When you live in the woods, you have to be prepared.
Gustav and Hanna have been in the news lately, as everyone pays close attention to the hurricane and severe storm watches and warnings. I have been no exception. The little weather alert has been popping up on my browser for the last two days, warning me of severe storms with high winds and possible flooding in my area. While I am not too concerned that we will find ourselves in a situation that requires evacuation, I still need to pay attention to the weather reports, especially because of those high winds.
As for the flooding, well our house is uphill from our little creek, and it has never overrun its banks anyway. There are no major water sources nearby.
But let’s get back to those winds. When high winds are predicted, these are promised to be more than 40 miles per hour in some cases, people who live in heavily wooded areas have to prepare. Those high winds, especially when combined with a heavy soaking rain, can bring down trees and limbs, which bring down power lines. This could result in our losing power and water for days. We have well water, and the pump runs on electricity.
I remember last year when we first moved here to this home. I was woken up in the middle of the night by a flash. The transformer at the end of our driveway sort of exploded or shorted, giving off a display of fireworks that my sleepy, sans contact eyes could hardly understand. It also knocked out the power for two days. (You can read about it here in the post: Frugal Lessons from the Amish: Living It for Real.) That was when we went out an bought a gas-powered generator for our home. There we were, at 9 p.m one night, tired, dirty and with cranky kids. Since then, we have become a little more prepared.
Next up, I’ll share with you all of the ways that we are preparing for the coming storm. Some of them might seem a bit funny, especially what we do with the toilet.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog and caring for little ones in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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