A Prepping Newbie Successfully Passes Her First Test

Unexpected Circumstances

“This Arctic blast will bring temperatures to zero and could last all week,” the weather forecaster warned. I looked up from the solitaire game on my phone. I glanced from the TV to my husband, who likewise, locked eyes with me. He raised an eyebrow as if to say, “What do you think about that?” In years past, I would have felt worried, even a tad panicked. Not today. “We’re ready for our first test.”

And we were. No matter where you lived in the US, you heard about the crazy winter weather that Texas experienced just last February, when an Arctic blast of insanely cold temps rippled across the Lone Star State with significantly colder weather than this native Texan had ever known. But it was because of what happened in March 2020 that I was prepared for February 2021 — thanks to A Year Without the Grocery Store blog.

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Backstory

In March 2020, it was a pandemic, not a winter ice storm, that rippled across the globe, driving people to make apocalyptic-fearing trips to the grocery store to grab tuna and toilet paper off the shelves. Supply chains faltered. Fear erupted. And I found this blog. A year without having to go to the grocery store? Yes, please!

As we settled into an unwanted quarantine, I read post after post, day after day. But as I read, I found my heart growing calmer. This new-to-me thing – prepping — was how I could ensure some stability for my family in a world that had tilted off-kilter.

The Next 11 Months

Over the next 11 months, I soaked up info like a dry sponge soaks up water. I ramped up our shelf-stable foods, strategized storing water, and evaluated bugging-out or bugging-in scenarios. While spring and summer unfolded, I worked on a garden to grow edibles. (I didn’t have a lot of garden success in 2020, but I learned a lot! And that’s something I learned here, too; you’ve got to get started on new skills so you can make mistakes and figure out how to solve them before true emergencies arise.)

I began to think through all kinds of situations where basic services might be lost, and I strategized how we would manage.  Every new prepper faces a test sooner or later. Our family expanded our usually slim stock of food, water, medicines, vitamins, batteries, candles, and more so we were covered for a month, then several months, and eventually, I calculated that I had reached one year’s worth of shelf-stable food for my family. We did it! In about a year, I managed to store an extra year’s worth of food (and definitely without breaking the bank!). I realized:

                                  Preparedness is really just “problem-solving in advance.”

The First Test

And then, almost exactly a year later, right when we expected to be taking our mothers to a Valentine’s Day lunch after church, Mother Nature threw me a mid-term exam on my preparedness journey. A freaky-for-Texas weather event tested my knowledge on what it means to be prepared for a weather emergency.

We awoke on February 14 with a Valentine’s Day “gift” we now call the Big Freeze, Snowmageddon, and the Snowpocalypse. In our area, temps dipped below zero (-2, to be exact). I don’t ever remember the temps hitting zero in my region in Texas – and I’ve lived here more than five decades. Sometimes, we have an entire winter where the temperature barely waves at 32. Even though we knew the winter blast was coming, we never imagined how cold that kind of cold was, nor did we imagine the havoc it would wreak on homes, churches, and businesses across our state.

But Not Us

What I realized in this first test was, while having abundant provisions satisfied my physical needs, the sense of calm assurance was an unexpected side benefit. Who can put a price tag on that?

While others were dashing to the store for water, food, and firewood before the cold hit, I thought about all the foods we would be able to prepare and reviewed my plan for how we’d cook if the electricity went out. You see, what I’ve learned is we need not just a Plan A, but a Plan B, and even a Plan C. As I’ve learned, I’ve passed it along to “my boys” (my husband and our son) over the past year, and together, we’ve been thinking through ways to solve problems before they happen.

Here is a little overview of what we prepared and how we handled our first test of preparedness:

Food Prep Before the Test

Plan A: Gas Grill

If the electricity goes out, we’ll use the gas grill to cook. Sure enough, we lost power about a day into the freeze. We immediately saw the pay-off of being prepared. Just a month before the ice storm, one of my prep goals had been to buy a gas grill, but my husband remembered we already had one that we’d forgotten about! There it was, languishing in the storage shed. We cleaned it up, tuned it up, tested it out, and purchased a full tank of propane and a backup. Now a month later, we were so glad we did! Because let’s be honest, hot coffee and tea are necessities in an ice storm.

Plan B: Fireplace

If the gas grill goes kaput, we’ll use the cast iron skillet and Dutch oven in the fireplace, which uses natural gas. (We already had these two cast iron pieces, the latter a hand-me-down from my mom when she and Dad “retired” from camping. Like the forgotten gas grill, I’ve been surprised that I already had some prep-worthy items hiding in the cabinet.)

Plan C: Chiminea

If the fireplace stops functioning, that will be a challenge, but we could start a fire in our large chiminea in the backyard. Certainly not my first choice to cook in a chiminea, but we could do some basics with our cast iron cookware. We’re thinking about how to shore-up Plan C so we can have another cooking/heat source in the house.

WATER

About two days into the big freeze, our city issued a boil alert. Then, about half the city lost water entirely because pipes broke. We never lost water, but we still had to boil every drop. We anticipated not having water, so we had plenty of water in reserve, but we adapted to the boil alert (thanks to the gas grill).

Plan A: Water bottles

For the past year, I bought a six-pack of gallon-sized water bottles at Costco about twice a month (less than $5 for the six-pack). Estimating one gallon per person per day, I had 36 gallons in reserve (a minimum of 12 days of water for our family of three). It cost me less than $30 to set aside this much water.

Plan B: AquaPod

After reading about bathtub-sized water bags on this blog, I bought an AquaPod (similar to the WaterBOB) last fall. It was ready and waiting for our first emergency, and this was it. We filled up one tub of water before the boil alert came down. That gave us about 60 gallons, and it was so easy to fill and use!

Plan C: Rainwater

For years, I’ve had three 55-gallon rain barrels that I use to water my plants, but in an emergency, we could use the rainwater for ourselves. (However, the rain barrels froze solid. Note to self: Rainwater is useful in above-freezing emergencies!) Next step: Buy a water filter to clean the rainwater. We’ve been looking at Berkey filters, but until we make the big leap to a countertop model, we have now purchased a few Sawyer filters which can be used on a tap or to filter rainwater from the rain barrels.  Here are two Sawyer filters we use Faucets and hose bibs, Mini Water Filtration System.

POWER

We anticipated “bugging-in” (staying home) during the big freeze, but how to stay warm was the big question. Ice storms are notorious for wrecking electric lines. Some homes in our city never lost electricity, some lost it for a week, and we lost it for about three days.

Plan A: Fireplace

We kept the fireplace blazing, but fireplaces lose most of their heat up the flue, closed doors and blocked off rooms with blankets and limited our activities to the fireplace room. We ate, lived, and slept in there, only taking quick dashes down the hall to the very cold bathroom. The house dropped to a bit below 40 degrees which was just about our limit for endurance. Thankfully, the electricity came on the next day.

Plan B: Space heater

We’re looking at getting an indoor propane space heater. (But we’re hoping it will be at least another 20 years before we have a similar big freeze!)

Plan C: Generator

We’d like to make Plan C our Plan A, but since the pandemic started, my husband has been trying to get a whole house generator. The company we chose has been (understandably) swamped and low on stock. I’m exploring solar generators these days. We’re still working on the generator angle.

How to Dip Your Toe in the Water Before Your First Test

I feel like my mid-term exam went pretty well. We bugged-in, we were cold but not dangerously cold, and we never went hungry or thirsty. But before I break my arm patting myself on the back, I quickly acknowledge I have much to learn. With the expectation that others are still starting their journey, just as I did a year ago, I offer my “how to dip your toe in the water” tips:

1.)  Being prepared is about coming up with strategies for solving problems before you reach your first test.

With some thinking and planning, you can walk through scenarios of various “what if’s” and make plans about how you’ll keep your family fed and protected through each one.

2.) Being prepared is a skill you polish with time.

No doubt, it’s daunting to decide to embark on this journey. But you might find it fascinating, too. In thinking about how to cope with supply chain failures, I decided to learn how to make some things I usually buy: apple cider vinegar, cheese, toothpaste, deodorant, lotions, and washing detergent. Garden 2021 is going better than Garden 2020. I’m able to glean something edible almost every day. However, I’m not reserving a stall at the farmer’s market just yet!

3.) You’ll never reach “the end” of your prepping journey. There’s always another level of planning and problem solving that can happen.

Instead of letting that discourage you, realize that any planning you do today will help you when an emergency unfolds in your life. And what you learn/plan/strategize about tomorrow compounds onto what you learned/planned/strategized today.

Wherever you find yourself on the prepping journey, I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on where you’ve come from and where you want to go next. Whether you’re an old pro or a newbie, we all share the common desire of wanting to take care of ourselves and our families, providing an island of stability and provision for those we love. Everyone will be tested eventually; now’s the time to study-up and be prepared for it!

WRITER BIO:

TexasGirl is a writer in North Texas whose family includes her husband, their son, and two snuggly dogs. Garden 2021 has taught her that carrots don’t like to be transplanted, sugar snap peas don’t like mid-summer sun, and moving bags of soil equates to weight lifting.