Home Prepardness

I'm rather new to teh survial "stuff" and can only imagine how unprepared i am. I want to prepare a home type survival. I've read through the lists on teh site, but do have a question about storage adn what you type of food you keep.

1. How much do you keep? I live in Texas, and tornado season is around teh corner as well as thunderstorm season with possible power loss. It is just my wife, puppy and myself.
2. What do you keep as food. I was going the route of non perisable canned goods and a few mre's
3. What's teh best type of water storage? Gallon jugs, 5 gallon jugs? Liters? How much do you keep?
4. Where do you kep it? garage? in study?
5. I think i'm going to create a spreadsheet of expiration dates and what not, i figure before it goes bad, donate it to a shelter or something.

Thanks!!

You should really get the podcast from ETS and listen to it...
It has tons of great advice in it...
Plus there is a ton of this type of info on the ETS site as well:
http://www.equipped.org/watrfood.htm
Not to say that you won't get sound advice in here too.

... Also visit the "Search" link above. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Most of your questions have been discussed in detail in the past. For example, the size and type of water jugs has been discussed before.

I'm working on this myself. I've got a little over a month's supply of water for my family that is kept in Aqua Tainer (7 gallon) jugs. We drink a lot of water anyway, so I just keep rotating the jugs so the supply stays fresh. I'm working on some sort of numbering system so I don't have to lug those 56 pound jugs any more than I have to, and still keep the rotation.

I also have cases of bottled water for bugging out and rotate these as well. Each case is a three day supply for one person.

Still building up the food reserves, although I have a nice start. I've built up a supply of canned food that we eat on a regular basis and have been rotating that too. I don't buy things that my family doesn't eat regularly for a "just in case" situation, because it will go to waste. I don't have to think about hauling it to the local food bank before it expires either. I'm still working out how much food to have. To match the water reserves, I want to have at least one month of food. This takes a bit more calculation. I plan to figure out a month's worth of meal plans, like "how many meals will I really eat green beans in one month?" and then figure out the numbers of each type of canned food I need. I keep this list seperate from the "working pantry" in the kitchen. My reserve items are kept in the basement. I haven't finished analyzing the types of canned food, for example, how many cans of condensed soup I have versus ready to eat soup, but I'm working on it.

I don't have any MREs yet, but I'm thinking that I'll reserve those for the cars mostly, along with energy bars and some other choices.

I also plan to keep a list of what I have where and in what quantities, so I always know what I have and what I need to restock. I need to write down my way of thinking too, as to rationing so that in case my family needs to use the reserves and I'm not around, they'll know what I had in mind.

I'd be interested in what other people are doing too.

And if you get that spread sheet worked out, maybe send a copy my way. I'm not too handy with setting those up <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I've been writing expiration dates on the top lid of the can with a permenant marker. If a date is not on the can, I just date it for one year from the month I purchased it. Do a search for "expiration dates" because Sue made an interesting post recently. Even though I rotate frequently, I put the dates on there, because I've found too much funky stuff in my in-laws' fridge and cupboards to NOT pay attention to them! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Ors,
You have some good ideas there. Just buy about 2 days worth extra each week and with in a few weeks you should have enough, right? I use a marker to put purchase date and year on my cans, that way I know when to use by. How many bottles of water do you use per person for a one day supply?

I have a years worth of canned and dried food in my pantry.

2 years if ramen and rice noodles count... I mean they found that one pot of noodles in China that was in excess of 4000 years old and all... HAHAHA

Anyway, I generally rotate out the items that need it monthly after giving them a year on the shelf and then donate the outgoing stock to food drives. They're still well within the expiration date of course.

I guess I could eat it constantly, but I really like to eat fresh when I can, so I end up donating quite a lot of canned goods.

I think the earliest expiration date I have on my shelf at the moment are a few cans of Vegetable soup dated mid 2007 and the latest date is a #10 can of Oriental Spicy Chicken that I need to get rid of by early 2035. LOL

Yeah, I'm one of those crazy folks that constantly feel the collapse of civilization as we know it, something close, or perhaps even the loss of my job is waiting around the corner. My Grandfather (mother's side) filled my brain with tales of the depression when I was young, and my father's father worked similar magic on my father's brain as well who then passed it on to me, so I was getting it double barrel growing up. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

On the upside if I'm wrong, and I hope that I am, a whole bunch of unfortunate folks will have a decent flow of food from my pantry. LOL

As far as water goes... I am severely under prepared in that department. I have about a week's worth stored at the most. I guess my thinking in regards to water is that if I ever needed more than a weeks worth, my Katadyn Pocket Microfilter and inline Carbon Filter would come into play and would hopefully work at least long enough for me to either find a steady source of water and/or build rainwater catchment and filtration system that I could maintain with minimal effort.

Oops... My paranoia is showing. LOL

My preps are geared for hurricane season. I keep on hand a little more than a month?s worth of non-perishable food items. I gave up on trying to stash food away in totes or 5 gallon buckets as I kept finding them here and there a year or two later. I?ve taken to just filling up the pantry and keeping an eye on it myself.

I will do the grocery shopping every second week when my paycheck comes in. My wife prides herself on how little she spends at the market (not a bad thing!), where as I could care less what I spend (within reason) as long as that pantry is stuffed full. I always help putting the groceries away, which gives me control of rotating canned food and gets brownie points from the wife. I try to find something new as often as possible and buy just one, then the family can decide if I should buy more. Latest, was Progresso white clam sauce, excellent, but canned asparagus was vetoed. This method also means the food is eaten year round, so little waste.

I've found the easiest thing to prepare post storm is the Chunky Soups or stews. One pan preperation, lots of variety, a few crackers and I'm good to go. My comfort food when reading at night to the hum of the genny is PopTarts. Talk about long shelf life , second only to the life of the shelf! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Once the family comes back from bugout the menu becomes much more varied.

We keep 24 1-gal jugs of water, 4- 5 gal jugs, and always the favorite 3 cases of bottles.

With 3 women in my family paper products are a must, all I can say is I keep as much as I can fit.

Fuel stores consists of 5 rotated, stabilized Blitz cans, with 3 empties for pre-storm purchase. A new storage plan needs to be formed for fuel as last year was the first flooding I?ve experienced from Hurr. Wilma. Only got 8? at my home but 4? one block away. The cans are stored in a low 3 block high structure to reduce wind resistance but watching the water creep up and in it was distressing to say the least.

Scott

I'm with you on the Asparagus, olddude. I bought a can once and it was the most vile concoction I have had the displeasure of tasting. I bought another brand of it just in case and it tasted the same pretty much. It's nothing like fresh. YEEEEEIIIICK!

I generally try to stay well stocked on canned and foil packed items and I have probably a week's worth of water stored... but after reading all the fine posts here, I'm going to work out a rotation and "build-up" system and try to get both to at least a month. Tunafish is one of my favorites (especially the retort bags) since I just sometimes eat it plain with a fork. I have a hard time doing that with chili or beans, etc.

I also found that some of those bags now have a reclosable top, so that once you break the seal, you can close it up to put in the fridge. Nice addition to a really nice package. Has anyone tried the chicken in the retort bag? I saw Tyson makes it... I'm kinda scared of any poultry in a can/bag, but maybe if there's good feedback on a decent chicken salad sandwich from someone here.... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

We lived on the California central coast for 25 years, with the possibility of earthquake, wild fire, Diablo Nuclear Power Plant incident (five miles distant), dam burst (six miles inland) and tsunami (we had two warnings during that time, related to off-shore earthquakes; couldn't help but think of Half Moon Bay, California some years back).

Suffice to say, a well thought-out evacuation plan was prudent, backed with sufficient gear/food/water to bridge the potential gap between event and relocation to suitable accommodations outside the area (an aside: over the years, there were any number of estimates suggesting that as little as ten percent of the area population had effective plans/preparations in place).

Besides having a couple of week's supply of water/food set aside in single storage at home (intended more for bug-in), I also maintained a separate, smaller 3-day supply of food/water ready-to-go — no time required to sort, assemble, and pack in the event of a hurried evacuation. Of course, if time permitted, we still had the option to grab additional food/water from the main supply.

The included food was selected based on: expiration dates, packaging bulk, weight, water required to prepare, ease of preparation, appeal to our taste buds (both wife and I had to like it), and nutritional value. Things like Lipton Pasta Sides, Albacore/tuna in foil pouches, soups/stews requiring no water/heated right out of the can (though, this supply, we try to keep canned goods at a minimum, due to weight). I've discovered lots of food products that we regularly eat come in alternate packaging that I might not buy for daily home use, but prove to be ideal for an evacuation kit. You've probably seen the precooked, no refrigeration required bacon on the grocery shelves (haven't brought myself to look at the preservatives used). I guess benefits can be derived from our migration to the fix-it/eat-it-on-the-run society.

These days, in light of the Katrina experience, I've bumped that 3-day supply up to 7 days, despite the fact that we live in an area with fewer potential disasters.

Instead of spending money on food you either don't use as you go, or give away, why not put some time and money into building a decent pantry?

A neighbor had her grandson build a nice one. Not all that big, but it sure holds a lot! It is long and narrow (probably about 4'x10'), just off the kitchen inside the garage. Shelves line each long wall & the far wall. The walkway is about one chubby person wide. Judy started near the door, and started filling the shelves with what she eats. Just buying extra each week, she has almost filled up one wall. Gallon water jugs (PET) sit on the floor under the shelves (she got those gradually, too). Things like fresh potatoes, onions and squashes sit in baskets on the bottom shelves (above the water).

She said all she has to do is eat her way down one side of the pantry, gradually replacing what she eats. She keeps a bright yellow sheet of stiff cardboard as a marker, and moves it as she goes. She doesn't bother clumping similar stuff together, she just mixes it all on the shelves, as she is likely to eat it. She said this way, she doesn't have to keep a list of what is there.

Sue

The area of destruction for a tornado ought to be narrow enough that if you SURVIVE, you'll be able to walk out of it to unaffected civilization or otherwise get help in short order. Seems to me that a near-miss is the thing to be more worried about - something that doesn't destroy your house, but does take out the utilities and/or your access route. Much the same problems you could have with a severe thunderstorm, really. If those are your main worries, I'd expect a week of food and supplies to be more than ample, as services are likely to be restored fairly quickly. It's not the same sort of lingering and wide-spread problem that you might get from a hurricane, flood, or earthquake (or even a blizzard).

Anyone disagree?

I haven't crunched the numbers of how many bottles per person per day (and those better at mental math will figure this out quickly) but I think the cases are 24 bottles of half liter bottles. The total for the case is just over three gallons, so it is a conservative one gallon per person, per day for three days.

When stocking up, I began slowly and quite randomly. I'd buy a couple of extra cans of something on our list at a time. Then I started getting more systematic about it. Recently our situation has allowed more food purchases at once, so I can speed up the process a bit.

Any good ideas I have are inspired by the wisdom and experience of other ETS forum members <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

How many Cubits does that translate to? Just kiddin'. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Having read through the other posts, I'll just say, I agree with and practice the "buy what you eat, and rotate it on the shelf" approach... and the marker/purchase date system works real well. Shop the sales at your local grocery store(s), buy a little more than you need each week, and before you know it, you'll have built up the reserve you want (week, month, 3 months...). I did this prior to 12/31/99, and even though the world didn't come to an end, when the factory I was working at shut down, I was VERY glad to have six months worth of chow on hand, it wasn't what I had planned for, but it turned out to be the right thing at the right time anyway <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Troy

I keep 6 months worth of canned goods and foil packed foods for my wife and I, one month's worth of MRE's , water isn't a problem as I am on a well and have a generator, I do however have 3 weeks worth of bottled water as a backup. everything is kept in the basement in my new 10X12 fallout/tornado room.