Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:33:22 -0400
From: K8RI on TT <k8ri-on-towertalk@tm.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] antenna location for hurricane
On 8/26/2011 11:12 AM, Mike Baker wrote:
> You might want to make sure your car is full of gas and you have enough fuel
> for the generator for at least a week of steady running.
By all means have every tank *full*. IF this storm turns out to be as
predicted you might have a week or more without power, or the option of
getting more gas. The same for water and food.
## I'd buy a 1/2 doz 5 gallon gas container's, [if they have any left], and
fill
em all up with premium gas. A few drops of chlorine bleach will kill any
bacteria
in large water containers, like 55 gal drums. I had the course yrs ago on all
this, since
I was a part of the EOC at the local telco. I forget how much bleach per 10
gals of water
was required, but it was a tiny amount. You couldn't taste it at all, and it
was safe to drink,
without having to boil it. You have to be careful where you store all this
stuff too, esp gasoline.
## My old boss's boss..decided to go cheap and save money, and not supply us
with 2 x doz small
gen sets. A lot of these tiny sites have no gen set on site, and one must be
brought in, and plugged in.
That year, we had the worst ice and snow storm on record. The new boss bought
a home abt 18 miles out
of town, in the bush, by the lake, on acreage. He had NO electric power for
12 x days. He also had 4 x 120'
huge fir tree's laying across his really long drive way. He was stuck in
there for days. Of course all
the phones,internet/cell sites/TV went dead within 6-9 hrs..on que. At the
next meeting, he has a blank cheque
and an unlimited load of $$$ and finally listens to us more experienced techs,
as to what will happen during
severe WX events.
Propane powered barbecue might be your only means of cooking or
heating/sterilizing water for a while too.
### see above, easy to sterilize water, without having to waste propane.
>
> Ok, so maybe I am a belt and suspenders kind of guy when it comes to dealing
> with Mother Nature.
Same up here in snow country. Ice and snow can leave you without power
for a week or more. City water and gas can fail as well. Hurricanes can
destroy the infrastructure over a wide area leaving a huge population
without the basic necessities such as water, power, and telephones.
## The one thing that never fails is our underground natural gas. It baffles me
why they don't just put all of it below ground, like the germans do, then 99% of
your problems will vanish. Vancouver island got natural gas back in 1991-92.
They
tear up every street in town. While they were at it, they coulda put the AC
power
telephone, cable tv/ and anything else below grnd. I see this crap all the
time.
Re-pave asphalt on an old street, looks perfecto, then 18 months later, rip up
the same
street to lay down a new sewer line. The patch job on the asphalt is less than
good, and
back to square one.
## Most of the infrastructure here in town is 100 years old. They replace 1%
of it each year.
NOTE: Cell service is usually the first to fail.
That's when you really learn to appreciate the basics and the old
underground land lines.
### most new telco switching is "switch in a ditch" these days...
with fiber optic to within 1000' of the home, then copper to the house.
Part 2, they continue the fiber to each home, and the home owner has his own
UPS supply, to run the phone/internet/TV etc. Verizon has gone to part 2 in
a lot of places. In part 2, they use a passive prism to split one strand of
fiber into
32 x strands, one per home, and 3 per business. No more -52 vdc going out
into the
field on copper wires. Now how long do you think the UPS will last in each
home ?
In part one, with the box down the street from you, NONE of em have a back up
gen.
They all have a mess of batteries in em, good for 6-12 hrs, that's it. They all
have provisions
to plug a gen set into the side of it. When that hurricane hit Florida years
ago, they had 121
main central offices running on the big diesel gen sets, and > 10,000 small
sites with zero power.
## telco's don't have enough small, portable gen sets for major wx events.
Even if you do, and
you chain and padlock em to steel anchors embedded in concrete, they will
still get stolen. A buddy
at work had 3 x gen sets going one winter storm, after he got the 3rd one
running, he heads 12 x miles back
to the 1st one..and it was gone! Some bozo with something a helluva lot
better than the biggest bolt cutters
had stolen it, since he needed it for himself, [ or his gro-op] etc.
Unless ur standing there, they will vanish
every time. After we had 8 of em stolen, we said piss on it, and lets the
sites go dead. The final straw
was the night the 12 kw one got stolen out of the back of the truck, it takes
several guys to lift the bigger ones.
Some twit had come in the middle of the night, and used a hiab to actually
lift the gen set over the 9' tall
chain link fence [which had razor wire on top of that].
## I think it's the Mormons that always have a 1 year supply of food on hand
at all times. They also have
the required firepower to make sure the neighbours don't steal it .
Be well prepared! as they say, PLAN for the worst and hope for the best.
My thoughts for the New England states including NY and Washington DC
are that the average person will likely ignore the potential until it
becomes a problem which is too late to do anything about it. Then those
people will become problems for those who are prepared.
### No sweat. I'm sure Obama has it all figured out. Now, is the head of
Fema gonna be around in 6 months from now ?
later... Jim VE7RF
73 & Good Luck
Roger (K8RI)
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