked

They came in handy last year.

http://www.usaemergencysupply.com/food/mre.htm

We have several left over from last year and are quite tasty especially when ya got no power.

[malaise]

26. Ad potatoes and lots of

noodles to that, along with kidney and black eyed beans as well as salt cod.
You can add canned corned anything to beans and make great dishes in hurricane conditions. You can also add powdered coconut milk to kidney beans and have a great 'ital' vegi meal.

[jpak]

24. Add a solar shower and a "mister" to your list

and a battery operated fan.

If ice is available when the juice is out, fill the solar shower with cold water and use it to cool off before bed.

Use the mister and the fan to keep you cool through the night.

Makes life much easier - believe me.

Also, Colman makes a battery operated (4 D-cell) submersible shower pump.

A little bit of ice in a tub of water and the whole family can take a cool shower too.

Finally, gasoline disappeared within hours prior to Dennis and Katrina last year - as did gas cans. There was no gas for weeks after Katrina in my neck of the woods.

If you feel the need - fill up the gas tank soon...

[malaise]

3. The more I look at Chris the

more I see Hurricane Andrew. South Florida and the Gulf better prepare for Chris.

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200603.html

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/extras/graphics/news/andrew/path.html

[tsuki]

4. Don't forget the bleach. nt

[Bake]

5. Hang in there Boss!

It's been a pretty quiet season so far ... but that may be about to change! I hope Chris misses Mississippi altogether!

Good advice on the water and batteries. Be safe and hang in there.

Bake

[kerry-is-my-prez]

10. I've got batteries, flashlights and lanterns up the wazoo too.

n/t

[BOSSHOG]

12. Lets hope we'll just be oversupplied

with stuff we won't need. Won't that be nice. Good Luck to you teammate.

[Lochloosa]

11. Batten down the hatches Boss...if you still have any.

:evilgrin:

[CottonBear]

13. Hi BOSS!

Have you had any decent amount of rain yet or is there still a drought down there? I sure hope this hurricane season isn't like last year.

It is super hot up here. The high today will be 99 with a heat index of 103 and over 45% humidity. :(

In my horse magazine, there was a good article about preparing for a hurricane if you have many pets or livestock like horses or goats. The suggestion was to get large plastic garbage cans with lids and line them with heavy duty lawn and leaf bags. Fill them up with water and add a small amount of bleach to sterilize the water and then cover with the lid. Also, plastic rain barrels are excellent for storing water diverted from the gutters. They have a hose spigot at the bottom. The water can be used to flush toilets and water pets or it could be sterilized for potable use if needed. (My community gives the barrels away for free to residents!) They also suggested setting aside gas and oil for the chain saw as well as some cans of gas for your vehicles.

Maddy's coleman fuel stove idea is excellent. Coleman lanterns are a good idea too. Non-perishable food, bug spray, flashlights and batteries are essentials. Don'tforget the pet supplies (food and litter) and pet crates, leashes, harnesses and portable water and food dishes. Horses and other livestock will need hay and grain set aside in plastic bins and under tarps in protected areas.

A must have is one of those hand cranked (also uses batteries or plugs into the wall outlet) AM-FM-SW radios that doubles as a cell phone charger (I got mine at Radio Shack). That way, you can charge your phone up even if the electricity is out and you don't want to waste gas or run down the battery by running your car. (This is assuming that the cell phone towers are still working.) My little radio works great!

Take care and here's hoping Chris doesn't make landfall in the US! :hi:

[Tsiyu]

19. All great advice

I've got one of those radios from RS as well, and it is wonderful.

A solar-powered battery charger is also nice if you have lots of battery-operated flashlights and such. You can also buy an inverter to run stuff off your car battery (Cabela's sells them I believe.)

If you live in an area that you need to evacuate, a big plastic bucket with handle and cover (restaurants and any food service use them and will give them away sometimes) can act as an emergency stash holder. Fill with containers of water, first aid supplies, granola bars, emergency blankets, small folding shovel, rope, candles, matches, rubber gloves, and anything else you might need "on the run."

Good luck to all along our hurricane-prone coast. :thumbsup:

[BOSSHOG]

21. Hello Dear

No critters in our house but I think we are fairly well prepared and stocked. If any storm in the near term is as bad or worse then Katrina we are packing our bags and heading for Kansas. I think we'll end up doing that in a couple of years anyway when my wife retires. She wants to be closer to her Mom and I can't argue with that. We've gotten a good deal of rain the past two weeks, the normal summer cycle - 5:00 in the afternoon, clouds roll off the coast and we get a nice shower. Still pretty damned hot and humid. We are going to the Satchmo fest in the qtr this weekend. Kinda eerie. We went to Satchmo last year and it was our last trip to NOLA before Katrina. We have a few indeterminate tomatoes and they have been very productive for about a month now. I put some Shrimp Plants amongst our Wave Petunias, they are getting along famously; along with some late summer Vincas. I've been the poster boy for lazy this summer, its just too damned hot by 9:00 in the morning. I mowed the front lawn this am, it looks good, but I don't. Our old bank on Pontchartrain in Slidell reopened. I was surprised at the selling prices of houses in our old neighborhood. So far, sellers are doing pretty good considering their houses took in 6+ feet of water less then a year ago. God Bless all Georgia republicans who sent ralph reed packing. Ya'll stay cool!

[theHandpuppet]

15. Instructions for sterilizing water

This gives you four different options:

http://www.ci.poquoson.va.us/to_sterilize_water.htm

1. Boil for 3-5 minutes or;

2. Add 12 drops of 2% tincture of iodine per gallon or;

3. Add 8 drops of household bleach per gallon or;

4. Use water purification tablets.

[Glorfindel]

16. I'm well supplied with water (both for drinking & for other uses)

Also have a generator, so maybe I could run a fan and a light bulb. I was out of town (on vacation and then stranded, unable to get a flight) for Katrina...came back and the world had changed completely. I wound up flying from Atlanta to Houston to Jackson and then catching a ride down home to Wiggins. I'm leaving again on the 30th & returning on Sept. 5. I HOPE there will be no repeat catastrophe this year. I don't know how much more we south Mississippians can stand! :scared:

[BOSSHOG]

22. I don't ever want to go through anything close to Katrina again

and we got off fairly easy compared to those south of us. Hang in there teammate.

[lies and propaganda]

23. good post. we all know we have to take care of

each other and ourselves. We are definitely all we've got.

[Nikki Stone 1]

25. kick for advice

:kick:

[BOSSHOG]

27. A couple of intersting items I heard/read

- Bring the solar lights inside at night, they provide some lighting when the sun goes down
- If you have a dishwasher you can store important papers in there; supposedly you can seal it up and the papers will stay dry. I haven't tried this.
- Keep all auto gas tanks full
- Have a battery operated radio (get new batteries now.)
- Meals ready to eat prove excellent after a hurricane
- If the power goes out get stuff out of the freezer and on the grill as soon as possible. Better to eat leftovers then have to trash your groceries and possibly your fridge.

Its pathetic that this kind of information just rolls off my keyboard. I'd rather not know about this stuff, but We have to.

[texanwitch]

28. Another good thing to have is solar lights, I bought several last year

half price or less at Target. All you have to do is just stick them out in you yard and at night you have light. One of my neighbors did that last year, the solar lights provide good indoor lighting.

Wit hour power it gets really dark around my house, a few lights here and there makes a difference.

[greguganus]

29. We got generator power and well water and big tank of fuel n/t

[slackmaster]

30. Here in Earthquake Country the wise stay stocked at all times

I keep about 50 gallons of drinking water and enough food for (easily) two weeks on hand.

Thread tagged for interest. Thanks BOSSHOG.

[BOSSHOG]

31. Thanks Slackmaster

I was a guest of the wonderful city of San Diego in the early 70's at Navy Bootcamp, Recruit Training Command. An incredible liberty town for a brand new teenage Sailor from Arkansas. I was stationed at Naval Weapons Center China Lake out of bootcamp and we had minor tremors fairly often.

You do mention the wise and I am always amazed every hurricane season at the last minute actions of so many citizens stocking up on stuff that can very easily be stock up on during calmer times. The only last minute stuff we do is keeping the auto topped off with fuel; case we gotta head north.

[slackmaster]

32. Drinking water is the single most critical supply

Even very poor people, because they have children, usually have a few empty gallon milk jugs around. Filling them with tap water can prevent some easily predictable problems. I don't see poverty as a very good excuse for not preparing. Water is basically free, and a few cans of soup can keep you alive for days.

The problems as I see it are that peoples' memories are short; and that many count on someone else, be the government or God, to take care of them in a disaster situation.