Friday Five: August 25, 2023
Aug. 25th, 2023 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway1. Are you prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse (essentially any disaster, natural or otherwise)?
Not as much as I would like.
(that's glass-half-empty for "yes")
2. What's in your bug-in (stay safe at home) kit?
Four 20L jugs of tap water. Six 24-packs (= 72L) of commercially bottled water (stacked to form a table in my parents' bedroom).
A tent that in a pinch we could probably set up in the kitchen to better share body heat, though I have not yet practised that.
I keep a deep pantry and three freezers: I routinely go 2 - 3 weeks at a time between grocery trips, and if we absolutely had to I expect we could go maybe 3 - 4 months.
Late August means I'm due for the annual check of our OTC medication supplies: I'll be dealing with that one soon. (Off the top of my head I know we have plenty of naproxen (I saw an unopened 200-pack in there recently on my way to fetching something else), but not much acetaminophen (a few pills).)
A spirit-burner stove (and a bottle of fuel for it) that I am admittedly not as practised with as I should be.
Some of the bug-out items are also notable here, such as the camping solar panel capable of keeping several phones and USB lights charged.
3. What's in your bug-out bag?
That's a long list.
General overview:
* masks/respirator/goggles/wearable-mosquito-nets
* spare glasses (highly recommended: I notice a couple other Friday Five answerers expressing concerns about glasses access)
* spare clothes
* toothbrush/floss/soap
* a three-day pack of lifeboat rations (apple-cinnamon flavoured; most ration bars are coconut, but I dislike coconut and my mom's allergic)
* cash
* medkit (largely wound care, with OTC meds and whatnot being in my utility belt; if I were sexually active I'd have emergency contraception in here, but since I'm not it's low enough on the priority list that I haven't bought it yet (though it *is* still *on* the priority list))
* menstrual products
* fire kit
* water-purification tablets (there's also a filter straw in the utility belt), two water bottles (one of which I specifically got single-walled steel for, so that you can boil water in it in a pinch)
* abovementioned solar panel
* USB headlamp (though if I were doing it again today I'd go for one that takes AAAs and get some of those USB-rechargeable AAA-shaped batteries to stick in it, get the best of both worlds)
* map (no longer free, but I got in while the getting was good and it's still pretty cheap)
* wet wipes, some of those compressed just-add-water towels
* heavy-duty trash bag (poor man's tarp)
It's all kept in a camping backpack, which I spent CAD$280 on and I don't regret it: it really does make a *huge* difference in how well I can carry stuff around, and in how likely it is to break when I need it most. I've weighed everything and it comes out to 18.4 pounds, though my future plans call for a final weight of 21.6 - 25.6 pounds depending on how many of the things I'm torn on I decide to go for. (Plus the utility belt is another seven pounds or so.)
Some things that would normally be in bug-out bags are in my day-to-day utility belt instead, such as the foil blanket and the campfire/sterilisation lighter (it's not really a "cigarette" lighter, given that it's never lit a cigarette in its life) and the penfork.
4. What's on your 'to get' list?
I originally interpreted this question as "what things are you grabbing during an evacuation if you have slightly more time than 'take the bug-out bag and run'": laptops, prescription meds, bag of this year's utility bills and tax documents and suchlike, previous years' document bags if I can swing it (some people say old ones are unimportant, but I *have* been known to find myself in positions where I need to be able to produce a bank statement from 2015 and I *have* been known to find myself consulting paperwork from 2007 and I don't have the *entire* archive digitised at this time).
But it looks like all the other respondents so far have interpreted it as "what prepping-related items are you hoping to get in the future", so: broad-spectrum radio (I have an FM receiver in my phone and there's an AM/FM radio in Dad's bag, but I know I can do better), multitool, wool clothes to replace the current bug-out-bag outfit, stand-to-pee, closed-cell sleeping pad, proper tarp maybe, lightweight/compact sleeping bag maybe, fire-escape window ladder, home insulation (actively working on this!), hybrid on-grid/off-grid rooftop solar (it's *so* expensive but I want it *so* much). Every room in my basement has at least one window for some fucking reason even though we're only *almost* outside of tornado country (they're not common but they happen, and we had a tornado warning last month), so I'd really like to do something to improve the sheltering there.
5. Do you keep gear in your vehicle, if so, what?
I do not de jure own a vehicle, though I picked-out and paid-for-90%-of my dad's car (it's a pain in the ass to legally own a car you can't drive, so instead I shoved the money into his bank account and had him fill out the paperwork). I hope to get a bicycle soon, but I've been saying that for over a year now.
There are three more three-day ration packs in the underfloor compartment of my dad's trunk (being left in vehicles for years on end is what lifeboat rations are specifically designed for!). There's a seatbelt-cutter/window-breaker in the glove compartment. I'm pretty sure there's a blanket. Figuring out emergency-car-repair gear is his job: I can't say I particularly trust him with it (certainly I've never been able to get him to adopt the practice of not letting your gas tank go below half-full, though we've only outright run out once), but there's no point in putting repair gear into a car if the driver's not on board with it.
Not as much as I would like.
(that's glass-half-empty for "yes")
2. What's in your bug-in (stay safe at home) kit?
Four 20L jugs of tap water. Six 24-packs (= 72L) of commercially bottled water (stacked to form a table in my parents' bedroom).
A tent that in a pinch we could probably set up in the kitchen to better share body heat, though I have not yet practised that.
I keep a deep pantry and three freezers: I routinely go 2 - 3 weeks at a time between grocery trips, and if we absolutely had to I expect we could go maybe 3 - 4 months.
Late August means I'm due for the annual check of our OTC medication supplies: I'll be dealing with that one soon. (Off the top of my head I know we have plenty of naproxen (I saw an unopened 200-pack in there recently on my way to fetching something else), but not much acetaminophen (a few pills).)
A spirit-burner stove (and a bottle of fuel for it) that I am admittedly not as practised with as I should be.
Some of the bug-out items are also notable here, such as the camping solar panel capable of keeping several phones and USB lights charged.
3. What's in your bug-out bag?
That's a long list.
General overview:
* masks/respirator/goggles/wearable-mosquito-nets
* spare glasses (highly recommended: I notice a couple other Friday Five answerers expressing concerns about glasses access)
* spare clothes
* toothbrush/floss/soap
* a three-day pack of lifeboat rations (apple-cinnamon flavoured; most ration bars are coconut, but I dislike coconut and my mom's allergic)
* cash
* medkit (largely wound care, with OTC meds and whatnot being in my utility belt; if I were sexually active I'd have emergency contraception in here, but since I'm not it's low enough on the priority list that I haven't bought it yet (though it *is* still *on* the priority list))
* menstrual products
* fire kit
* water-purification tablets (there's also a filter straw in the utility belt), two water bottles (one of which I specifically got single-walled steel for, so that you can boil water in it in a pinch)
* abovementioned solar panel
* USB headlamp (though if I were doing it again today I'd go for one that takes AAAs and get some of those USB-rechargeable AAA-shaped batteries to stick in it, get the best of both worlds)
* map (no longer free, but I got in while the getting was good and it's still pretty cheap)
* wet wipes, some of those compressed just-add-water towels
* heavy-duty trash bag (poor man's tarp)
It's all kept in a camping backpack, which I spent CAD$280 on and I don't regret it: it really does make a *huge* difference in how well I can carry stuff around, and in how likely it is to break when I need it most. I've weighed everything and it comes out to 18.4 pounds, though my future plans call for a final weight of 21.6 - 25.6 pounds depending on how many of the things I'm torn on I decide to go for. (Plus the utility belt is another seven pounds or so.)
Some things that would normally be in bug-out bags are in my day-to-day utility belt instead, such as the foil blanket and the campfire/sterilisation lighter (it's not really a "cigarette" lighter, given that it's never lit a cigarette in its life) and the penfork.
4. What's on your 'to get' list?
I originally interpreted this question as "what things are you grabbing during an evacuation if you have slightly more time than 'take the bug-out bag and run'": laptops, prescription meds, bag of this year's utility bills and tax documents and suchlike, previous years' document bags if I can swing it (some people say old ones are unimportant, but I *have* been known to find myself in positions where I need to be able to produce a bank statement from 2015 and I *have* been known to find myself consulting paperwork from 2007 and I don't have the *entire* archive digitised at this time).
But it looks like all the other respondents so far have interpreted it as "what prepping-related items are you hoping to get in the future", so: broad-spectrum radio (I have an FM receiver in my phone and there's an AM/FM radio in Dad's bag, but I know I can do better), multitool, wool clothes to replace the current bug-out-bag outfit, stand-to-pee, closed-cell sleeping pad, proper tarp maybe, lightweight/compact sleeping bag maybe, fire-escape window ladder, home insulation (actively working on this!), hybrid on-grid/off-grid rooftop solar (it's *so* expensive but I want it *so* much). Every room in my basement has at least one window for some fucking reason even though we're only *almost* outside of tornado country (they're not common but they happen, and we had a tornado warning last month), so I'd really like to do something to improve the sheltering there.
5. Do you keep gear in your vehicle, if so, what?
I do not de jure own a vehicle, though I picked-out and paid-for-90%-of my dad's car (it's a pain in the ass to legally own a car you can't drive, so instead I shoved the money into his bank account and had him fill out the paperwork). I hope to get a bicycle soon, but I've been saying that for over a year now.
There are three more three-day ration packs in the underfloor compartment of my dad's trunk (being left in vehicles for years on end is what lifeboat rations are specifically designed for!). There's a seatbelt-cutter/window-breaker in the glove compartment. I'm pretty sure there's a blanket. Figuring out emergency-car-repair gear is his job: I can't say I particularly trust him with it (certainly I've never been able to get him to adopt the practice of not letting your gas tank go below half-full, though we've only outright run out once), but there's no point in putting repair gear into a car if the driver's not on board with it.
