Be Prepared

Winter in northern Indiana always makes me check in on our preparedness. D&C 38:30 teaches us that if we prepare we don't have to be afraid. This week it has been much colder than its been so far this winter and that got me reflecting back on when it was REALLY cold.

Here is a post that I wrote two years ago:

We knew the polar vortex was coming. We knew with a week to spare. Have you ever thought about how fortunate we are to have those warnings? What would have killed hundreds or thousands now thankfully only takes the lives of a dozen or two at most.

Warnings offer us the chance to prepare and in this case we went through the usual bread, milk, toilet paper check but added in our back up heating plan just in case.

When the true cold hit we grimaced and shook our heads from the warmth of our home and even ventured out for brief seconds to fully experience what this once in a generation cold feels like. -50 windchills are nothing to scoff at after all.

Then my 16 year old came in and said that the thermostat just stated that there was a power failure from the furnace. Because of course the day that we hit record temps of -20 degrees is the day that the furnace fails. That goes without saying. Although it actually happened for a logical reason explained by a tech who made a house call. (I didn’t even ask what that is going to cost. I just said please send the bill. That will be a crisis for another day!)

It turns out it was so cold that just like the boiling water we threw that turned to instant snow the exhaust from the furnace was turning into snow and being sucked into the intake. Which caused it to ice over and over tax the 21 year old system which was limping on its last leg anyway. The added stress caused the heat exhaust to bend and then crack and rivets to then break loose and thus the system failed.

We have a wonderful thermostat that measures our indoor temperature and we began to put backup measures in place even as we watched the temperature begin to fall. I was primarily worried about our kids staying warm. George wanted to protect the house. We are a good team offering balanced perspective and oversight.

He turned on the gas fireplace (some method of backup heat had been on our musthave list when house hunting years ago) and lamented that it doesn’t have a blower fan so is only fractionally as beneficial as it could be. He put our pitifully small fan in front of it and hoped for the best asking me to add replacing the fireplace to our home improvement plan.

He set up our kerosene heater purchased a decade ago and routinely checked but never needed until now. That’s what emergency preparation is all about after all. It’s for the just in case moments just like this. The sight of it set off all kinds of alarm bells for me- fire, carbon monoxide, etc. That’s my self-proclaimed job in our family- safety monitor (he might say I go a bit above and beyond). Anyway in my research I quickly discovered a bit of a problem. Safe usage requires a fresh supply of oxygen which means a door or window cracked at least 1”.

First of all most of our windows and the sliding glass door were encased in ice and not opening. Second of all we weren’t sure the heater would produce more heat than the bitter cold the fresh air would let in. We finally decided to run it in our largest spaced area intermittently (never while we were sleeping) and turned on two carbon monoxide detectors with fresh batteries which we already had ready and waiting.

He made a run to the store to purchase one new infrared heater and I was grateful for the two new electric blankets we had purchased for Christmas gifts. I made a big pot of soup and the kitchen temperature went up a few degrees. Boiling pots of water does the same. All the sink cupboards were opened to protect the pipes and a rotating system of heating areas to a tolerable 60 degrees was established.

We hung blankets and comforters on windows as added insulation (which mortified our girls who made sure the lights were off so neighbors wouldn’t see the ugly checked comforter glowing through our front windows . Obviously they weren’t cold enough yet!) We bundled up and George turned on The Day After Tomorrow to show the girls it really wasn’t so bad. We talked about how fortunate we were to have the resources and knowledge we do. We felt secure knowing we had so many friends offering homes as backup plans should we need to temporarily abandon our own.

I was grateful we had taken action to be prepared and so even if a bit frustrated we weren’t overwhelmed and knew what to do.

So much peace of mind comes from being amply prepared and making adjustments from this time will mean even better preparation next time.

As we went to bed last night I had some simple thoughts of gratitude. My kids were safe if not as comfortable as they would like tucked into bed with multiple layers of blankets. We had the knowledge and basic resources to respond on multiple levels. And sometimes it takes a failed furnace to remind us how fortunate we are to have plenty of blankets.