This is why I EDC and prep

I look on EDC as short term (< 1 day) prepping. I'm not interested in taking enough equipment to let me survive 3 days in the woods whenever I go out for the day, but I do take items that may help me in getting home if needed. For all I know the items I EDC may one day save my life.

There isn't an answer that will suit everyone, because we all have different locations and different circumstances. I live in a country where access to guns is heavily restricted, so ac7ss's EDC isn't going to be appropriate for me. I live on high up ground, so I'm not worried about being flooded. Someone living next to a river is obviously going to be different.

Then why not sell off your stuff and buy other things you need around the house.

I would have never bought a house close to water or in a flood zone.

Even then, after the first flood i would just move away or float away in my boat.

I agree!

Sorry if life isn't going too well for you right now. But it does make you wonder why anyone would live where it has been flooding with some frequency, if not regularity, for as long as people have lived there. In my case, I wonder about the trees we have around the neighborhood. It isn't a question of whether or not they will fall down but when. The obvious solution is to have them taken down. We've had one taken down but it isn't an inexpensive thing to have done. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to be a serious threat, given how many times it has happened (tree falling on a house) in the last 25 years, which is how long we've lived in this house. For some curious reason, in the area behind the house, in the woods, very large trees fall down quite often, usually in the same direction but they never fall on anything except other trees, sometimes bringing them down, too.

I'm sure, however, there is something that is lacking in our personal preparation at home. Bound to be! Given what has been happening, or rather, not happening, in New York where the storm struck, it seems like we should revise upwards the amount of time we should allow for a "disaster senario." In other words, I think we could manage quite nicely for a week with no power (longer for the food we have) but beyond that, not so sure. The biggest thing is probably not having a extra supply of gasoline above what we have on hand for the lawn mower. It isn't as though we need to prepare to evacuate the area (because I don't imagine we'd be better off anywhere else) but merely having to get around for a week or two when gas supplies might be difficult to get. We would want to get to work, although if the power were off in a wide spread area, that probably wouldn't be necessary. It gets complicated, then it gets easy, if you follow me.

And speaking of gasoline (which might deserve a thread of its own), if you were keeping five-gallon cans of gasoline/petrol on hand, what is is the storage life of gasoline?

Small family farm operation experience only; no petroTech experience:

We have had success for up to one year by adding a double-dose of Sta-Bil Gasoline Stabilizer to gasoline. See label directions.

By 18 mos: unusable. Gasoline seems to turn into cheap lacquer.

JMO.

You are not making a lot of friends here. For my part, I try to never give advice unless specifically requested. It can make one appear terribly arrogant.

Again, you fail to show any ability to see things from another person's perspective. You say "Sorry if life isn't going too well for you right now. " To whom are you speaking? How do you make such an arrogant assumption. You have no idea how people may have come to live in a flood plain. Perhaps it was all they could afford. Perhaps it was left to them as an inheritance. Not everyone is able to just pick up and move away. Have you no sensitivity to other people's circumstances? That is just plain rude.

So, kinda' late this year, eh?

I wasn't aware I was supposed to be making friends here, virtual or otherwise. And since no one apparently sees things from my perspective either, then we're even. Chances are, people live in a flood plain because that's where the jobs are. I live where I live, more or less, because I have a job here. I left where I was born because the jobs left town, although they didn't leave the country, I might add. But I take your point. I appreciate the fact that some people only lack the bus fare out of town. As as for being sorry that life wasn't going to well at the moment, I was replying to whoever said life wasn't going to well at the moment, which I don't think was you, Mr. tower. I've had my bad times, too.

In any case, I'm not really bothered if I'm not understood. I'm used to it. But some of you other people are a little too sensitive.

To me, it doesn't seem like a threat needs to be 'regular' in order for it to be 'serious'. Serious to me means 'dangerous': if a tree falls down, is there a chance it is going to smash through the window of a bedroom, or knock a roof/wall down? That seems dangerous to me since it carries a potential loss of life, which implies serious regardless of how common the event itself is. You say yourself that it's a question of time, not a question of if. It seems silly to me to ignore a dangerous threat just because one hasn't fallen on your house in the last 25 years. If it's potentially life-threatening, it deserves a look at, in my opinion.

Your posts seem to advocate being prepared, yet at the same time you seem utterly opposed to the idea of being prepared for or taking steps to prevent anything other than the most recent thing that happened.


On a side topic, lopping the top off a tree yourself isn't particularly difficult, is fairly cheap (ladder? chainsaw? friend? Absolute bare minimum to do so), and gives you ease of mind. That obviously differs depending on the type of tree: if you're tackling a giant redwood, I'd maybe call in the experts.

Since we're talking about prepping, what solution do you propose now that people are already living there?
To relocate an entire populated area?

What about kids or college students (living with their parents) who had no choice where their parents chose to move them
Lastly you forget how many hundreds of people lives or livelihood we're destroyed.
Whether they made a bad decision or not, a person with a heart will never criticize and judge people who have suffered a tragedy.

As Tower said "You have no idea how people may have come to live in a flood plain"
With the utmost respect to him, I disagree with it being plain rude. I think it's plain heartless and cruel.

No you don't have to, but it certainly makes your stay a lot nicer if you succeed.

.......

Ya know, there is a long standing slang term on the internet... goes back to before it was the internet; TROLL.

Someone needs to look it up then act on it and ban the one in this thread.

Stop feeding the troll is anther term that goes with it, and probably a good idea here folks...

$0.05

G.