Survival Lessons Learned from West Coast Power Outage

In case some of you missed it, there was a power blackout in Southern California and for a time the cause was unknown making people surmise everything from software glitches and hardware failures to terrorist attacks. This affected a reported 6 million people from Los Angeles to San Diego to Yuma, Arizona,....and in a time of the year when some temperatures hit well over 100 degrees.

Good comment received from Secunda, entitled: Notes from the Southern California Blackout of September 8, 2011

The blackout yesterday provided us with a good test of our emergency plans. Some things we did well in, others not so well.

The hand crank radio we purchased for $10 gave us great information. Discovered the power was out all over Southern California, Northern Mexico, and Arizona.

My husband called from Downtown. The Trolley system was down. He caught the bus. He had only one water bottle and his walking shoes at his office.

The highways and roads were choked. Few intersections had working street lights. Most people treated intersections as 'stop sign only' intersections. A 16 mile bus ride took 3 hours.

Cell phone coverage in the area weakened the longer the power outage lasted.

A neighbor asked if the municipal water was safe to drink. Her family had NO emergency water stores. Some water districts were already issuing boil- water orders within just two hours of the outage.

Most grocery stores had to close. The small independent convenient stores who remained opened were swamped with people making last minute or panic purchases of water and ice. Some merchants were over-charging for water and ice. Most gas stations were closed.

The power was off long enough for looting to take place but I have heard of no instances yet where it occurred.

I cooked eggs on the camp griddle over a charcoal grill for supper. We finished all the items in the Frig like the milk that would spoil soonest.

LESSONS LEARNED
Store more water at my husband's work site, along with a extra cell phone battery and an alternate communication method.

Identify more routes out of the city he can take if he is forced to walk or bike out.

Store more water and freeze water in a couple of old milk jugs to keep in the freezer.

Keep the cars no less than half filled with gas.

UrbanMan's comments: Thanks Secunda for the excellent comments and your lessons learned.

Your observation of the cell phone infrastructure becoming weaker or less reliable as the power outage went longer is interesting as cellular networks and the repeaters have sometimes both both solar and fuel generation emergency power designed to last at least 24 hours. It would have been interesting to see if text was more reliable than voice communications. During the Hurricane that hit the East Coast, I lost voice comms with some of team, but our texting and e-mail on portable devices was reliable.

I would add a couple things to your lessons learned:

Look at the possibility of buying higher end radios so that your husband can have another means of communications with you as he makes his way home. The FRS/GMRS radios, e.g..talkabouts probably won't do it,....may have to be something in the VHF or UHF band. You hit on additional routes out of the city....this is PACE planning (Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency),.....for not only routes but for communications as practical everything in our plan.

Always have cash handy for those circumstances were ATM's are out and you need to and can buy additional items. It is a rare day I don't have at least $60 or so in my pocket and I always have a couple silver rounds on me as well.

You also hit on your husband having an additional cell phone battery and water. Does he have a Bug Out Bag? Not necessarily a fully equipped Bug Out equipped for a total SHTF scenario, but maybe if your husband wears business clothes, then a bag containing durable clothing to change to, including some hiking boots and a smaller bag with extra water, some food such as nuts, jerky and granola bars, extra water, maybe a fold up rain coat, multi-tool, butane lighter,....you get my drift.

In any case you sound like you have your act together and are using your biggest and best weapon against a collapse type scenario and that is your brain. Thanks again for your comments. Be safe.

The Likelihood of a Collapse

We received a anonymous comment for the Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 25 post entitled Don't Lose Focus......"I too am turned off by those who want the S to HTF (no offense to you because of your comment). I fear the coming collapse. I don't think our leaders are capable enough to get us through this and in fact I think that some of them are intentionally making the situation worse for
political reasons. A collapse with our current batch of leaders could be a disaster of biblical proportions. Don't wait too long to complete your preps."

UrbanMan replies: The bad side of hosting a website, doubly so on a site that talks about surviving the coming collapse is that people come out of the proverbial woodwork writing e-mails a week concerning conspiracies.

When discussing (arguing?) about the causes of the economic disaster we find ourselves in now, and the intent of our elected political leaders and appointed bureaucrats, it is hard to persuade some people that the current leadership is intent on destroying this country's economy. Hard to persuade, because even the most rational people are scratching their heads in amazement of the Government's
failure to enact a balanced budget; failure to spend less money than they take in from the tax payers; failure to enact any, let alone, meaningful entitlement reform; continuous implementation of regulations, from the EPA' clean air act to the FDA's Food Safety and Modernization Act,.etc., etc., ...all with the result of making it harder for small businesses to remain afloat and for the economy to get better.

So in short, yes it does seem like our "current batch of leader are intentionally making the situation worse for political reasons." This is called riding your ideology to our demise.

However, aside from all the things we can do,..... such as writing our legislators to vote correctly; urging good people to run for office; and, contributing to the campaigns for candidates that are patriots, it really boils down to that the average citizen and therefore the average Survival Prepper has little control on the factors that control the pace or the depth of the coming collapse.

What we do have is some control over is what we do about it. Do we bury our heads in the sand thinking things must get better? Do we move to some remote wilderness location where we can be self sufficient and ride out SHTF? Probably for most people, the answer lays in between somewhere. Do what your conscious tells you
to do in regards to communicating with your elected political leaders abut your concerns, complaints and ideas,....but,......do what your gut tells you to in regards to preparing for hard times. Have food; have some firearms; develop some friends; read and expose yourself to the Survival Preparation movement to leverage everyone else's recommendations and lessons learned; look at all the threats and see how they affect you; and, above all, have a plan. Do not rely on the Government to make it better. As we all know, the Government never does the right thing before they have exhausted every other option.

Bad Advice on Survival Firearms?

I received this e-mail taking me to task for advocating sub-standard weapons for survival……”I have no idea why you would advocate people getting Mosin-Nagants and Double Barreled shotguns for Survival weapons. The threat is going to come from very well armed groups of people with bad intent. A five shot ancient rifle and a two shot shotgun will only give these people a false sense of security. They are going to need weapons just like the military. I have an older HK91, an M1A1 and two brand new Bushmaster model 4 carbines just like the Army M-4. I have several different 9mm pistols. Would never own a double barreled shotgun! Are you kidding me?”.

UrbanMan replies: Hey, I’m all for taking constructive criticism. But,.......

The first rule to a gunfight (or for SHTF protection for that matter) is “to have a gun”. Have you ever been in a gunfight? I know full well the value of good weaponry and the skill to use it. However, refer back to rule #1. Some people cannot afford the latest in civilianized military firearms. If someone has serviceable rifles, shotguns and handguns and has not done anything else to prepare for hard times, then what would you suggest their next preparation priorities be? Trade in their "obsolete" firearms for the latest piston M-4?

I would think the best answer would have to be the steps they are willing to do and have the resources to do as well. Buying and stocking food come to mind. Having stored water and the capability to store more...... Building a Bug Out Bug....Developing a plan.....Maybe having a little bit of Silver or Coins for Silver Melt value.....Having some good clothes and gear. These would all be necessary before upgrading your survival firearms. In my humble opinion.

For example, Jim who often writes a post for this site called "Survival Chronicles of Jim" is a great example of someone who has come from total ignorance of survival preparation to a pretty decent readiness posture, despite his lack of any military or law enforcement experience or even wilderness skills. He realized the necessity of firearms yet he has centered his "survive the collapse" firearms battery around a couple handguns, a Mosin-Nagant rifle, an SKS and a 12 gauge riot shotgun. Purchasing a $1,000 or more rifle was too far out of his comfort zone.

But for the record, I have never, nor would I encourage or recommend a survival prepper starting from scratch to sink money into “antique” firearms. Although, the more important component is the skill at using these weapons. Ask the Russians armed with modern AK-74 assault rifles who went against Mujh armed with bolt action Short Magazine Lee Enfields just how important skill is.

Agricultural Decline and Survival Gardens

The facts on the Agricultural decline: 36 days for most Americans to earn enough disposable money to pay for their year's worth of food; 150 years ago, 50% of the American population lived on farms or ranches, producing not only their own food, but food for this country and for export. In fact, we used to feed a large part of the world.

Today, less than 2% of the American population live on farms or ranches. 98 percent of the population do not produce their own food to any substantial degree. However, we have seen a recent turn to the popularity of home gardening,...in the cities and suburbs people are growing vegetables for many, and sometimes multiple, reasons: To defray the rising costs of food; to give themselves a sense of accomplishment that comes with planting a seed then months later harvesting something to eat; and, to practice farming skills that may be a priority in a major economic collapse or what others call for SHTF.

I think the idea most survival preppers have is to grow food to augment what they have painstakingly stored for the coming collapse. For a small family, harvesting just a couple cucumbers, squash, and corn each week could go along way when combined with rice and beans stored in bulk for emergency purposes.

It should come as no surprise that world wide food production is diminishing (part of what is driving prices up), .....and that the nutritional content of these foods is less and less. Hell, that's a great reason right there to grow your own.

When Peak Oil hits, the availability of food will decrease and the prices will increases (law of supply and demand my friends).

I recently took a bunch of excess squash, cucumbers and pomegranates to work to give to the secretarial staff. They were amazed that I grew it. While none of them know my beliefs and practices pertaining to Survival Preparation, two of these ladies (both middle aged single women) asked how hard was it to grow vegetables? Now, I'm thinking "you got to be kidding me?", then I realize that most people have never grown anything but flowers and weeds. So I spent about five minutes explaining to them how to plant a couple squash plants (success early don't you know) and made a list of what to buy, how to water, and more importantly how to educate themselves by reading.

So if you haven't started your own garden, then what are you waiting for? If you are like me you have limited room,......so what? four or six squash and cucumber plants is better than nothing.