Being Prepared Was Everything That Winter

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Living in the South your entire life you learn to adapt to the climate around you. I was born and raised in Charleston South Carolina and spent many of my years there and the rest of them in Florida before moving to Tennessee. In my late twenties, I ended up moving to Wisconsin. This is my first time being up north. My first winter in Wisconsin taught me many things, and that was to get myself ready for the next one. The phrase up north to get your nuts ready for winter is just that. Be prepared. A power outage when it is 20 degrees below can be life-threatening. Have small propane heaters for backup. They come in handy. The power went out on us one winter when the temperature was -30 degrees with the wind chill. It stayed like this for three days.

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During this three days if it had not been for having back up supplies and emergency supplies on hand it would have been very bad and could have potentially been extremely dangerous. Vehicles froze, and you cannot go to the store like you normally would. When the power goes out, rooms that do not have heat anything that is in them will start to freeze eventually. My family and I huddled in one of our rooms together and covered up all of the doorways and windows. Running the propane heater and keeping our water supply in the room with us so that it did not freeze we were able to ride out the harsh weather until the power lines were fixed and power came back on. Having non-perishable canned food, a Sterno stove, as well as emergency propane heaters really paid off. Had this situation happened one year before we would not have been prepared for it. Being prepared for the situation truly is key when the time calls for your emergency survival skills to kick in.

 

Some propane heaters say not to use inside. Here's a link that talks about that: http://www.air-n-water.com/propane-heater-safety.htm

 

In 2014, a retired Sheriff Deputy friend of mine died of carbon monoxide poisoning using a propane Coleman lantern within his campershell while camping.