Preparedness for when

milasavesmoney

maryb wrote: »

Mila, is it true that in some states you aren't allowed to save rainwater?

Yes, particularly here in the arid West were I live. Rain water helps the water table or might trickle down into some of our streams. Those ideas were important as the West was settled and irrigation of crops was set up. Water rights have been and still are a major issue, particularly in years of drought. We have Senior water rights and Junior water rights. The earliest settlers of course had dibs and those rights are sold with the land. During droughts the Senior water rights users get first allocation of irrigation water. Whatever is left goes to the Junior rights users. Many a law suit and still many more to come.
I think Utah and Colorado just passed a law, in the last few years, that a home owner could store 100 gallons of rainwater from their roof runoff.
We store water in big trash cans when it does rain and use it to water the garden.
GQ I live at the northern most part of the Chihuahuan desert in southern New Mexico. Hot hot hot! :cool:

milasavesmoney

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

A scary moment today at lunchtime when we got an SOS alert from DD1s phone and a map reference which when checked was the school location saying 'I need help', couldn't get her on the phone and my phone and his phone and her sisters phone all kept receiving messages in quick succession from the same number, mine because it's a very basic phone just Message cannot be read. I had 18 in all one after the other and we just thought Oh My God WHAT!!! so He Who Knows phoned the school who contacted DD1 who was teaching and fine and completely unaware that the phone had triggered in her bag! She had recently added an SOS app as a sensible precaution and as soon as she turned that off the messaging stopped. Thank goodness it was NOT an emergency and also thank goodness because we now know that if there IS an emergency the app works and we can tell appropriate authorities where she is, scary though!!!

Very very very scary!!! Thank goodness it was just a mistake. That would have taken a few years off my life!

[Deleted User]

The phone was on in her bag the way it always is, turned to silent in case anyone needs to text her or leave a message, she was teaching and nowhere near it so it's a complete mystery.

MILA it was pretty scary particularly when the texts just kept coming, one after the other, luckily He Who Knows is a very level headed chap and just contacted the school to get them to check in with her which they did instantly and could let us know she was OK and there was no emergency. I'm torn between being so relieved that the app works as the map picture was exactly where she was and cross that it malfunctioned and scared me half to death!

Karmacat

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I'm torn between being so relieved that the app works as the map picture was exactly where she was and cross that it malfunctioned and scared me half to death!

I'm not surprised! Good to know that the map part of the app works so well.

More of the fun part of preparedness tonight: the first bowl of raspberries from the garden!

thriftwizard

OMG, I'd have been beside myself, MrsLW! An app to treat with some caution, then...

monnagran

Oh my goodness Lyn, heart stopping or what? Thank the Lord everything was all right. Good to know that the app works though.

x

mrs-moneypenny

Morning all
MrsLW so glad your Dd is ok
Had a reasonable level of preparedness which allowed me to help a few neighbour's out yesterday. Our water pressure dropped to a trickle yesterday evening and Dh commented it must be the result of the massive burst water main he'd driven past on his way home. We'd filled a couple of buckets from the waterbutt to allow us to still flush the toilet. Had to nip out to take some stuff round dd2 as we were leaving a neighbour commented about pressure and said she didn't know what to do. Took her a bucket of water round for same use and after that had a steady trickle of neighbour's knocking on with buckets we must be the only ones locally with a waterbutt. Water pressure seems fine this morning but at least I managed to keep everyone's loos flushing overnight.
It's drizzling again now so I'd think the waterbutt will be refilled by lunchtime.

[Deleted User]

Well done MRS MONEYPENNY not only being able to sort out your own home but most of the street as well, perhaps you might have triggered a response and all the people who were without water yesterday will now buy a water butt of their own and begin to think that unthinkable thought that services DO fail occasionally and they will have to fend for themselves in certain areas once in a while. I think we have so much in our lives that we take for granted, certainly our lifestyles are built around always having electricity, water, roads in good repair, food and everything we need in the shops, banks to get our money when we want it etc. that most people don't give a second thought to the fact that occasionally one of those services will fail and leave us struggling. It might only be for a day or even less but still it's disruptive. It really doesn't hurt anyone to just think that little bit ahead and make small provision like the garden water butt does it? you don't even have to fill that yourselves, nature does it for you for free!

I must admit to us having 8 waterbutts at home all linked to roof harvesting on the outhouses and another half a dozen on the allotment so we should seldom be without the means to flush the loo! If that happened we'd be able to easily construct a 'privvy' in the summer house and use a bucket and shovel of earth way of disposing of solid waste and the urine would be poured into the drains in the road and flushed when it actually rained.

GreyQueen

Well done on the waterbutts, mrs-moneypenny. I bet quite a few people didn't even know you can flush a loo with the technique called bucket-and-chuck-it. And that you don't need potable water for this purpose.

And like MrsLW says, maybe some of them will think about getting their own waterbutts, too.

I've got two huge barrels, one on either side of a bog-standard 6 x 8 foot apex roofed shed and it always astonishes me how quickly these fill. Makes you realise how much rain is landing on the roof of even a modest-size terraced house.

mila; what we mean by terraces are houses in continious rows, sharing side walls. This is by far the commonest type of house in the UK. And the bog-standard shed is a 6ft wide x 8 ft long wooden structure with a window on one side and a pitched roof covered with felt. These can be bought off-the-peg all over the place and its a rare UK back yard which doesn't sport at least one of these things - mine is on my allotment.

You'd weep with envy if you could see the torrential rain we've been having on and off all day - streams are flowing down the streets and there is a fast-growing pond outside my flat. Lovely weather for ducks.

The referendum farrago (or Farage-go, see what I did there?) rolls on apace and some electors are still trying to come out of the woodwork to vote but they've gone past the deadline. Only option now are emergency proxy votes, if you can get one. Boy, will I be glad when this is all over.:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Well talking of the referendum after the juvenile display on the Thames yesterday which was enough to make us the laughing stock of Europe at the very least there is a wonderful little article on the MSE news feed that says David Cameron has called in Jeremy Clarkson to add weight to the REMAIN campaign as he thinks Mr Clarkson will be able to reach parts of the electorate that he can't! Apparently they are old friends as they live close to each other in Oxfordshire. Does he REALLY think that someone as 'individual' as Mr Clarkson and with his track record of late will actually make people vote remain? It's just too ridiculous to imagine!