We don’t need to tell you. You can already feel the chill in the air. After a long, hot summer it’s time for autumn, which is beautiful… except for the part where it comes before winter, which is cold and harsh.
To be clear, there are a lot of things to love about winter. Snow is lovely to look at, Christmas is just around the corner and there are tons of outdoor activities that you can only do when the temperature drops.
On the other hand, winter is harsh and unforgiving and if you’re at all interested in prepping, homesteading or survivalism, you’re more aware than most just how harsh and unforgiving it can be.
It wasn’t that long ago, but most people have already forgotten the massive winter storm in Texas 2021 that left millions without power for over two weeks. Such events will become increasingly common as America’s creaky power grid struggles under its own weight.
With that in mind, here are a few helpful hints and friendly reminders about how you can prepare for the extreme environment of winter and any emergencies or disasters that might come – be they short-term power blackouts thanks to an ice storm or the end of the world as we know it.
Generator Maintenance For Grid Down Scenarios
Your generator can quickly become the world’s most expensive glorified paperweight if you’re not maintaining it. On smaller generators, the jets can become clogged very quickly and the last thing you want to be doing during an emergency is ripping apart a generator to clean the carburator.
So make sure your generator is in good working order. If it’s running fine, run some fuel injector cleaner through it. Make sure you have a couple cans of gas sitting around in case you need to actually use the thing and give it an oil change while you’re at it.
Rotate Your Prepper Food Stocks
It’s easy to forget that food prep is an ongoing battle. You can’t just buy food once and be prepared for an emergency six years from now. So use the fall time to prepare for winter by looking through your larder and seeing what’s gone bad or is about to. Out of date food isn’t going to do your family any good in an emergency.
Rotate the older food to the front, the soon to be out of date food in your pantry and the out of date food into the trash.
Consider using the slower pace of winter to pick up some long-term food preservation skills. Those can be worth their weight in gold in helping your to stretch your survival food budget.
Get Your Car Ready For Winter Survival
Emergencies don’t strike when you want them to in the most ideal conditions. Few things are going to be more stressful than having to deal with an emergency that strikes when you’re 30 miles from home in a car with no supplies.
So give your car a once over, make sure that it’s in good working order and check your supplies that you carry in your car or truck. Extra blankets and warm clothes, jumper cables, matches, flares, firestarters, backup communications… all of these can mean the difference betwen life and death if you get stuck out in a winter storm that shuts down the highways for 48 hours… or even 12.
Backup Heating Sources For Winter Blackouts
It’s just a simple fact of life: cold kills. So if you’re relying on grid-powered heating to keep you and your family warm this winter, that’s great… until it’s not.
Portable, propane-powered space heaters are safe for indoor use and have come down significantly in price over the years. Even if all you can afford is one small one, it’s going to keep one room of your home nice and toasty when heat isn’t coming out of the walls.
Remember, none of these tips require an apocalyptic, civilization-ending event to be practical. These are just simple, common-sense steps that every family should take to prepare themselves for when normal life starts to break down.
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