How long have you been without power in Oklahoma?

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p238shooter

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Mind sharing the checklist, or is this the whole list?

I had not seen this post in a while, sorry for the delay. My list is pretty basic.

Always have spare batteries for flashlights. Have some type of room area light. Keep bottled water handy.

Gas cans and funnels. (large funnel to fill while running and preventing spillover) During the winter I keep my best spark suppressed whiz o can in the garage close to the generator for quick access, others filled with stabil in the metal building to get to later. (I slowly pour them in the cars in the spring, and start fresh for mowing and the boat.)
String cords to appropriate areas of the house for box heaters.
Elevate the plugins over a chair or table, they will generate a lot of heat over time, give them some airflow and keep them off combustibles. (Carpet, etc)
String one "mobile" cord with a power tap for lamp, cell phone charger, coffee pot, hotplate, use on the refrigerator and freezer four hours each during the day, etc.
Seal the cracks where cords enter with blue painters tape, use plastic if needed. (I strung mine under the garage door then into the entry door of the house, so it isolated the cold a little.
Locate a timer for gas fill on the generator. You will have to test a while to know how long your tank will run.
Chain your generator if you might be gone to work or elsewhere, might slow someone down.
CK that the fireplace vents are closed.
Place towels over floor vents. (I have a crawl space and vents are on the floor)
Blue tape any door cracks you might not be using, mine leak a little.
Wrap outside faucets with towels. My crawl space is heated with some HVAC leakage normally, wind will suck the heat further back on the faucet with no heat underneath the house and might freeze. Double ck outside vents are closed if you have them.
Unplug your house alarm battery so it will not call out as it dies.
Unplug electronics for power surges when the power comes back on.
Switch heat pumps to emergency heat only to protect compressors when electric comes back on intermittently.
We closed off the smallest bedroom for sleeping with a heater in it.
Get all this ready, and take what might be your last hot shower for a while if you have an electric water heater.
Think about what might freeze in your garage that normally is OK, but now you have a little crack under the door, and less heat from the interior walls.
Our water plant was down also, so I melted ice in a 5 gal bucket with the generator exhaust for flushing the toilets, just pour it in, does the same function. I took my chain saw with me when I made trips to fill the gas cans. Had to use it once to clear the road where I live. Tree limbs were still coming down for a few days.

I am sure others have additional items and tips. These are just my starting points. Hope we do not have to use them often.
 

willnotgoquietly

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No power for 5 days after ice storm. Was not any fun. We ended up having to stay with a relative. Have had a small generator and started prepping ever since then.

Some people seem to think they need a huge generator, but the gas furnace only uses about 600 watts. A few candles go a long way to light up the house and as long as we don't freeze and have light we get by OK.
 

scubaokie

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12 days after the May 3rd Tornado in 1999. We were the only one with a generator up and running the first night other than the hospital. There were homes in our area that went for nearly a month without having reliable service restored. Even when our service came on after nearly two weeks we had everything unplugged due to the constant power surges.
 

IronMan

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12 days in 07. 5 of those 12 were without water also. Now have a gen+100gal of fuel and 200gal of water. Also have food for 4 for 30 days and propane stove to cook on.
 

JKinds

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The longest we were without power was back in 1999 when the massive May 3rd tornado took out our entire town.. I beleive it was almost 6 weeks before power was back on from CREC, we wired our Generator into the box, so we could keep the fridge and deep freeze up tho, kinda cheated!!
 

JMP308

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94.5 hours during the ice storm, and many 2 hr to 8 hr outages ,first thing I did when the house was built is put in a backup diesel gen-set , and the associated switch gear for the house , shops ect,great investment,as I can run everything including air conditioners ,air compressors,ect ect. remember to get A big enough one to start air conditioning compressors, as they draw double to triple the running load to start, also diesel fuel can last for 10 years +
 

yukonjack

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12 days in 07. 5 of those 12 were without water also. Now have a gen+100gal of fuel and 200gal of water. Also have food for 4 for 30 days and propane stove to cook on.

What are you gonna do about poop if your water service is shut off? 5 gallon buckets and bags? What's the plan?
 

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