Prepping for a 'multi hazard event'

Of course on the boat the prep is mostly done in that you are responsible for your own heat power and water as well as waste, very much off grid living  - which is why it is a bit attractive to me. Having said that is it hard work and I have the upmost respect to those living on the cut. The marina dwellers have the umbilical cord of power and water on the pontoon as well as toilets and showers on site so really not the same hardy boaters as those on the canal.

When we were aboard we saw it first hand with daylight bringing the boaters out to top up water while the various water points were still unfrozen, chopping wood for their stoves bringing coal into their boats for their stoves and getting provisions from the local shops as certainly where we moor the lanes would easily become impassible. That is more to do with the type of farming as it is mostly arable not dairy. The dairy farmers round us do some lane clearing to enable the milk tankers to get to the farms to take away their milk. The other year one skidded off the lane near us but again there is a lot of decent heavy equipment on the farms to extricate the tanker so it wasn't stuck for too long. 

Here at the cottage we are supposed to be in the line of fire for storm Goretti which is reportedly  bringing the multi hazard event. Being boaters and having lived out here for a good few years now we have an understanding of what the impacts might be. We are lucky in that we do not get too many power outages here ( tempting fate) and where they do occur they are usually quite quickly resolved as the transformers that are on our lines are in the local farmers fields.

But having been caught out with the beast from the east which turned out to be the flame detector on the oil boiler unit ( I now have a spare plus others ) where we or rather I didn't have any heat in the cottage for four or five days  - Rachel was on the south coast in the cottage down there. The 8kw stove that is in the middle of the cottage was a god send as it kept me and the whole cottage warm. 

I have since brought the  Ecoflow and extra battery plus I have two generators at the cottage a 2.2kw that still needs a new choke, I have fashioned a repair but I also have the Honda 1kw that is uber reliable. The latter can recharge the Ecoflow in a couple of hours  - the benefits of the Ecofow battery are detailed elsewhere on my blog. I'd not be without one here or on the boat and am looking at adding extra when the time and budget it right. 

So I have both fires in the cottage set to be lit, I have the Ecoflow fully charged and whilst not go a full 5 litre tank of petrol for the genny I have three motorbikes with petrol in their tanks I can syphon off if needed. I've also filled the storm lantern and we have oil lamps and candles as well !

I'm following the line of thinking if I'm very prepared then I'll need non of it....

The smaller 4 kw multi fuel stove that can get the lounge up to 24c white easily 

This is the 8kw stove that is a wood burner and can eat through logs very efficiently but we do have a decent store of those for the remainder of this winter 

 I'll let you know how we get on....