Lesson #1 Not all Grocery stores have generators.

Lesson #2 Even with a Generator If it pops a fuse It may not have emergency Lighting.

Lesson #3 Its 100% Pitch Black in a Grocery store with No power Or Emergency Lights.

Lesson #4 Lending Flashlights May result in not getting them back (Gotta Retrieve 2 flashlights sigh)

Lesson #5 A Quark AA2 Will Light up a Grocery store like its the Friggen Sun.

Lesson #6 There are apparently Generators the size of big rigs capable of 100% powering a entire grocery store and that includes all the refrigeration.

Lesson #7 Shoveling Sucks

Lesson #8 Being Prepared will lead to Oohs and Ahhs when your Lil Pocket Flashlight Lights up half the Huge store.

Lesson #9 Never Again will I go without a Light source on my person.


So In Conclusion When you Hear there may be 1-2 feet of snow in late october dont right it off as BS. Many people In light weight hoodies and easily soaked sneakers with just cellphones with light app's.

Also In the Dark There is little to no coordination between even the smallest groups of people, Rely On No one and watch your lended out gear like a hawk.

Ain't that the truth -- Great flashlight.

I can assure you That flashlight did not leave my hand. NO one was gonna walk home with it like la dee da oh well like they did with my LED 2AA Mini Mag and Streamlight Stylus pro.

looks like the first reports are coming in..in Minneapolis we had one of these early,very heavy snow storms back in the mid 80's and it stayed on the ground until May,i think,that year.i wonder if the East Coast will have a fast melt and winter floods?

Don't loan your gear unless you don't want it back (in one piece), that's something you learn quickly.

I have a AAA on my keychain (a ReVO) in addition to my Quark 123. We had a power outage while the tornado sirens were sounding so I was able to hand my oldest one flashlight to get one of her little sisters into our designated tornado shelter room while I used the other flashlight to get the other one.



Nobody returns flashlights during power outages. I keep about a dozen fauxtons on hand to give away.

I often find that lending out materials is never a good thing. One of the tricks I do is keep "disposable" materials that I can give away and not freak out when I loose them. I used to carry a small set of three throwing knives, I never threw them in my life, but I did lend them out for eating when I would go camping.


Often in situations like that you learn how unprepared people are for small SNAFU's like that.

It sounds like you had a successful venture while you did loose some materials; you learned a lot of lessons and probably taught a lot of people. Now I have to go lookup this flashlight you talked about lighting up the store like the sun..

Grocery stores without power were very common in South Florida in the years before Francis, Jeanne, and Wilma. Some of that has changed voluntarily and with new building codes. The Publix (popular grocery chain in Florida) closest to my house has one of the huge megawatt generators you described following being out of power for a week in 2005. Our emergency preparedness organizations have published maps showing both grocery stores and gas stations with backup power. Might be worth the effort to see if such maps are published for your area.

Ditto that for gas stations.

Our lights are out until "as late as Friday" (as in the 4th) - they went out at 1:43 PM Saturday. I have a stash of gas - I used to keep 25 gallons, that dropped to 15 for a while, I'm settling on on a rotating stock of 20 gallons.

Gas station lines were pretty epic at the one place where the lights are on. No gas cans to be had at the stores either. Saw entirely too many people putting gasoline into yellow Diesel or blue Kerosene containers.

They also ran out of coffee cups and people were yelling at the staff because of it (it's one of those mini-mart places).

We had some extra kids on an unexpected sleepover because of the storm's impact and subsequent road closures from wires and rees down. While the trees were snapping and breaking all over the place (I suffered huge losses on my ornamentals as well as my other trees) we enjoyed watching a "Mr. Bean" movie and munching on popcorn.

Plenty of water, plenty of butane for the portable stove. Warm fire in the fireplace and 4 cords of nicely split hickory & maple.

Only downside is the generator is both noisy and can't power all of the electric appliances (hot water, electric stove, oven & dryer) at once. Not 100% sure if I care, maybe about the oven, maybe not.

Anyway, I hate to be so darn smug, but THIS IS WHY WE PREPARE.

Counting what's in the gas tank and cans, I have fifteen gallons set aside for my generator, all with Sta-Bil mixed in. That should give me about four days continuous operation at 50% load. My plan is to run the generator intermittently and get a week or two without needing to siphon the cars or get to a gas station. I do have a hand pump to move gas out of the cars if I have to. Sta-Bil says that treated gas is good for a year, my plan is to rotate it every six months.

How do you store your 20 gallons? I'm using plastic Blitz cans, stored in a corner of my garage away from the door to the house and away from the sump pump. My hot water heater isn't in the garage.

In an Outbuilding (15x20 shed, in four 5 gallon Blitz cans (Plastic). All are stabilized. Every 2 weeks, my iphone beeps at me and reminds me to rotate the oldest gas. One 5 gallon can is dumped into my car and re-filled at the gas station, and put to the back of the row. The oldest gas is always up at the front of the line.

I store the generator with no fuel in it, and when I do the final shutdown once the power comes back, I run it dry so there's minimal residual fuel. I also drain the fuel lines. This was a lesson learned from the service guys who told me it's absolutely necessary due to ethanol damage, and no additive is better than no ethanol sotred in-system.

Agree with storing small infrequently used gas engines dry. Even with Stabil, over time the gas will go bad. Much easier to just run the engine to fuel starvation. The part about alcohol damage is just one more reason to put them away dry.

Yeah I just found out about ethanol's effect on seals & gaskets & stuff. Can't believe there's not more uproar about it in the marketplace.

( warning thread hijack about to occur)

I'm amazed how many people are surprised by large and severe storms. Its one of the few events that is statistically guaranteed in every region, every year.

...and even with lights, the store might refuse to check you out -- because they don't know how without a working ( electronic) cash register.

The Cash Registers had their own UPS to keep running and not only this but they can ring up Using Cash and Credit With the Connections down. But I cannot speak for other stores.



http://www.dollartree.com/cleaning-stora...02126/index.pro

http://www.dollartree.com/cleaning-stora...03653/index.pro


I will be buying a few of these to pass out instead next time.




I actually asked a few people did they hear about it. I got "I just thought it was BS" Or words to that effect, more times then I could count.

The manual for my generator says to either run it under load for 20 minutes every fourteen days, or to follow the long-term storage procedure. The long-term storage procedure has me changing the oil, draining the fuel line and the carburetor, squirting a little oil into the cylinder and turning it over a couple of times. So the gas tank will be full but the engine won't have any fuel in it.

Ethanol blended fuel is really only bad for older engines and engines that spend a lot of time in humid environments (like boats). Otherwise, newer engines are designed to handle ethanol blended fuel just fine.

Martin/all..i wonder how people in apartments are doing with no way to have a fireplace or generator.any feedback on that?

Keeping warm means bundling up, insulating your warmest room, pooling body heat, and possibly a propane space heater. Beyond that, you may or may not be able to bug out. If the power is out and the snow is too deep, your options may be very limited.

Lesson #10 Cash is king in a power outage. Carry some spare cash on your person or in your car. I simply keep $50 in $1 dollar bills in a sandwich baggie in the center console in my car, and I feed off that as required - $1s are useful exchange at the weekly farmer's market, and cash is an absolute after a power outage takes out the cash register, credit / debit card readers etc. Try it: when getting home, take any dollar bills and put them in a drawer, do that for a few weeks and see how many you have. Then put those in the baggie, and put that in your car, or keep them in the drawer for a rainy day. I like to keep them in my car because I'm often out and need a few bucks for lunch, the farmer's market, parking meters, etc etc.

Lesson #11 Keep your flexibility, patience, and a sense of humor. And maybe a calculator. The guy behind the check out counter is not your enemy. True story: my brother went into a store during an outage to buy some food. The check out clerk said I'm sorry, the register is down, we aren't selling anything. My brother offered cash, rounding up to the nearest dollar or two (the store would get their prices and may be a just a little more). I'm sorry, there's no way to verify the amount of your sale. My brother tallied up the prices marked *on the items* he wanted to buy, and added 10% (for local sales tax). I'm sorry the clerk said, I can't trust your totals. My brother pulled out his phone, and did the necessary calculations, with the clerk watching. Yes, I'll take your money - but it will mess up my register at the end of the day. At this point an exasperated octogenarian watching the entire exchange said something to the effect, 'oh for f*ck's sake, have you lost the ability to add, or were you never able to? Give him his crackers and cheese!" At which point the clerk gave in, accepted payment, and my brother went on his way.

You might find this old thread informative.

My response is still the same as back then--you don't have a whole lot of options in an apartment beyond trying to create a small space that you can try to keep insulated and warm. I think it's best for an apartment dweller to have a secondary place they can bug out to for an extended cold scenario, if that's possible.

Since apartment dwellers have fewer practical heating options, they can resort to dangerous methods if they get desperate about the cold. I'd hate to die of CO poisoning or a fire because residents in another apartment are doing something dangerous.

Good to know, thank you Paul.

Just to clarify, that still doesn't mean one should leave fuel sitting in the lines, carb, ect, if they can help it. It's always best to completely drain all the fuel out before placing something motorized into storage for an indeterminate amount of time. Gasoline, regardless of additives, does nasty things as it gets old.

Besides completely draining out the fuel, I also like to do the following before placing equipment with gas engines into storage:
1. Change the oil or completely drain the oil (if it requires oil)
2. Squirt just a little WD-40 into the cylinder(s)
3. Change the spark plug(s)

If I do that, rarely do I ever have trouble getting the engine started again, regardless of how long it sat.

BRILLIANT idea!

That would upset me more than being surrounded by the simply unprepared.

Do you guys run your generator every month or so regardless ????

I've recently moved down to the Hollywood area, and was wondering where I could get ahold of said map?

Thanks

MarkO...I'm new to generator ownership, but plan on starting mine once a year... about a month ahead of hurricane season... my older Honda 3500es has a carb bowl drain, so I do run mine dry... my fuel supply is a bulb start siphon line from a 6 gal can, so don't have a separate fuel tank...I start to use the stored hurricane season gas (about 15 gallons) about a month after the season, then refill... I do run a good synthetic oil in the crankcase, and spin it over without the fuel line attached to pre lube it ...small float charger for the battery

I'm pretty new to gen ownership too but I plan on firing mine once a month.

YES. This is absolutely the #1 thing you must do with a manual generator. I toss in a little gasoline (like a cup) and run it dry. I also have an old space heater that I connect to load-test it while it's running.

It's not a factor for gear made after about 2006 or so...

Tens of thousands of customers in the Northeast. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of individuals. In my area, which is "rural" (in a limited sense) there's STILL plenty of people who, despite having well water, septic systems and being totally dependent on electric, have no fireplace/ability to heat the home.

I hope you meant MONTH not YEAR.

I filled mine when I started it for the first time and run it monthly then I add a little when I'm done for the day. My thinking was that I did not want to have the added step of adding gas to the gen when I need it.

The manual with my generator says different: it says to run it every 14 days under load (I also use a space heater) or to follow the long-term storage procedure, which is basically an oil change, draining fuel from the fuel line and carb bowl, squirting some oil into the cylinder and turning it over a couple of times.

What are your thoughts on that?

I always followed that method (the manual long storage) and the only problem was when I didn't refill the oil enough to get past the "low oil" cut off on the genie. It looked full to me. I just had to add about an ounce of oil and it kicked off on the first pull.

Lets add to this convo.

Kerosene Heaters or Propane?

Candles or Oil Lamps or Propane Lamps or Electronic Lamps?

Books or handheld video games?

A grocery store blackout during a snowstorm is a great scenarion for considering what to EDC on you. I ALWAYS have a light on my person, for example. (A photon around my neck.) It's convenient for unexpected darkness somewhere unfamiliar.

Our house gets chilly fast during a power outage, so the basement becomes HQ. It's the warmest room in the house (underground) and most of our dedicated emergency supplies are stored there, including blankets, sweaters. (No washroom, just a wash tub and faucet, so that requires a trip upstairs.) Lighting is an issue down there too, so we've have a combination of candles, candle lanterns, oil lamps and battery-powered lighting.

Though we have books AND handheld devices, I suspect the electronics would win until the batteries ran out. We've also stocked a art supply kit and have several activity books, puzzles, lego and board games down there for the kiddo.

Frisket...kind of a repeat, but I've switched to propane (3) 25# bottles, and away from the Coleman mantle type lamps to refined kero in a couple of Dietz lamps and an easy access LED table light...

with the bulk propane tanks I refill 1# bottles for a 2 burner camp stove or single burner camp stove...or use the adapter hose
Trangia for back up

for heat (2) Mr Heater infra red and (2) Coleman catalytics

Sanyo AA Eneloops with charger and Goal Zero 7w photo voltaic/Goal Zero 10 pack for LED Minimag, Grundig radio,Black Diamond headlamp and power source for cell phone

(2) 12v car batteries for vent fans and digital portable TV

I currently EDC a Fenix E01 with lithium cell

I can usually laugh out loud when I read something by Carl Hiaasen