Preparedness for when

Butterfly_Brain

Doveling so sorry to hear of the loss of your beloved labrador

JKO a quick way to increase print size is to press ctr, then +, keep pressing the + until you have the required size

jk0

I've still been having difficulty with small print on FF today. I've found another option in the tools section. Click on Tools, Options, Content, then Advanced, where you can set a minimum text size.

craigywv

doveling so sorry to hear about your dog, very sad x

Doveling

Thanks for kind words and thoughts. Didn't mean to stun everyone into silence though .
Being glad he happened not sad that he's gone. Best way to cope.

Anyway, back to prepping. I've bought myself a Bex Bissell carpet sweeper. Lovely Hubs will be glad when I'm up and about again and not cruising the internet for "useful things" :rotfl:. Any other suggestions for non-electrical items to keep life and housework on an even keel when the power is off?
Already thinking of contacting Mooloo for one of her makes.

Looking at the weather outside, do any of you in flood areas keep an inflatable, kayak or something similar or is that a step too far?

The Futurelearn course started this week and it's very good. Think I will sign up for some more. I'm especially keen on the free aspect!

GreyQueen

Hi Doveling, we have been a bit quieter than normal (or what passes for normal here, anyroad ), haven't we? I've been whacked out and spending less time online to rest a bit.

Re keeping some sort of watercraft if you live in a flood zone. I read a book about the flooding caused by the storm surge dragged into New Orleans by Hurrican Katrina. One of the chief problems is that parts of NO are below sea level and when the levees broke, the area filled up like a tank and the water didn't drain away. Ten feet of water is plenty to drown in, and they had that and more in some areas.

People were trapped in poorer areas in single-story dwellings and fled into the lofts and onto their roofs where some drowned in their lofts and some died of exposure (it was late August and very hot) on their rooftops as they waited for rescue, for days in many cases.

There was one bloke who had been warning in his professional capacity for years that the levees were inadequate and poorly maintained and couldn't get anyone to take him seriously. As a protest vote of sorts, he had bought an inflatable boat and stashed it in the attic of his own single story dwelling.

In the aftermath of the flood he had to deploy it in earnest and launch from his own rooftop and even rescued others, if memory serves.

We will probably recall pictures from a few months back when those poor souls in the Levels and other places were flooded out, and seeing people wading and carrying the vulnerable in towed inflatables/ canoes or using the same to transport their rescued belongings and caged pets without getting them wet.

So, yes, there is a theoretical use of small boats in a flooding situation. People have rowed boats in the streets about my block before now, when there was very bad flooding from our little river - there are photos available and markers on various buildings about how high the water went in various years. People died here, and many others lost everything.

As to whether a person's individual circumstances merit the acquistion of a boat of some description, that's something only you can know, and you'd have to balance the cost of purchase and the space to store such an item. If you wanted something like that for leisure use anyway, you could call it sporting equipment and have its preptastic potential in the back of your mind as a just-in-case.

I would think that a Canadian-style open canoe would be more versatile than a kayak, but even a small inflatable could be very handy if you had to tow the cat basket and a bag or two of belongings through floodwaters to dry ground.

Obviously, common sense would apply to not going boating with a flood in full spate, unless you were about to be submerged where you were and had no choice, of course.

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

Hi Doveling, we have been a bit quieter than normal (or what passes for normal here, anyroad ), haven't we? I've been whacked out and spending less time online to rest a bit.

A mix of Real Life (tm) issues and Openreach accidentally cutting a cable have meant a lot less time online. Finding out the company I used to use for backup access have less finesse in customer service than Genghis Khan has meant I haven't bothered with home access for the last couple of weeks (that and being told by my landline/broadband supplier that the fault should be rectified shortly, I stopped believing them after the first 5 days of being told that).
I've been trying to keep up to date and post odd comments from jobsites or my MILs.

Re keeping some sort of watercraft if you live in a flood zone. I read a book about the flooding caused by the storm surge dragged into New Orleans by Hurrican Katrina. One of the chief problems is that parts of NO are below sea level and when the levees broke, the area filled up like a tank and the water didn't drain away. Ten feet of water is plenty to drown in, and they had that and more in some areas.

...
Obviously, common sense would apply to not going boating with a flood in full spate, unless you were about to be submerged where you were and had no choice, of course.

Keeping a boat is pointless unless you know how to use it. I'd agree that a Canadian would be a better bet than a kayak in this situation, but for recreational use I found a kayak to be the better choice (I live on the North East coast, if I lived in the fens I suspect I'd make a very different choice). I've seen what happens when idiots decide to kayak a burn or river in spate, the tend to meet a bridge at serious speed, a bridge that has no clearance for anything on the surface to pass beneath it, and innocent onlookers put their lives at risk to rescue the injured from the water.

If you live in an area that may well flood and you're thinking about something to tow the pets and belongings out - a decent kids paddling pool, the type with inflatable rings, work and are probably more generally useful than a boat bought for the purpose and never otherwise used. (Boating may look simple and it can be if you put the practise in to make it so).

moneyistooshorttomention

I was certainly thinking "All very well to have a boat to hand, but what if you cant use it?".

My own personal experience of trying to steer boats in my life to date = I've never been taught how to use a boat of any description. On from that, when I actually tried to do so the results to date were as follows:

- canal boat = you gotta be joking, as I went straight into the banks and was totally useless at it

- small rowboat = not a lot better, much going round in circles

- small speedboat = no problemo at all. Got on just fine with it. Perfect. A "natural". Owner just sat back and took their ease and watched me.

Now that was my own personal experience of being let loose for the first time on various boats. Other people may differ. I have my own theories as to why I just "knew" how to use a speedboat and didn't have the foggiest about the other types. Maybe speedboats are dead easy to use, maybe I'd learnt how to many years ago/who knows? But.....you DO have to have learnt somewhere along the line just how to use any type of boat to be able to manage to get it to go in the direction you want it to.

GreyQueen

I confess myself astonished that whenever there is flooding and rivers are in full spate, there are some absolute idiots who find them irresistable and go kayaking and similar. And, as you say, doing stupid things endangers those good souls, both professionals and amateurs, who come to your aid.

I do know how to use a kayak, to a degree, and have holidayed overseas with an organised group using twin ocean-going kayaks, in coastal waters which were very sheltered. Until we came around a headland from a deeply indented bay and suddenly all hell broke loose and we were in heavy swell with a driving offshore wind.

I had one of the two pro kayak guides of our party as the rear paddler in my twin kayak and we dug in like mad things pelting inshore in the bay we'd just crossed into, against a heavy swell and in potential danger of a capzize (although these particular big kayaks are pretty hard to flip). It was a hairy few minutes as the swell tried to carry us out to sea and there was only our muscle power fighting back. We rammed ashore on the sloping sandy beach and staggered out all wobbly-legged from overusing our reserves. Took quite a bit of medicinal chocolate to recover from that. :rotfl:

Being in a flattish part of the south, our rivers are small and sluggish, and eminently suitable to passage in Canadian-type canoes, although you do see both canoes and kayaks on the river and out in the marshes, where the traditional craft was a sort of punt which was poled along.

You can have a lot of 'fun' downriver in the estuary getting grounded on mudflats, if you're in a proper boat and don't know what you're doing. And have to sit there on the mudbank at a rakish angle until the tide turns whilst walkers and passing motorists laugh and wave.

Funnily enough, the yachties seldom do that twice.

Oh, just had a LBM; what about those huge rubber trugs sold for gardening and similar? I have a couple middling-large ones on the lottie. They're waterproof, would float, and could be used to tow belongings, the family pet or even a small child through standing water, with someone holding onto the handles on each side.

Frugalsod

Re flooding I would think that a Canadian style canoe would be more practical but they can be large and unless you use it regularly it would be an expensive insurance solution. An inflatable would be cheaper and more compact in such circumstances. Though personally I would think that if you are in a high risk area then sand bags and water bottles would be a better solution. You could protect your home much better with the sand bags and you will need water bottles as the tap water will most likely be contaminated during a flood.

You need to consider how long a flood might impact your area. It could be weeks or months. In which case you will probably have to move temporarily so moving valuables upstairs so they are out of the reach of the flood waters would be a good start. Then get breeze blocks and lift all furniture and put it on the blocks as the floods start. This will at least protect the majority of your furniture if waters seep in and flood the lower floor with a couple of inches of water. If you have sand bagged the house then water seeping in will be minimal, and all you might have to replace would be the carpets, and then dehumidify the house afterwards.

RAS

nuatha wrote: »

I've seen what happens when idiots decide to kayak a burn or river in spate, the tend to meet a bridge at serious speed, a bridge that has no clearance for anything on the surface to pass beneath it, and innocent onlookers put their lives at risk to rescue the injured from the water.

This http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8372604.stm was put rather delicately.

His kayak ran into a fallen tree trunk and got stuck underneath it; he was jammed between the boat and the tree. His mates tried to keep him above water.