Nor Cal atmospheric river


 
AppleTV+ 5 Days at Memorial

Being so close to the state capitol, and in an affluent area, you wouldn't think disaster relief would be delayed, but always better to be prepared. In the south (of California), it's all about earthquake preparedness.

If TVWBB goes dark, are you prepared?
 
Steve Hoch said:
That's a good thing, right? California needs that water. I'm sure you're not in any danger of being flooded out, are you?
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that depends. with the ground saturated, mudslides and hills collapsing are an issue. and then there's road floodings and now possible power outages. reports are calling this new storm (today/tonight) similar to a Cat 3 hurricane for water amounts. sustained winds are 30-50 mph with gusts up to 70 mph forecast.
 
Ed P said:
AppleTV+ 5 Days at Memorial

Being so close to the state capitol, and in an affluent area, you wouldn't think disaster relief would be delayed, but always better to be prepared. In the south (of California), it's all about earthquake preparedness.

If TVWBB goes dark, are you prepared?
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yeah. i have 70# JD coming today. and I have a freezer of meats and fish to enjoy. one more reason i don't own a pellet pooper; no electricity required for coal cooking. and i have smokewood that'll last me for months. if anyone comes over for food, bring your frozen meats and i'll cook them off.
 
Brett-EDH said:
yeah. i have 70# JD coming today. and I have a freezer of meats and fish to enjoy. one more reason i don't own a pellet pooper; no electricity required for coal cooking. and i have smokewood that'll last me for months. if anyone comes over for food, bring your frozen meats and i'll cook them off.
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If the power goes out for an extended period of time, it would behoove you not to open the freezer unnecessarily. You could rearrange your stock and bring some of the frozen stuff into the freezer section of the fridge in the house. We ended up with a boatload of freezer packs that I keep in the bottom of our freezer...if wouldn't hurt to freeze some large blocks of ice to have as drinking water and to keep the cold stuff from spoiling.
 
Flood isn't a risk for me. I think Brett's on high enough ground he should be OK.

We've had a couple of power outages in the last week or so. Short duration, and the one affecting me was isolated to a few thousand customers according to PGE ( power company) alerts. If it is a larger scale or longer duration outage I have a small generator that will more than power a fridge and a freezer. Given the cooler weather I expect a couple hours once or twice a day will keep the food frozen solid, but we'll see.

I'm moving my higher value food to the chest freezer, and setting the temp down a notch to super cool it.
 
Ed P said:
You didn't mention drinking water, Brett. Hopefully, the water supply won't be impacted, but who knows?
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Someone posted this pic of Folsom lake on another site. The flow from right to left that is muddy brown water is coming from the south fork of the American river, where we get our water. The blue water off to the distance is from the north and middle fork.

The dark brown is trees, branches and other debris floating along with the mud. Normally this is either full of ski boats, or empty when we have no water.


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The excessive rain on new years eve caused high elevation mud slides within the burn scar of the Caldor fire which is east of Sacramento. The mud and silt caused excessively turbid water at the intake reservoirs for our water. There was an emergency conservation alert for two days to allow for emergency maintenance by the water company.
 
Ed P said:
The problem might be that the store shelves are cleared out. Maybe you could fill a bathtub? Also, if you have a hot water heater, that's a ready source of 30 gallons or more.
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Reminds me, my tankless hot water heater needs power. time to move a spare battery and the inverter closer to it. It only needs a little power to run so a 12V car battery will keep it going for a week.
 
Brett-EDH said:
In my 30+ years living in CA, never has the electrical power company (SMUD) called the night before a storm to advise about possible outages and storm readiness.
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Many areas within SMUDs boundaries have above ground electricity and a tree coming down on the power lines can cause a big issue.

I think some of these outages started on new years eve.

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Ed P said:
If the power goes out for an extended period of time, it would behoove you not to open the freezer unnecessarily. You could rearrange your stock and bring some of the frozen stuff into the freezer section of the fridge in the house. We ended up with a boatload of freezer packs that I keep in the bottom of our freezer...if wouldn't hurt to freeze some large blocks of ice to have as drinking water and to keep the cold stuff from spoiling.
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we have two fridge/freezers; garage and inside the kitchen.

our powerlines are below ground so we are less susceptible to outages but not immune. we had flickers in the last storm, a few in a row in series.

all beverages are kept in the garage which is ambient temp, cold. so we have plenty of fluids now as daughter just hit costco for 4 cases of H2O. Costco wasn't limiting water sales. but the gas lines were huge. i just filled up to full JIC.

strategy is to eat the house fridge first and canned foods without having to open any freezers. i am budgeting 2-3 days of no power which would be extraordinary for us from 20+ years in this home and 30+ years in Sacramento/SMUD service area.

backup plan 1 is kitchen freezer. backup plan 2 is garage freezer.

i already have 3 friends that offered for me to cook their meats if they lost power in their single fridge home in excess of 2 days no power. between wood for live cooking, bags of briqs and actual charcoal, we can survive weeks without power for food needs.

for me to run my business, i can drive to any place that has power and work remote via laptop and VoIP phones.

I think we're well prepared here. hopefully overprepared.

winds are already picking up. drove around some tumbleweeds to get costco gas. this will be an interesting 48 hours.

thanks for all your tips. much appreciated.
 
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just also realized that Coscto is in my own town so if their power goes out, i'll just head over to buy their meat on sale. we have cash on hand as well so no need for CC's to charge stuff.
 
Not helpful under current circumstances, but I bought a little 2k watt Honda generator right before our area had power knocked out for days - superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

We have used it many times since- it powers two refrigerators, a sump pump, hot water baseboard heating system and our internet router and tv, as well as charging our devices.

Eu2000i.

Cost around $1k- That little generator starts right up when it’s needed- priceless.
 
I bought a champion inverter generator in 2019 when PGE was having multiple power outages. Not as quiet as the honda 2000i, but still fairly quiet and it is less than half the cost. 2K watt peak, 1700 continuous.

I've taken it to help friends and family when they have had outages, however I've not had an extended outage at my house since I bought it. It ran a standup freezer and side by side fridge for a few hours without any issues. I'm planning to pickup 10 gallons fresh gas later today.


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I have four 5 gallon water jugs that I plan to fill with tap water. I'll add one teaspoon of bleach to stabilize it. The bleach probably isn't necessary, but I do this when I store water that I'm not planning to use within a day or so.
 
About 3 years ago they were predicting a snowmagedden and polar vortex here that they said would knock power out for about 80% of my county (Winnebago IL) and my wife said "maybe we should buy a new generator". So I went up to Madison the next day and bought this https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200888192_200888192 It's an outstanding unit. Extremely quiet, and honestly powerful enough to run nearly my entire house including my fridges and freezer and furnace and water heater. I have multiple outlets I can use to back feed my house. One outside just behind the house, one in the garage and I can even plug into the back garage.
Funny, the weather event blew by us and never showed up. So I have never had to run it except to exercise it
 
Ed P said:
Windshield wipers ok? Mine weren't, noticed one of them had torn while we were out today.
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bought those a month ago. haven't needed to install them, yet. changed my air box filter and interior carbon filter too on the same service.
 
Hang in there California!! We've had some crazy flash flooding here in recent months. My best advice, don't try to drive thru any flood waters. Some folks in Missouri lose cars, or even worse die that way every year...

Anyone remember El Nino?
 
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