Re: SCD Emergency Preparedness: was An old post

[Guest guest]

Laurie,

Kim Mumbower posted this note on 6/28/08

Betty

I'm not Marilyn, but I also live in hurricane

territory. I'm 3 hours east of Marilyn in New Orleans, just outside

Pensacola, in the western end of the Florida panhandle. Marilyn

posted several excellent emails on hurricane preparedness on the Long

Island List. Unfortunately I didn't save any of them, but hopefully

Marilyn will locate them and repost on this group so we can access them

in the archives in the future.

I've been through several hurricanes in the past 5 years

while on SCD. The longest I had to go without power and running

water was 5 days since I had evacuated to my parents' house in an area

that had their utilities restored faster than at my house. I did

OK, stayed 100% SCD-legal. Finding enough gas for my car was

another matter....

I have all the hurricane-ready equipment on hand --

flashlights, battery radio, coolers, blue ice, tarps, etc. Since I live

in a manufactered home I evacuate to my parents' house if landfall when

necessary, and we go through the routine of filling up bathtubs with

water for cleaning and toilets.

In terms of food: I keep 5 days worth of bottled

water on hand; used for drinking and cooking if necessary (and I happen

to have access to either a gas stove or grill). I keep several

days' worth of canned tuna (legal kind) and a can or two of wild salmon

on hand. I keep a jar of Smucker's natural peanut butter on

hand. I also have acidophilus capsules in my refrigerator since I

don't eat yogurt.

We usually get at least 24 hours of warning before a storm

hits, and I find out whether I have to evacuate or not. If I do

have to evacuate, I'll cook up 4 or 5 days worth of vegetables and meat;

and make enough juice for a week. I take a week's worth of nut flour

muffins, that I usually keep in my freezer. I usually have other

leftovers in my freezer, so I add them to the coolers. I load

up my coolers with everything and blue ice and head out. The

blue ice usually lasts 2 days; by then, if the power hasn't come on yet,

there are emergency supplies of ice in the area, or stores open that

aren't too far away. So I replace the blue ice with regular ice,

and keep replenishing the supply until full power is restored.

My parents used to live in a house with a gas stove, which

made it easier. We could cook, even if we had no power. We

haven't yet bothered getting a generator, but a lot of people in my area

have them, including several of my parents' neighbors.

I generally don't keep much food in my freezer during

hurricane season. Lost a lot of food two summers in a row, so I

learned my lesson.

Kim M.

SCD 5 years

There is also a composite file I made of hurricane preparedness comments

from the old Long Island List here:

File : /HurricaneDiscussion.rtf

Uploaded by : marilynxa

<

LouisianaSCDLagniappe@...>

Description : A file of discussion from the Long Island List in summer of

2007 on SCD preparedness for hurricane (or other emergency) situation.

Email addresses removed.

You can access this file at the URL:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BTVC-SCD/files/HurricaneDiscussion.rtf

And in response to a similar query over on Pecan Bread, about drying

fruits and things, I said,

Heh. It's the big D for me if I have too much of that yummy dried

pineapple.

I believe you're correct about the freeze drying. I dimly remember one

gal who apparently came close to managing it by placing food on drying

racks in her freezer, and then setting up a fan to blow the cold air

across the food while it was freezing. (She ran the cord in the edge of

the freezer seal, and tapes around it to prevent leakage. I've never been

able to try it, because my freezer is never empty enough, and I don't

have room for a second freezer! <g>

As for power outage preparedness, I keep industrial quantities of Krivel

crackers and dried meat sticks around. Also some containers of nut

butter. Dried fruit. Industrial bottles of water. Canned salmon and/or

tuna. If there's a storm headed this way, I make yogurt and drip it and

put it in the travel fridge. Anything else that needs refrigeration goes

in the travel fridge. That way, if power is out, we can leave freezer and

fridge closed to preserve the cold as long as possible.

With Katrina, of course, the power was out for over a month, and we

weren't here, so we lost all the food AND the appliances.

I think the thing which saved my freezer this round with Gustav is that

before we left, I filled every nook and cranny with 3/4 full bottles of

water which had time to freeze solid before the storm hit and which

provided significantly extra frozen mass.

There's a discussion from last year on file in the BTVC-SCD library,

under " Getting Started with SCD. "

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/BTVC-SCD/files/

in which we were discussing a few things that different people did.

They may not be applicable to you since no one in Ohio was expecting Ike

to knock their power out. (My sister, also in Dayton, sure

didn't!)

I've been researching generators, and I may actually have persuaded Harry

that we should have one. I'm tired of gnawing on my fingernails,

wondering if the power will come back on in time to save all my SCD

foods! A friend has recommended a couple of the generators here

http://www.campinglife.com/output.cfm?id=1047547, although he

cautions that you should make sure they are secure, since, being small

and transportable, they are apt to develop legs and wander off.

I'm also checking into getting a solar panel to power at least the travel

fridge during the day.

We have LED lanterns and battery-powered fans which work really well.

Fortunately, it is warm enough here that even a late October storm

knocking out power would not be occasion for an emergency where heat is

concerned.

I really want to take lessons from an experienced food person on canning

SCD foods because then I could keep meat sauces and my own canned

vegetables and so forth, and have less worry about loosing all my hard

work.

Kuykendal replied:

Marilyn,

Thanks so much for the info. I'm planning on stocking the pantry to be

ready

for any future emergencies. I usually keep dried jerky stashed in

the

freezer, and have a few cans of tuna on hand, but I'm going to make sure

to

increase my efforts now. You've given me a lot of great ideas to get

me

started. :-) What are Krivel crackers? I wonder if homemade nut butter

needs

to be refridgerated? We don't tolerate any store bought types. My

housemate

has recently started canning. We had oodles and oodles of tomatoes from

our

garden this year, and so she started canning salsa. We would like to

look

into canning other things as well, and like you said, that would be

great

for emergencies as well. We have had trouble finding recipes that are

SCD

legal, and have been working on converting the sugar in recipes to

honey,

but I'm unsure of the safety of altering recipes. Its a work in

progress,

LOL.

I bet you were so sad to lose all your food with Katrina. All that

hard

work! How frustrating! I'm glad to hear that things faired better

with

Gustav. That was wise to fill the freezer with water bottles!

Hope your sister has power restored by now. We are still out.

K

Karla mentioned:

There is a canning book with honey recipes only. I still haven't

taken the big step of really trying canning yet so I can not attest to

how good the recipes are. *Putting It Up With Honey: A Natural Foods

Canning and Preserving Cookbook,

*by Geiskopf*

Which is the title of the book I know i have here somewhere in a SAFE

place. You know those places. So safe even -- or perhaps especially! --

you can't find what you put there!

K said,

Woohoo!!! We have power again. :-) The power crew was all the way from

New

Hampshire. Turns out many of our local power folk had headed down to

Texas

to help there in the aftermath of Ike, and so we ended up short handed

up

here when Ike decided to bring us the wind as well. I have already

started

to stock the pantry with emergency preparedness items like canned

salmon,

tuna, mackerel, sardines, etc. I will be making some dried fruit soon,

and

increasing the amount of jerky I keep on standby in the freezer. I have

also

ordered that canning book and will look to increase our canning efforts.

I'm

also planning on keeping extra nut butter around. I'm also seriously

looking

into buying a generator in the future, so that in most cases we won't

lose

our fridge or deep freezer. I always thought disaster preparedeness

was

only important to those living in hurricane or earthquake prone areas.

Well,

this little disaster has surely taught me a lesson. Everyone needs to

be

prepared to go without power and/or water for extended periods of time,

you

just never know. Thanks Marilyn for sharing your tips with me.

:-)

K

Dayton, Ohio

SCD since June 2006

one of the pecanbread moderators

All diseases begin in the gut!

—

Marilyn

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

[Guest guest]

Maybe it should go in files.

Mara

---- Original message ----

>Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:36:17 -0500

>

>Subject: Re: SCD Emergency Preparedness: was An old post

>To: BTVC-SCD

>

> Laurie,

>

> Kim Mumbower posted this note on 6/28/08

>

> Betty

>

> I'm not Marilyn, but I also live in hurricane

> territory. I'm 3 hours east of Marilyn in New

> Orleans, just outside Pensacola, in the western end

> of the Florida panhandle. Marilyn posted several

> excellent emails on hurricane preparedness on the

> Long Island List. Unfortunately I didn't save any

> of them, but hopefully Marilyn will locate them and

> repost on this group so we can access them in the

> archives in the future.

>

> I've been through several hurricanes in the past 5

> years while on SCD. The longest I had to go without

> power and running water was 5 days since I had

> evacuated to my parents' house in an area that had

> their utilities restored faster than at my house. I

> did OK, stayed 100% SCD-legal. Finding enough gas

> for my car was another matter....

>

> I have all the hurricane-ready equipment on hand --

> flashlights, battery radio, coolers, blue ice,

> tarps, etc. Since I live in a manufactered home I

> evacuate to my parents' house if landfall when

> necessary, and we go through the routine of filling

> up bathtubs with water for cleaning and toilets.

>

> In terms of food: I keep 5 days worth of bottled

> water on hand; used for drinking and cooking if

> necessary (and I happen to have access to either a

> gas stove or grill). I keep several days' worth of

> canned tuna (legal kind) and a can or two of wild

> salmon on hand. I keep a jar of Smucker's natural

> peanut butter on hand. I also have acidophilus

> capsules in my refrigerator since I don't eat

> yogurt.

>

> We usually get at least 24 hours of warning before a

> storm hits, and I find out whether I have to

> evacuate or not. If I do have to evacuate, I'll

> cook up 4 or 5 days worth of vegetables and meat;

> and make enough juice for a week. I take a week's

> worth of nut flour muffins, that I usually keep in

> my freezer. I usually have other leftovers in my

> freezer, so I add them to the coolers. I load up

> my coolers with everything and blue ice and head

> out. The blue ice usually lasts 2 days; by then,

> if the power hasn't come on yet, there are emergency

> supplies of ice in the area, or stores open that

> aren't too far away. So I replace the blue ice with

> regular ice, and keep replenishing the supply until

> full power is restored.

>

> My parents used to live in a house with a gas stove,

> which made it easier. We could cook, even if we had

> no power. We haven't yet bothered getting a

> generator, but a lot of people in my area have them,

> including several of my parents' neighbors.

>

> I generally don't keep much food in my freezer

> during hurricane season. Lost a lot of food two

> summers in a row, so I learned my lesson.

>

> Kim M.

> SCD 5 years

>

>

> ------------------------------------------------

>

> There is also a composite file I made of hurricane

> preparedness comments from the old Long Island List

> here:

>

> File : /HurricaneDiscussion.rtf

> Uploaded by : marilynxa <

> LouisianaSCDLagniappe@...>

> Description : A file of discussion from the Long

> Island List in summer of 2007 on SCD preparedness

> for hurricane (or other emergency) situation. Email

> addresses removed.

>

> You can access this file at the URL:

> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BTVC-SCD/files/HurricaneDiscussion.rtf

>

> ------------------------------------------------

>

> And in response to a similar query over on Pecan

> Bread, about drying fruits and things, I said,

>

>

>

> Heh. It's the big D for me if I have too much of

> that yummy dried pineapple.

>

> I believe you're correct about the freeze drying. I

> dimly remember one gal who apparently came close to

> managing it by placing food on drying racks in her

> freezer, and then setting up a fan to blow the cold

> air across the food while it was freezing. (She ran

> the cord in the edge of the freezer seal, and tapes

> around it to prevent leakage. I've never been able

> to try it, because my freezer is never empty enough,

> and I don't have room for a second freezer! <g>

>

> As for power outage preparedness, I keep industrial

> quantities of Krivel crackers and dried meat sticks

> around. Also some containers of nut butter. Dried

> fruit. Industrial bottles of water. Canned salmon

> and/or tuna. If there's a storm headed this way, I

> make yogurt and drip it and put it in the travel

> fridge. Anything else that needs refrigeration goes

> in the travel fridge. That way, if power is out, we

> can leave freezer and fridge closed to preserve the

> cold as long as possible.

>

> With Katrina, of course, the power was out for over

> a month, and we weren't here, so we lost all the

> food AND the appliances.

>

> I think the thing which saved my freezer this round

> with Gustav is that before we left, I filled every

> nook and cranny with 3/4 full bottles of water which

> had time to freeze solid before the storm hit and

> which provided significantly extra frozen mass.

>

> There's a discussion from last year on file in the

> BTVC-SCD library, under " Getting Started with SCD. "

>

> http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/BTVC-SCD/files/

>

> in which we were discussing a few things that

> different people did. They may not be applicable to

> you since no one in Ohio was expecting Ike to knock

> their power out. (My sister, also in Dayton, sure

> didn't!)

>

> I've been researching generators, and I may actually

> have persuaded Harry that we should have one. I'm

> tired of gnawing on my fingernails, wondering if the

> power will come back on in time to save all my SCD

> foods! A friend has recommended a couple of the

> generators here

> http://www.campinglife.com/output.cfm?id=1047547,

> although he cautions that you should make sure they

> are secure, since, being small and transportable,

> they are apt to develop legs and wander off.

>

> I'm also checking into getting a solar panel to

> power at least the travel fridge during the day.

>

> We have LED lanterns and battery-powered fans which

> work really well. Fortunately, it is warm enough

> here that even a late October storm knocking out

> power would not be occasion for an emergency where

> heat is concerned.

>

> I really want to take lessons from an experienced

> food person on canning SCD foods because then I

> could keep meat sauces and my own canned vegetables

> and so forth, and have less worry about loosing all

> my hard work.

>

> ------------------------------------------------

>

> Kuykendal replied:

>

> Marilyn,

> Thanks so much for the info. I'm planning on

> stocking the pantry to be ready

> for any future emergencies. I usually keep dried

> jerky stashed in the

> freezer, and have a few cans of tuna on hand, but

> I'm going to make sure to

> increase my efforts now. You've given me a lot of

> great ideas to get me

> started. :-) What are Krivel crackers? I wonder if

> homemade nut butter needs

> to be refridgerated? We don't tolerate any store

> bought types. My housemate

> has recently started canning. We had oodles and

> oodles of tomatoes from our

> garden this year, and so she started canning salsa.

> We would like to look

> into canning other things as well, and like you

> said, that would be great

> for emergencies as well. We have had trouble finding

> recipes that are SCD

> legal, and have been working on converting the sugar

> in recipes to honey,

> but I'm unsure of the safety of altering recipes.

> Its a work in progress,

> LOL.

>

> I bet you were so sad to lose all your food with

> Katrina. All that hard

> work! How frustrating! I'm glad to hear that things

> faired better with

> Gustav. That was wise to fill the freezer with water

> bottles!

>

> Hope your sister has power restored by now. We are

> still out.

>

> K

>

> ------------------------------------------------

>

> Karla mentioned:

>

> There is a canning book with honey recipes only. I

> still haven't taken the big step of really trying

> canning yet so I can not attest to how good the

> recipes are. *Putting It Up With Honey: A Natural

> Foods Canning and Preserving Cookbook,

> *by Geiskopf*

>

> ------------------------------------------------

>

> Which is the title of the book I know i have here

> somewhere in a SAFE place. You know those places. So

> safe even -- or perhaps especially! -- you can't

> find what you put there!

>

> ------------------------------------------------

>

> K said,

>

> Woohoo!!! We have power again. :-) The power crew

> was all the way from New

> Hampshire. Turns out many of our local power folk

> had headed down to Texas

> to help there in the aftermath of Ike, and so we

> ended up short handed up

> here when Ike decided to bring us the wind as well.

> I have already started

> to stock the pantry with emergency preparedness

> items like canned salmon,

> tuna, mackerel, sardines, etc. I will be making some

> dried fruit soon, and

> increasing the amount of jerky I keep on standby in

> the freezer. I have also

> ordered that canning book and will look to increase

> our canning efforts. I'm

> also planning on keeping extra nut butter around.

> I'm also seriously looking

> into buying a generator in the future, so that in

> most cases we won't lose

> our fridge or deep freezer. I always thought

> disaster preparedeness was

> only important to those living in hurricane or

> earthquake prone areas. Well,

> this little disaster has surely taught me a lesson.

> Everyone needs to be

> prepared to go without power and/or water for

> extended periods of time, you

> just never know. Thanks Marilyn for sharing your

> tips with me. :-)

>

> K

> Dayton, Ohio

> SCD since June 2006

> one of the pecanbread moderators

> All diseases begin in the gut!

>

> — Marilyn

> New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

> Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

> Darn Good SCD Cook

> No Human Children

> Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

>

>

[Guest guest]

At 01:53 PM 10/1/2008, you wrote:

Maybe it should go in files.

Part of it is. I just haven't had a chance to add the newer material.

—

Marilyn

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund