prepping

As I write this, I have finished battening down the hatches, and got everything as ready as possible for Hurricane Helene. But as I was doing all of this, I realized that many people, and many new homesteaders, don’t know what to do in case of storms. While it’s a day late, and a dollar short, keep this information in your back pocket so that you can prepare for storms that will come your way.

How To Prepare For Storms

First and foremost, a storm does not need to be a cat 5 hurricane. It could be any inclement weather event. In this blog post, I’m going to show you how we get prepared for storms as well as general rules to follow in the event of storms coming in.

Now, this is going to be homestead friendly, but if you don’t have livestock, that’s okay. Just input your animal there.

Preparing Food For Storms

The number one thing that I see people struggling with when it comes to storms is food. Why on Earth do we need to stock up on milk and bread? As a mom of two boys? I get the beer part. But I’ve lived in the south pretty much my entire life and I have never had a milk sandwich. Can anyone explain this?

All joking aside, I do grab a gallon of milk if my girls aren’t in milk and a couple loaves of bread for sandwiches. I just don’t understand why the shelves are cleared of these things.

While food supplies will look different for everyone, one of the big things I let go of is the healthiness of the foods. The reality is that this is a stressful time for everyone. You are stressed to the max because the power is out. The dogs are driving you crazy and the kids are fighting like they are trying out for UFC. It’s okay to have a box of fruit snacks to lessen the tension. Plus, it’s a treat.

When it comes to storm supplies, there are some food things that you should have on hand no matter the situation. Things like canned, dehydrated and freeze dried goods. Personally, I keep at least two weeks worth of food on hand at all times anyways.

Our storm food supplies generally look like various soups. It’s quick, easy and filling. Plus, I can throw it on the camp stove and let it simmer away for eating throughout the day. It’s also a great way to use up any veggies that go bad because the fridge is out.

Preparing Water For Storms

If I know that I have a storm coming, I will buy two cases of water per person, per day of expected power outage. For example, we are a family of four and we are expected to have 2 days of storms. That means that I need to have a minimum of 8 cases of water. But I also make sure to have plenty of water for our animals ready.

Now, when it’s a rain storm, I don’t worry about water for livestock as much. Their water containers will fill with rain water. But I make sure to have a couple 5 gallon jugs for the dogs.

Another thing to consider when you have storms coming is how you’re going to flush your toilets. People forget that when they lose power, they lose water!

Make sure that you have a way to clean yourself, kids, animals, and cook. Brushing your teeth, washing your face and hands, are all things that people don’t really think about when they lose power or running water.

Pro tip, when you are canning throughout the year, go ahead and fill those empty spots in your canner with jars filled with water. This will give you sterile water for wound cleansing, hand or dish washing, or drinking water.

Handling Power Outages

I wrote a whole blog post about power outages here, but I want to touch on it again because people are always so shocked. The biggest take away is to have banks to charge devices. I use these and love them. The next step, stay off your devices unless you absolutely have to! I know that it keeps the kids happy and you sane, but when it’s day 3 without power, you will thank me.

Another thing to remember, as I stated above, when you lose power, you will have no access to running water. Unless you have a generator. So be mindful about how you are going to flush your toilets, brush your teeth, etc. Always make sure you have more water than you think you need.

Also, don’t open your fridge or freezers! One of the things we do is grab out whatever meat we need for the expected outage, and put it in the fridge or the top part of the freezer. We don’t want to open those fridges and freezers unless we have no choice.

If you have freezers for your meat, I highly suggest getting some of these thermometers. Make sure to get the ones that have a gauge that goes in the fridge/ freezer so that you aren’t having to open the door to check the temp. These are a great, cheap way to keep an eye on your foods to make sure they won’t go bad.

Lastly, in preparing for the storm, get those freezers filled to capacity. The more dead space in your freezer, the quicker they will start to defrost. One of the things that has saved us in past storms/ power outages, was having fully stocked freezers.

Special Concerns For Livestock

One of the things that I try to do is make sure that there is fresh, fluffy bedding for the goats and chickens. If those animals go outside in the rain, they are wet. They need to dry off quickly. Their bedding will get them dry pretty quickly as well as soak up water that comes in from the ground.

Another big consideration is to get their feed up off the ground. If you even have a potential for flooding, you need to get that feed up off the ground. We have our feed on pallets and that really reduces the chances of bags getting wet.

Lastly, check your medicine stock. The last thing we want is to have a goat go down and you have no medicine for them. I usually check my meds every quarter and replace as needed. But when I have a storm approaching, I check again. Better to be safe than sorry.

Not Prepared For Hurricane Helene

I’m pretty lucky that I don’t usually have to go crazy to prepare for a storm. Usually, it’s just checking what I have against what I need. However, Hurricane Helene snuck up on me. I literally found out that this storm was going to be a doozy yesterday (Wednesday 9/25/24). The storm hit us Friday morning around 4 am. So I had to scramble to get a couple cases of water and snacks from the grocery store.

Normally, I don’t have to do that. I have several gallons of water at the ready, IBC’s that we can use for flushing toilets and food stocked in the fridge, basement and freezers…. Except I was not paying the slightest bit of attention to this storm.

When I got home from work this morning, I stowed away all our lawn chairs, double checked the motorcycles, covered the 4wheeler, made sure the chainsaws were ready, and checked our propane and fuel levels. Then I checked the animals, batteries, candles, and then took a nap.

The only reason I am able to completely space on these storms and not panic is because we do the prep work throughout the year.

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