THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

fuddle

Thriftwizard it snowed in your town early 2015. There wasn't even a forecast warning for that. My DDs walked to school happily in the white stuff and I was tearing my hair out as care coordinator as carers were getting stuck in estates. It lasted the morning and thawed pretty darn quickly but still, it happened out of the blue.

No one can predict snow until it's here or here abouts.

Snow doesn't come just because of cold temperatures. There's a cocktail of situations that has to be right to form snow.

Be sceptical, I am! but freak things can happen, they do happen. Never be complacent.

thriftwizard

I must have blinked & missed it, Fuddle! Actually, IIRC I was down in the county town looking after my mother following yet another hospitalisation. So I stand corrected; it has snowed here, but I missed it.

fuddle

It did snow. I also recall having to clear my frosted car window only a couple of times each winter I was down there. I understand the complacency but I also felt the full force of dealing with really important things like getting someone out of bed, washed, cleaned from being soiled and getting meds etc etc when it did snow there. While as individuals we feel prepared it gave me an insight of how infrastructure can go loopy with just a covering.

As far as this cold snap goes it doesn't seem like that much out of the ordinary for the North East hills. We're due 3 days of snow next week and minus temps by night, only just getting above 0 by day. We've had that scenario off and on all winter. The ground was frozen solid for 3 weeks over the new year. We're used to it here but I'm watching because this has the potential to be something like the snow of before I was born. That scenario I'm not used to. I will be sceptical, of course, but I live in a place where we could be cut off quite quickly. I'm not taking my eye off the ball.

[Deleted User]

I was up in kendal and it was bad there but it was on the news, the helicopter drops of food to villages in the south. In s wales, someone I later worked with said his wife was stuck at work for days, hospital nurse, he and the children survived by eating oats. Snow was higher than the door and it happened very suddenly. You only need to have lived through it once to realise the full horror and threat to life. I don`t remember the exact year, sometime in the 70s

mardatha

Somewhere we've got a pic a neighbour took of my youngest son peering through a wee round hole in a house-sized wall of snow. That was the front door lol and he cut a porthole in it to see out

[Deleted User]

My large upright freezer in the kitchen has some spaces and is (neatly) sorted. I am just about to turn it back into a jumble and make sure all the spaces are filled with boxes and bags and plastic bottles of water. It will protect it during a power cut

fuddle

What household things are likely to be effected during a deep freeze? Are power cuts likely if we only got the very cold temps?

[Deleted User]

oh and air intakes were blocked so gas and any fire was dangerous. You need a plan to get air in through any external vent otherwise no-one should be using fires

Power cuts very likely yes, water pipes obviously. Anything delicate in a greenhouse. Underfoot very slippy, hospitals quickly filled with broken-boned casualties

I have started on the freezer and stuffed things from one drawer into another. I have emptied the equivalent of two drawers. So far have gathered all my cool packs and stuffed them in and have filled some large lock n lock boxes almost full with water, keeping them in the fridge for now, to give the freezer a chance to freeze. The larger the water volume in a box the better. It is going to take about 24 hours to get 2 drawer equivalents frozen solid

You can tell can`t you? I seriously think this is going to be major until part way through march. The supermarkets are not going to be able to replenish stock and oh yes vegetables were in short supply because everything was caught by the cold, even carrots turned to mush

[Deleted User]

also isolate outside taps, drain and lag. Any burst will be expensive and cause damage

I am going up to drain my allotment water butt in a mo

silverwhistle

Funnily enough I've just bought myself a mug this morning in a cheapy shop (and am currently drinking from it..) emblazoned with 'let it snow..'.

My January holiday to the Alps included a night walk under the moonlight at Cervinia on the Italian side of the Matterhorn where they had 9 metres of snow between the 1st December and the beginning of Feb! At one stage we were walking to the mountain restaurant along a road cut through the snow, the sides coming up to our heads on each side.

I've got snow tyres on but the difficult driving bit was two weeks ago when we found ourselves driving back across northern France on local D roads to get to the motorway. Snowing, roads covered in snow and on the big open expanses it was difficult to see where the edges of the road where, so we just headed down the middle. When we eventually got to the motorway there was only single a lane open, but at least it was going faster than 30mph..

Snow doesn't scare me. I do respect it though..