[Canadian]

Here's the news on my city. I live in the far north end so I'm not in the blackout area.

Toronto's west end without power

It's freaking cold in the City of Toronto, and if you live in a big chunk of the city's west end you may not have power until the afternoon, or maybe the evening. Our Posted Toronto crew is all over this story, and will be updating the story throughout the day.

Blair Peberdy, of Toronto Hydro, said it was rare breakdown.

"It is probably one of the most serious things we could run into," he told reporters, because it involved water which must be dried out. He said the outage in the densely populated area involved up to 25,000 homes and businesses and would have affected 100,000 people.

This morning my wife said we should complete our survival shopping soon including the "-30 sleeping bags. We should get those first."

 

[The_Blob]

@ 4am(EST) the temp here was -15F

we haven't had any power disruption, but I have my genny at the ready with about 1 week of fuel (more if we siphon vehicles) just in case.

food & water running out aren't an issue for months, & I'm pretty certain our fuel supply will be enough... really don't wanna find out the hard way tho

wasn't ice storm-related power disruption predicted for 2009?

 

[mona]

Here in Oregon, we have some mild winters. Nothing like the midwest or east coast. But because this past winter was so bad for so many, my husband went out and bought a big buddy (propane heater) and plans on buying 2 more propane tanks (5 in all).

He's not into the prepping like I am, but he sure has been adding a lot of his items to the stored goods. Ha! Ha!

 

[Canadian]

We got one of the sleeping bags. They had my wife's size but not mine. We opted for -20 C bags since we're going to be indoors and have a least a mild heat source to keep the house warmer than the outside world.

 

[northernontario]

Over the Christmas Holidays, I was down in Southern Ontario at my father's farm. Power went out on Sunday morning... didn't come back on till early Wednesday morning. Fireplace got fired up on the Monday afternoon after the temps in the house started to hit 10C. Luckly it wasn't bitterly cold outside. This was the first time the fireplace had been used in 10+ years. The wood stored was nice and dry!

Food got put into coolers (for easy handling) and put out in the garage or on the back deck to keep cool/frozen.

My small generator finally got used for the first time since I got it two years ago... ran a small heater in one bedroom to make it extra warm for my wife & 3month old son, and had enough juice to run the fridge.

The worst part... the outage was somewhat 'localized'... 10 houses on a backroad. We could drive down the road and see the chunk of tree hanging on the lines that caused the breaker at the end of the road to blow. But of course, couldn't get through to Hydro on Sunday.

Neighbours down the road broke through the bit of ice on a stream running through a culvert, and took buckets of water for flushing toilets. Heck, even I hadn't thought of that one... forgot it was there!

Yep... we were somewhat unprepared... only one spare cylinder for our propane lantern. My camping stove was back home in storage. Limited supply of candles.

Just one more reason why, when I buy my house, it will be fitted with a wood burning fireplace! And passive solar heating for daytime heat.

When I heard about the outage in Toronto in January... I couldn't believe how unprepared and generally upset people were. You know what... **** happens. We've come to expect that power will ALWAYS be on. And that services will ALWAYS be available. Within a week of that outage, people were holding meetings wanting to know why it happened and what was being done to prevent it happening in the future.

A month later... another outage for a couple hours in the same general area.

An ounce of preperation...

After running short on candles, and picking up some Beeswax candles from a local store... I took up the craft of making Beeswax candles. Votives, hand-dipped tapers, tealights... now I've got a nice little supply, and plan to build some custom molds to start producing larger volumes... Hope to sell them locally and on here!

 

[Canadian]

I'm pretty much fully prepped for all situations at this point. We still need to buy a few things. Gas masks, body armor, Guns - my PAL is in progress, more food, a paramedic bag, two more safes, a few smaller odds and ends.

The one thing I can't really prepare for is cold. I can't run a generator because I have no room for it - plus I'm so close to my neighbors I'd have to keep an eye on it all the time if I set it up outside the front door. I can't install a fireplace in my town home because of the units upstairs.

So I'm looking to get an alcohol powered portable fireplace.

Environmentally Friendly Flueless Ethanol Fireplaces - EcoSmart Fire

Should fit in with the decor of my town home and keep us warm if the power goes out.

 

[NaeKid]

We got one of the sleeping bags. They had my wife's size but not mine. We opted for -20 C bags since we're going to be indoors and have a least a mild heat source to keep the house warmer than the outside world.

My little lady and I bought matching mummy-bags rated for -30°C. These bags are designed for winter hiking / tenting / mountain-climbing - so they pack down to a very small size for travelling.

What we do is open them up - zipper the sides together and then climb into the bags. Shared body-heat works very well - and - if things are extra cold (we winter-camp as well) then we have a couple of spare blankets and we pull on our balaclava's ..

We got our sleeping bags from "Campers Village" which is an Albertan company.

 

[northernontario]

My little lady and I bought matching mummy-bags rated for -30°C. These bags are designed for winter hiking / tenting / mountain-climbing - so they pack down to a very small size for travelling.

What we do is open them up - zipper the sides together and then climb into the bags.

Hmm... I've done this with regular sleeping bags, but typically mummy-type bags have a strange profile to them, or don't zip down all the way. You're lucky to have found a good set that allow this.

 

[Canadian]

Most of the MEC bags zip together. Do you find the -30 bags are too warm at mild temperatures? That's why we went with the -20 for a little added comfort if we can keep the temperature up in the house.