From the Charlotte Observer..

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Supplies put away for Y2K find use Generators, canned goods bring relief

By DIANE SUCHETKA You laughed at them when they stocked up for the Y2K disaster.

You made fun of their millennium cupboards full of food, ridiculed their gallons of water, howled when they lugged generators home.

But guess who's laughing last?

All those families who were ready for the end-of-the-millennium catastrophe that never happened, put their feet up this week when the worst winter storm in years knocked out power and most of us for a loop.

While your car crawled along icy roads to get to the store for bread and milk and you rummaged through kitchen drawers for a flashlight with batteries that worked and cursed the power failure, all those people who prepared for New Year's trouble relaxed and opened up another can of stockpiled soup.

"We could enjoy the whole thing and not worry," said Bonnie Wallace, 33, who lost power for eight hours Sunday.

"We didn't have to worry, `Do we have candles? Do we have batteries? How are we going to cook? How are we going to stay warm?' It was very comforting to know that we had all those things in place," said Wallace who lives in York, S.C., with her husband and four children.

"We knew we didn't have to go to a relatives' house, we didn't have to pack the children up, we didn't have to get out on the roads with them."

Instead, she said, they just enjoyed the weather.

They cooked hotdogs and hot chocolate on their outdoor grill.

They roasted marshmallows over the fireplace.

They lobbed snowballs at each other and built snowmen and took long walks together as the feathery flakes drifted down.

"They kind of laughed at us when nothing happened," said Loretta Tuttle, 39, who lives on the southern edge of Mecklenburg County and had prepared for Y2K.

When their electricity went out this week, Tuttle and her husband, Perry, lighted their emergency candles, then dragged out sleeping bags, a camp stove and their new generator.

They were ready to keep life going as usual for their five children just as their power returned.

"You're relieved when you're prepared and you're not in a panic state," Loretta Tuttle said.

"Now my first thought is, "Who can I help?'"

"I think that's one of the things the whole Y2K scare brought out - the humanity in all of us."

-- Roland (nottelling@nohwere.com), January 26, 2000

Answers

Roland, This made my day. THANK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!

-- Charli (claypool@belatlantic.net), January 26, 2000.

:-)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 26, 2000.

Thanks Roland: We just had our first power outage of any duration, here in Southcentral Alaska. We've been getting a damp snow for the last couple of days and I guess a line or two gave out. Was easy to switch our heater over to the inverter and grab the coffee pot to put on the stove. Didnt want to fire up the generator just to use our coffee grinder, so opened a can of Yuban from our stash. Guess we've become coffee snobs and hav'nt drank canned coffee in years. Have to gind up some more beans to keep as a back up......

-- Capt Dennis (capden@hotmail.com), January 26, 2000.

Super Roland. Although we have had record high temp all winter we are possibly going to have freezing precep tonight. This means there will be a very good possibility that we will be without electricity out here in the boonies maybe even iced in. As we frequently lose electricity, when the wind blows our squirrel trees into the electric lines and transformers we have always kept our aux heaters ready and kero lamps are permanant decor. BUT..... This year we will be able to have hot showers with our niffty portable, heatable shower tanks, heated over our new kero cook stove (takes 10 minutes to heat 3 gallons to 110 F), using our abundance of clean water, while using another burner to heat our MRE's and canned meals(or dehydrated foods if it last long enough), crack open the MRE breads or even bake bread in the niffy oven that fits on top of the kero cook stove, bread made from our hand milled wheat, slathered with butter stored in 12V DC cooler, have plenty of food for our herd of giant canines, munch on fresh cheddar stored in our 12 volt fridge, snack on jello with canned fruit made in same cooler, watch TV powered by our small solar/wind system, reach the outside world on my Notebook (doesn't take much to power it), powered by same, drive out, if needed, in our Y2Kmobile, 84 diesel Mercedes, powered by our stored diesel and have a great ol time relaxing with a crackling fire and all the herd snoring away at our feet. Hoping we'll even get a few "ice days" off so we can really enjoy our COMFORTS not needing to go anywhere. If my temporaray crown (tooth) happens to come off and I swallow it (like once before) we'll just break out the emergency dental kit and fix it right up. I'm leaving the "ranch" today, for first time in two weeks, just to stock up on some spirits and check out fuel prices because I'm curious. be well all PS.. forgot to metion the wonderful coffee made from our nice supply of green coffee beans. Think I'll pick up some brandy to flavor the coffee.

-- granny-TX (westamyx@bigfoot.com), January 26, 2000.

Real kudos to the paper reporting this! They will encourage people to make a lifestyle of preparedness for natural disasters...which will mean that more people will ride out a disaster with less disruption and less requirement for expensive government emergency intervention.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 26, 2000.

WOW! A paper running a positive article on preps! Incredible.

Thank you, Roland, for finding this gem.

-- Powder (Powder47keg@aol.com), January 26, 2000.

"But guess who's laughing last? "

Thanks Roland!

BWAAHAHAHAHAH!!!

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 26, 2000.

I was out in the cold sunshine this afternoon, knocking heavy snow off some of the evergreen shrubs and clearing a bit of ground to dig up for the hungry robins--quite a pleasant intermission. I had lots of time to enjoy the multi-colored jewel flashes as sun rays refracted off snow crystals in the trees. Younger people from another part of the neighborhood were walking like penguins in the thick icy ruts, returning half an hour later with three or four Kroger grocery bags, milk and bread especially in evidence. The large number of retired people on my street didn't have to go anywhere--they have supplies as a matter of routine. With our "It's not just Y2K" stash, we won't have to go anywhere for as long as it takes for this snow to clear.

The temperature tonight is forecast to be around 11 degrees. Tomorrow's high, like today, will be around 33. And there's a good possibility of another snow event on Saturday. Sweetie is almost out of beer but has a wide variety of wine in the back closet if we can't make it to the store safely before then. . .

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), January 26, 2000.

Glad to hear you're weathering the storm, OG. Been thinking of you up in Durham. "Only" got 12 inches down here in SE Charlotte, enough to close schools for 3 days, though. Power outages are the main problem. My sister in Richmond (who refused to prepare) got 18 inches...she's out of most staples and has 2 small children. She's hoping to venture out tomorrow.

It's ironic that our paper did everything in their power to discourage preparations and then ran an article like this one. It was rather satisfying to read it, though. Y2K has taught me many things, but the most important one was to open my eyes to my minute- to-minute lifestyle. I will never be without the ability to provide for my family independent of outside intervention again.

Blessings to all of you.

Your occasional lurker & constant friend,

Roland

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), January 26, 2000.

i am glad all your preps came in handy, i guess we knew that they would in spite of the polly trolls.

i had my 12 yr old daughter down to the garage and had her hook up the generator last night, fired it up and put the house on gen. power for about 20 minutes. she did just fine, even hooked up the green ground cable ok. amazing how young people learn so quick.

the grandparents will be staying with the kids while i am out of town, last time the power went out in june 6 hrs, no one knew how to hook up the generator and i was gone. no problem now.

lots of food in the house thanks to the preps. dont feel bad about leaving now.

i guess all the "doomers" in georgia and the carolinas wont be the butt of so many jokes now, especially since the pollys will have frostbite.

al

-- al (alco@pathway.net), January 26, 2000.

Doan'cha luv it!

*Grin*

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 26, 2000.