We have some fun family traditions. Among these are a New Year’s Eve feast of steak and mushrooms for the entire family. The idea behind it is that we thank the Lord for the blessings of this last year and look forward to God’s goodness in the coming year. Another thing that we do during that dinner is talk through the highlights of last year and the anticipated fun times from next year. This year we also talked about some preparedness issues. One of which we discussed was an EMP.
We had an amazing talk about several aspects of preparedness. We’ve talked about these before, but this time, it was a lot more of “What do you kids do if . . .” While I’m a homeschooling mom, many of my responsibilities to my kids, my husband, my Mom, and my church put me in the car a lot. I am gone from home as much as I’m at home a lot of days. We felt the need to talk through what our kids (ages 17 down to 8) should do if Steve and I are not at home and the power goes out.
We talked about two main things
(1) Difference between an electrical outage and an EMP
So I asked my kids how they know the difference between an electrical outage and an EMP.
Most of them understood that if what happens if JUST the POWER goes out. They knew the result will only be nothing plugged in will still work, but other electronics like cell phones, Kindles, and laptops, iPads, Fitbit’s, and the like will keep working.
If, however, we truly have an EMP (not just a power outage) the result is different. Some very simple electronics like flashlights and some non-digital watches might still work. The current conventional wisdom says that the vast majority of electronics won’t continue to work.
Want to know what other things may still work, you can check out this article here.
(2) If my husband and I aren’t home when a genuine EMP hits, what are my kids to do to get 
everything ready and give the whole family the best chance at long-term survival?
People first –
My mom and sister live near us. If “the event” happens during a workday, then my children know the first thing to do. Two of them will walk to my mom’s house and bring her back to our home. We want everyone together.
Water next –
We can live much longer without food (30 days) than we can without water (3 days). I’ve told my kids that once my Mom is at our house, the first thing that they should do is fill as many water containers as possible. We have two WaterBobs. These fit into your bathtubs and hold 100 gallons of water. We have two of these, so that would give us a total of 200 gallons of water with only those two Waterbobs.
We also have 8 – 55-gallon water barrels. This summer these barrels will be set up to catch rainwater. If something happens between now and then, the kids know to fill these up. If something happens after we have our rain catchment system set up, we will still make sure that the system if full.
That would give us a total of 640 gallons of water BEFORE they fill all of our other containers in our house.
Security next –
The kids have been told that they need to lock all the doors. My husband, my sister, and I all have keys for our house, so we can all get in even if the doors are all locked.
They are to close all the blinds and curtains. We don’t want anyone to look inside or to see the light from inside our house if possible.
Then get everyone set –
Once everyone is inside, doors are locked and the window coverings are pulled. Then we have a power outage tote. This is labeled and in our basement. We have plenty of flashlights on our main floor, so they will be able to see to get the tote out. Our power outage tote contains matches, extra flashlights, lots and lots of candles (especially tealights), 1/2 pint jars with mesh lids, rings, and tealights (for fairly safe nightlights), lighters, glow sticks. We also have several oil lamps that are filled and ready to light if they are needed, as well as solar lights.
What we’ve told our kids NOT to do. . .
We have a very small Faraday cage that we’ve put together. A Faraday Cage is supposed to protect electronics from an EMP. Our kids have been told that they are NOT to open the Faraday cage. Why? So after an EMP, why should they NOT open our Faraday cage? If the EMP was caused by a nuclear device detonated by a country. That country may wait a few days so that our people get their functioning electronics going again and detonate another to wipe out further electronics. I don’t want that to happen with our few electronics, so we’re not going to open our Faraday cage for several days.
There will be an upcoming article on how to put a Faraday cage together.
If my husband and I aren’t here, they know the difference between a power outage and an EMP. They know what to do if we were ever hit with an EMP when my husband and I are gone. They know to get things ready using our power outage tote.
What About You?
Have you had a conversation with your kids who are old enough to stay at home when you’re gone? What other things would you add to the discussion we had about EMP? How would you have changed the discussion? I’d love to hear. Share your thoughts with us in the comments so that we can all be better prepared.
Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome!
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