Accidental Preparedness

I live on Whidbey Island in western Washington State. It's a quaint and pretty place, and I believe the largest island in the coastal waters of the continental US.

When looking at houses back in late 2001 my wife and I were pleasantly surprised to find the one we wanted had a 10kw propane generator (4 cyl) attached to the house. It’s in a small, insulated shed with it’s own exhaust pipe and vent for the radiator. It’s a small industrial model. I was told by one of the guys who services it that the City of Tacoma (WA) has the identical generator and relay panel as a backup for their water treatment plant. He also said they go for about $12000 installed.

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Apparently the elderly previous owners had some medical equipment that needed power 24/7. Out here on Whidbey Island wind storms can take out power for a day or two at a time. So the large propane tank (I think it’s 120 gallon, not sure) will last for weeks at constant usage. So if things really went to hell, we could save it and turn it on only for a short time every couple days as needed, probably last for months.

During the past 7 years, we've had to rely on the generator several times. In one instance, for almost a week. We did have to turn it off a couple times to let it cool down (after about 12 hours of solid use), but we were definitely glad to have it!

Since we live on an island we have to think about being cut off from the mainland in the event of a large natural disaster. There is one bridge off the island, the Deception Pass bridge, and two ferries. Washington State has had some pretty severe ferry maintenance problems in recent years, as a result only one of the two ferries off the island accepts vehicle traffic without a reservation. Even on normal workdays the wait can be a couple hours. If the bridge were destroyed or damaged and out of service for any length of time, the ferries would really be overwhelmed. I suspect private boat owners would start ferrying pedestrians to the mainland and back as needed. And I'm sure there would be those who would become opportunists.

There is another factor here, though, the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. I wonder if the Navy would start an airlift program to keep supplies coming to the island, for both military and civilian. I guess it would depend on the scope of the disaster.

While we haven't yet created our disaster kits (I was reminded about this from a post on the Chiefio's blog), we have given it serious thought. We already have a couple crank-powered flashlights, camping gear from our various outings, bicycles for local transportation, guns (2 pistols, 2 shotguns), and of course the generator. But we really need to make some food and water kits, which we will need to keep updated regularly (this is probably our biggest problem, procrastination)

Anyone else out there already have a preparedness/survival kit?