Like many folks, I'm carefully reviewing my disaster preparedness. Where I live in Vermont, the biggest threat is an immobilizing blizzard, either at home or on the road.

Years ago, my parents pulled off a Vermont highway in a severe storm, and checked into a motel. The people who remained on the highway, though, weren't rescued until after three days. How many of us could shelter in our vehicles for 72 hours in below-zero weather?

I'm collecting advice from people who've survived winter storms. Here's what I've heard so far:

• Don't mess with Mother Nature; she's bigger than you are. Get off the road, out of the mountains, and out of the line of danger before the storm starts.
• Keep cold-weather camping gear in your car. At a minimum, you need a shovel, blankets, a winter sleeping bag, hats and gloves. Ideally, make sure you have access to full winter gear (see below). If it's 20-below outside, you can't survive more than a few hours without the right gear.
• Make sure you own polypro long underwear (amazing stuff), wool socks, pants and tops, and serious hats and gloves. Cotton kills. Layers are your friend. Beware sweat; you can drench yourself with sweat even at 20 below, which will suck when you finally stop moving.
• If you lose electric power, you'll probably lose your furnace, freeze your plumbing, and crack your pipes. Learn how to drain your pipes beforehand, or you'll be out tens of thousands of dollars.
• The leading cause of death during a blizzard is carbon-monoxide poisoning. This can happen indoors (gas stoves, generators, kerosene heaters), or in your car (typically because your tailpipe got buried in snow). Keep all generator and auto exhaust pipes shovelled out, and remember: warmth makes you fall asleep quickly and uncontrollably, and you may not be able to turn that gas stove back off.
• Before you lose power, fill up all your pots, pans and bottles with drinking water. Fill your tub with water for flushing the toilet; it's going to make your life vastly more pleasant.
• You can develop hypothermia in under 10 minutes, especially when wet. To treat hypothermia, you'll need an external heat source. The traditional approach is to put the victim under lots of blankets with a warm body of either side. It's a bit like jump-starting an engine.

Blizzards are basically a shelter-in-place scenario, with two complications: extreme cold, and the possibility of sheltering in a vehicle.

In your experience, what should be added to or removed from this list?

This is the gear I carry year around in my truck:

UMBRELLA
FLASHLIGHT (Brinkmann LED)
“D” BATTERIES
AAA MAGLITE
WATCH CAP
GLOVES
BECKER BRUTE
JUMPER CABLES
FLARES
NRA SURVIVAL KIT
DIAMOND STONE
OVERCOAT
TOOLS
TIRE REPAIR KIT
WATER BAG
BOOTS
ROPE HOIST (10 ton)
MIRROR
LARGE LEAF BAG
FAN BELT
SNARE WIRE (80’)
SNARE LOCKS
FISHING TACKLE
SPARE CLOTHING
CAMPSAW
AXE
COFFEE POT
DOG BOWLS (2)
FIRST AID KIT
8x10 POLY TARP
DOGFOOD (6C)
WATER (2 GAL)
CANS CHILI (3)
CANS STEW (2)
CANS VEGGIES (4)
COFFEE (1 LB)
COFFEE BAGS (4)
WHITE GAS STOVE (COLEMAN 1 BURNER)
HEATDRUM
COFFEE CUP
UTENSIL KIT
LARGE COOLER
SHOVEL
SLEEPING BAGS (2)
FISHING POLE
CLOSED CELL FOAM PAD

In addition, I keep my BOB in the vehicle. It contains:


WATER BOTTLE
IBUPROPHEN
STERNO (4)
ASPIRIN
COMPASS
IMMODIUM
BIC LIGHTERS
ACTIFED
WATERPROOF MATCHES
CHAPSTICK
STRIKE ANYWHERE MATCHES
SMALL CHEM HANDWARMER
LARGE CANDLES (4)
SUNSCREEN
PARACORD W/ PULLEY
BOULLION CUBES
POTABLE AQUA
SM BINOCULARS
3# COFFEE CAN (EMPTY)
SPARE WOOL SOCKS
TRIOX BAR
WOOL SWEATER
LEVIS
TRICK CANDLES
INSULATED HOOD
SURGICAL TUBING (4’)
4” MORA KNIFE
DUSTMASKS

In the winter I will also carry tire chains and tighteners, and a hydraulic floor jack.

Regards, Vince

Having been through 5 or 6 dozen blizzards, I agree with your ideas above.

The key is to learn, plan and respect the weather.

TRO

Having lived in Canada all my life, served in the military 15 years, trained extensively in cold environments and participated in the Ice Storm Assistance in 1998, I can tell you that all the gear mentioned is fine and the point about carbon monoxide poisoning is very important.

In any survival situation, mental preparedness is most important. Use / practice with the gear you have. Shovel snow and make a shelter, sleep in it or just spend a few hours. Sit in your car for 4 hours in sub zero temps and fix yourself a cup of soup. The lessons you will learn from the experience will be much more valuable than any piece of equipment still wrapped in its original packaging!!!

Enrol in winter camping / survival courses or outings. See here: http://www.equipped.org/srvschol.htm . You will learn that snow is your ally, being a great insulator …

Practice with your vehicle recovery gear. Put on the chains, in cold weather when your fingers will freeze - then go buy a good pair of work gloves ;-) ! Try the traction aids in different situations. Join an off-road club on an outing to gain valuable vehicle recovery skills…Try these guys: http://www.vtjeep.org/html/index.php

Have fun & be safe…

Food! Our bodies may be heated mechanically from exercise, externally from fire or metabolically from food. Performing jumping jacks in a snowdrift is out, fire is limited from the aforementioned safety aspect and the limits of fuel. So pack food, both in side you and out.

In my experience with blizzards in a major suburban area, it's unlikely that you'll lose water or phone service. Electricity - now that's a different matter.

Without electricity, plan on a way to cook you some food (Coleman gas stove perhaps) and a way to keep warm if the outage is extended. I have heavy cold weather clothing and winter sleeping bags, although in practice it's rare that you'll need the max in a home environment (stranded in a car is different matter - don't go out unless you really have to, and then, don't take your Mustang with the street tires!)

Phones usually stay working where I am, or outages are brief. Just make sure you have a non-powered phone. If it has to plug into the wall in addition to the phone line it won't do you any good without power.

Anybody reading this forum already knows to keep adequate food and water stocks in their home, so that point does not require elaboration.

Technology is grand, but these days I have broad band for computer and telephone, which is dependent upon power. Cell phone service in my immediate locale is dodgy. I'm trying to get a good old fashioned copper line dropped in as a fax line/backup voice, but I live in a high rise, so even that is comlicated because it is limited by infrastructure.

I never have found radio to be an attractive option, but I am rethinking that.

Living in a high rise, especially... wouldn't ham radio be an excellent backup? Your line of sight coverage should be very good....

Phone service is only reliable if you don't get trees across the phone lines. This is very common in rural and near-rural areas.

In smaller suburban towns--and most rural areas--many people still have wells, which will fail as soon as the power goes out.

The reliability of electrical power varies considerably. Where I currently live in Vermont, my neighbors say they can't remember a power outage longer than an hour or two--and they've been living in the same house since childhood.

But when I lived in Maine, we had a multi-day power outage every few years. Some of our neighbors lost power for two weeks after Hurricane Gloria.

I haven't lived through this kind of infrastructure failure in 15 years or so--just enough time to get complacent. None of this is very hard to cope with if you take the right steps in advance.

I've used my laptop and cable internet more than once to notify the power company via their web site that my house had no power. a nice UPS is a good thing to have <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />