The Storm Next Time

The night before Superstorm Sandy was supposed to hit, I called my friend A to see what she was doing to prepare. She lives in a fifth-floor walk-up in the East Village, and had spent a few minutes talking with a neighbor about which local restaurants would be most likely to deliver in a hurricane—that was it; that was the extent of her preparation. Since then, I’ve heard her stories of going for days without electricity, heat, and water. Our friend V told us about walking down 17 stories with a couple of empty water bottles, filling them at an open fire hydrant, and walking back up, over and over, again and again. K ran out of money when the ATMs ran out of power. And so on.

As far as I know, none of my friends’ homes were destroyed, nobody truly suffered, but I was surprised at the things they didn’t think to think about, the simple steps they didn’t take to make it easier on themselves. The following list is for people who live in the city and need just the most basic reminders of what to do when a natural disaster is looming. I know there are plenty of serious urban preppers who take things a lot further—if you are one, this list is not for you. These are clues for the clueless: It’s for A and V and K and anyone else who has never, ever sat down to think about what happens when the lights go out.

1. Fill your prescriptions. You do not want to be going cold-turkey from antidepressants when the world really is dark and cold.

2. Get some cash. ATMs run on electricity; everything else runs on money. Figure how much money you will need for three days, then double that.

3. Buy fresh batteries. Oh my god: You do own a flashlight, right? Right?
TIP: Buy a flashlight. And a little radio.

4. Take a bath. Wash your hair. Start clean, because that gives you an extra day without bathing before you start to smell really bad.
TIP: Buy baby wipes. Even if you can’t bathe, you can keep your aroma under control by rubbing your whole body with baby wipes. They sell them at grocery stores and drugstores.

5. Wash your clothes. Similar to #3, but don’t drop off your stuff at the laundry on the day of the storm because when you come back to pick it up, you’ll find they closed early on account of the weather and you won’t have anything to wear for a week. Watch the weather reports and try to get your laundry in a day or two early.

6. Wash your dishes. Yes, there are a lot of water-related steps: You need water more than you need food. Also: Where does your water come from? What floor is your apartment on? During the 2003 blackout, I camped out with a friend who had a 10th-floor apartment. The pressure from the tank on the roof of the building pushed the water exactly as high as the 9th floor; normally, an electric pump got the water to the upper floors, he found out that night.
TIP: Buy some water. Grocery stores have gallon jugs of “spring water” for, like, $1.50. Get three of these for each person or animal in your apartment. It doesn’t hurt to have some water around. Go ahead, have them delivered.
TIP: Freeze some water. Take some empty plastic Evian bottles you haven’t gotten around to recycling yet (make sure they’re clean), fill them with tap water, and stick them in the freezer. They’ll help keep your food frozen just a little longer when the power goes out, plus you can drink the water once it’s not ice anymore.
TIP: Fill the bathtub, if you have one. Don’t drink that water (unless you have to), use it to flush the toilet. Think about it: the tank at the back of the toilet where the flushing water comes from is not going to be filling up if there isn’t any water. So you take a big cooking pot (if you have one), and fill it with the bathtub water, and dump it in the toilet, and hey presto! You’ve flushed.

7. Get some weird food. You’ll need food, especially food that doesn’t have to be refrigerated and maybe even food that doesn’t have to be cooked. Look at your stove to see if it’s electric (bad) or gas (possibly good—it might still work). Stock up on crackers and peanut butter, bread and hard cheese (which can go bad, but not immediately), and canned tuna. Granola bars! Dry cereal! Canned peaches! Beef jerky doesn’t need refrigeration and it has a lot of protein, but also a lot of salt, which can make you thirsty. That’s maybe not so good if the water’s out.
TIP: Make sure you have a hand can opener.

8. Grind some coffee. Your artisanal-roasted single-sourced fair-trade coffee beans aren’t going to do you a bit of good if your electric La Pavoni burr grinder isn’t running. Grind enough coffee for a couple of days and put it in a ziplock bag in the freezer. Yes, this is a horrible way to treat good coffee, but if it gets to where you need to use it, you won’t care.
TIP: Those Starbucks Via Italian Roast instant-coffee packets aren’t so bad, if all you’ve got is hot water.

9. Charge your cell phone. Just in case cell phones still work.
TIP: Payphones may work when cell phones don’t. Scout around your neighborhood to see if you can find a payphone in advance, and get some quarters ready.

10. Stay warm. About the only thing you can do if the heat is out is to bundle up. Do not try to heat your apartment with the gas oven, you’ll just get carbon monoxide poisoning or set the place on fire or something. Do not light the hibachi. Do not set a fire in your bathtub (if you have one).

11. Help other people. Lots of people will be worse off than you. If you want to help with Sandy recovery, check the listings here and here for a start.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and stay safe.

Comments

[TT]

Great post and list.

Here are a few more

Nuts are also decent for protein.
Carrots have decent shelf life and go well with peanut butter and hummus.

Thermos carafes for hot water are handy for the early part of storms and the everyday.

Camping outfitter sorta places sell multipurpose flashlights that hang/stand/swivel etc.
And oh, those little LED flashlights that clip on to bicycles are really good to go anywhere. Same goes for an LED book light.

[Ralphine]

Could've used some tips on camouflage; target detection; range estimation; bugging-out; debris shelter and fire pit building; procuring food and water; killing, dressing, and eating chickens; and marksmanship (including position, sight alignment, trigger control, breathing, and most importantly, repeatability).

[Anon.]

From the above comments, one gets the true idea that Americans are:
1- Mad and crazy as a three-nut baboon.
2- Poor faggots who are always on the hunt for cash. Greed is America's second name.
3- Dumb trogs who have a long-history of buying "flashlights" they take seriously. Along with that, they're also sociophobic and are basically as point#1 stated above, crazy fucks.
4-5-&6- Some of the dirtiest human beings (doubt if they are ever going to upscale to such an echelon in the evolutionary cycle of the world), plus being such gluttonous shits, which the next point affirms quite over-stately...
7- Weird food? You mean shit, possibly? Si si.
8- American coffee IS NOT coffee. Americanusholes drink large quantities of joe to stay on the edge because they're normally numb all the time and are usually lazy (Read that as 'Fat').
9- Cellphones do need batteries and these need electricity. Simple. Americans cannot let go of theirs because it's where they keep their lives locked inside a dream-like world full of bullcrap.
Last, but not least...
10- Bundle up? Americans are such horny assholians who are also very paranoid. Can't even imagine how would a bunch of dirty, smelly little goons ever start to bundle up... unless, they're in for some hot, monkey sex. Hurrdurr.

Oh, and 11? They're the world's biggest beggars and most stupid thieves. This weblog is based on a series of beggathons after all, so little or wonder there: This point explains itself, obvi.

And, now... Waiting for the next disaster to further fuck such a nation who have gone so far up their collective asses, they think (*in all seriousness*) that, yeah they can be the world's elite power and rulers, too.

What a pathetic non-nation full of dogshit.

Add this point:
12- In case you feel so hangry (hungry and angry about it), follow a street dog and demand with a set of pliers and a torch-blower that it must shit in your hands. Do not rub it on your face! Eat it. Dog shit is good for you, my fella American'ts.

[Smelly Old Hobo]

Sounds like Anon. should have read #1 more carefully: refill your prescriptions.

[MrFab]

^^Ha!

Anyway. Good points, Bronwyn. As a Los Angeles native, I can tell you that the "earthquake kit" is a standard feature in LA homes, and quake preparedness is drilled into us since birth. Couple other points:

- Jugs of water should not be opened, and rotate them out every six months or so - write the date you bought them on the jug before you stick it in your earthquake, er, hurricane stash. Canned/nonperishable foods should also be chucked after a while.

- I've got a couple of backpacks full of survival necessities from an army surplus store. Yep, didn't have to go around and buy everything individually, 'twas all loaded already in the backpack. Check your local army suplus - they're popular among the conspiracy theorists/survivalists/Xtian kooks who think armegeddeon is imminent.

- Keep a phone land-line, not just a cell.

- re point 11: Despite what some idiot said on CNN during the Japanese quake/tsunami, there WASN'T looting in LA after the '94 Northridge quake. As one cop said, "The criminals were scared, too."

If you live in the hurricane zone, be prepared - there WILL be another big one like Sandy. This wasn't some one-time fluke. It's what Nature does.

[braupier]

My doc cold turkeyed me off an antidepressant in '07 and I'm still having seizures from it. These drugs cause permanent brain damage. Look up the thousands of cases all over the web.

[Robert]

If the tank is on the roof, and the bldg. is not lying on its side or upside-down, and the tank has water in it (which it won't forever without being pumped full), how could water not reach the top floor? The roof is on top; the tank is higher than the top floor. Your friend's story must be distorted. Probably it was a matter of the roof tank's being emptied and there being no electricity to pump it up again. It is physically impossible that they would need a pump ROUTINELY to boost water to a lower level than it's already at. C'm'on, you used to do a science interview show, right? Maybe your friend was just bogarting the water.

I like the suggestion to take a bath, though, because then I might sell some of my bubble mixture (see link). Got gallons sitting in a warehouse in Allentown gradually clotting.

[1069]

I think that you're confusing the Iowa Firecracker with Dorian, Robert.

[Archive Listener Frank]

I for one have never taken my flashlights seriously.

[She Who Lives On Delivery]

I had nuts, flashlight, candles, clean hair, clean clothes, protein bars, apples, pears, pasta, crackers, cash, radio and batteries. I have a landline, a REAL landline, and I charged my cell (not that it mattered, because there was no service after the power went out). I even had baby wipes!! I have lots of blankets, and flannel nightgowns. I had water, filled the tub too. Had a bicycle, all tuned up. Have rain gear. But most of all, I had a job uptown with power and heat. LUCKY, LUCKY ME. I am A, SHE WHO LIVES ON DELIVERY! Next time, I'll get some peanut butter and more cash. I don't like hard cheese... but it makes sense (starving sailors in olden times movies ALWAYS have hard cheese!). I had cold water and gas in my luxury 5th floor walk up tenement apt.—extra lucky me. I would add the value of a GENUINE landline to your list, without that thing, I would have been SUNK. Working pay phones are hard to come by these days. Having gratitude also helped!

[William Kvrtis]

GO TO THE ARMY STORE AND GET A HANDFUL OF THESE AT 15 CENTS A POP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener

That is('nt) all.

[beafdog]

Miss hearing your voice, Bronwyn! hope all is well with you and yours.

[Rob]

Amazing first photo, storm over city....wheres that from?

[1069]

Nebraska.

[Margaretta Carvalho]

The night before Superstorm Sandy was supposed to hit.

[sliska]

OK....definitely a sensible list and a public service done by posting it!

BUT I have to pipe up here about the StrBcks VIA instant coffee packets....even in non emergency life I think MOST people may want to avoid those suckers, especially if you are thin/normal to hi metabolism types. I love coffee and drink all kinds but I had ONE of those things in water, didnt taste too intense, but damn in the next few hours I was trebling, paranoid, shallow breathing, and my eyes were tracking lights with every glance. If that was JUST me I would write it off individual aversion but I know people larger and hardier than me who had the same problem. I work w a lot of long-distance drivers and those things seem small and easy to have on ya for overnites [not cheap] but everyone I know who ever tried that never did again due to severe tweakiness that made even driving hard.
I would sure as hell not want to be stuck in the dark that jangly!!!! We lost power and took great pains to make coffee and even normal coffee was not the best tactic to help w patience and goodwill....that other stuff daily would kill people.

but yeah I trekked into upper nyc to stay w a friend w power for a few days on the UWSide and it was very business as usual there in most ways. went to trader joes and that was odd in some ways....

[Ef]

I know it's a bit late but something that worked well for me here in Jersey City was to use my (essentially useless, once the internet had died) laptop to charge my cel phone and other batter-powered devices (pocket radio, etc).

I saw a lot of people using their cars to charge their cels. Terrible idea, given the gas shortage that was sure to come (and did it ever).

Your laptop has a battery in it. A big, powerful one. You may as well use it.

And, yeah, landlines. A lot of tragically hip young folks joke that they're useless. But mine worked the entire time I was out of power. Also a much better way to call 911, if you need to.

[Chas Clifton]

All good stuff, Bronwyn, but I would bet that at least part of the target audience is living there precisely because they do not wish to think of, for example, where their water comes from.