Many of you have posted excellent, practical suggestions on this Forum's various sites. I would like pages and pages, LIMITED TO JUST SUCH SUGGESTIONS, which I can then print out. My city, Tacoma, WA recently won a nation-wide award for the accomplishments of its Neighborhood Community Councils organization. I would like to take your ideas to them, in a couple months, and (hopefully) convince them to prepare, as individual communities, for Y2K. One idea I will suggest is to urge all neighborhood churches to be ready with food banks, etc. People need to know everything from the "nitty-gritty", such as saving plastic bags for human waste, to just how much water to store for each member of a family. Anyone accessing this site could also take print-outs to their local leaders. Of course, there may be some resistance. Invite such to ask their own bank for a printed statement regarding their Y2K compliance; do the same with all their utility companies. I have done so, and none of them are denying, in their written replies, the reality and seriousness of this situation! Y2K "glitches" have already occurred. April 1, '99 Canada, Japan and New York State, and April 6 Great Brittain start their fiscal 2000 year. What happens then may convince everyone currently in denial; why wait, however, to get the ball rolling? Thanks for your (expected) help! Great granny Holly

-- Holly Allen (Holly3325@juno.com), July 18, 1998

Answers

I like your posting more than you could ever know. Some practical ideas: 1. Form community emergency prepardeness groups. A non-governmental organization, with ZERO ties to anyone in the government. By this I do mean the Federal government of course. 2. Use this community group to assign individuals or form task forces to set up or structure the following- a. Food storage cooperatives for the participants b. Protective service analysis, training, then designating individuals for this purpose only c. Setting up a central communications clearing center. This will be a dual purpose center, first to coordinate between members in the group. Remember!!!! Make your plans on three scenarios, partial breakdown, total breakdown, and of course the stone age. The second purpose will be to maintain contact with the outside world as it were. d. Medical attention will be in great decline of higher value. Try to find a doctor or group of doctors sympathetic or understand- ing to your group's goals. Set up a group especially trained in critical care emergencies. I hope this partial list will help for starters. John

-- John Galt (jgaltfla@hotmail.com), July 19, 1998.

I disagree with the three scenarios, John. Preparing for total breakdown naturally includes all lesser possibilities. I also think in a group situation, it lends itself to disagreement and unnecessary debate. The only reason to prepare for less than you can imagine is money. It is far too easy to fall in love with your pet scenario and fail to examine other equally possible aspects and suffer for it.

Go straight to the gutter, if you can handle that, you are prepared. Besides, it will be what we don't see that will get us.

Plan for everything you can imagine, then find someone like-minded with a better imagination.

-- Will Huett (willhuett@usa.net), July 19, 1998.

I was just going to say that potatoes are a great thing to stock up on. Of course you would have to wait till the last minute. It's my impression that people forget how much carbohydrates they eat. Potatoes are filling, nutritious and cheap. People used to have potato cellars in the old days. Maybe you can even grow your own.

-- Amy Leone (aleone@amp.com), July 20, 1998.

And I forgot to say that you can cook them in a fire or on a grill just by wrapping them in foil.

-- Amy Leone (aleone@amp.com), July 20, 1998.

As far as encouraging other people to prepare, I'm starting to de-emphasize Y2K as the main reason -- lots of people just don't want to hear about it or don't understand how far-reaching it could be. Instead, I've started talking about storms and the damage they do. Gary North put up a good article on his web site, written by a family who went through the New England/Canada storm last winter & how they did fairly well since they had a wood stove and a generator. The nasty weather we had here in April is another good example.

Get people thinking about what things would be like after a week without power, and that's most of the battle. If they prepare only for an extended power outage -- well, they may be broke but at least they're alive.

I'm working on a list of ingredients for "care packages" that our church can distribute when needed (storm or Y2K problems). If you can assume that the recipients have some way to heat water, it's fairly easy to select food. I'm shooting for (mostly) canned goods vs. dried, because most are familiar with canned stuff & can eat it cold (i.e. w/o preparation) if necessary. We may have to pick up some propane camp stoves to lend out in some cases.

Non-food items... blankets, puzzles, flashlights + batteries, toothbrushes, books, candles + matches, toilet paper, etc. Some of these things might be better left to individuals to donate as needed.

-- Larry Kollar (lekollar@nyx.net), July 20, 1998.

What about

Making, and helping others to make, solar water distillation units and solar cookers?

These are inexpensive, useful, and potentially lifesaving. Holly, they'd work well for your apartment residents. Larry, they'd be great items for your church "care packages." In both cases, a few evenings spent making these would be good fellowship.

A couple of useful links are:

http://www.solardome.com/SolarDome84.html http://www.accessone.com/~sbcn/

-- Rocky Knolls (rknolls@hotmail.com), July 20, 1998.

Sorry, messed up the cut and paste of the URLs

http://www.solardome.com/SolarDome84.html

http://www.accessone.com/~sbcn/

-- Rocky Knolls (rknolls@hotmail.com), July 20, 1998.

Why wait until the last minute to buy potatoes. There may not be any. Unless you have a root cellar, potatoes go bad quickly. I purchased cans (3 lb. size) of dehydrated mash potatoes (like the kind you get in a box, but these came in sealed type coffee cans) at a grocery store. Make some powdered milk, butter flavoring added to make mashed potatoes. There's many uses for mashed potatoes, like making bread, potato pancakes, friend potato cakes with minced onions, cream of potato soup, etc. When the can's are empty, you can use them to catch rain water in. If you are serious about storing food, canned and dehydrated is the only way to go. I found a source for canned whole chickens. I paid $3.48 for a whole canned chicken! I bought several cases. Start reading cookbooks and get an idea of what types of things to buy, and what will store well. Variety is the key. When you are in a bind and nervous about your situation, do you want to be stuck eating rice, pasta and potatoes every meal with nothing else to go with it? That's not very comforting to the soul or nourshing.

-- Barb-Douglas (bardou@yahoo.com), July 21, 1998.

Potatoes are great, but we also need fruit. I like to keep dried fruit at work to much on. You can get all varieties at the local grocery store and they aren't really expensive. If you'r really energetic, you can dry your own. Remeber, this will hit in January when fresh fruit will not be available to everyone.

-- Marty Dellinger (delsim@hci.net), July 23, 1998.

You are right about the dried fruit. Prunes store better and the shelf life is longer than the dried mixed fruit. I go to Costco and purchase my dried fruit. I purchase canned fruit at discount stores. They keep at least 2 years. I live in a good agricultural area and if I had the time and energy I guess I would make my own. But I figure by the time I go to all the trouble, the expense would be almost the same. I'm all for simplicity!

-- Barb-Douglas (bardou@yahoo.com), July 25, 1998.

As you can see, I started this site a couple months ago. I've been following my own advice and yours, too. Now, I'm loaded up with plastic bags (for garbage and human waste disposal). Today I got an idea to share with y'all. I'm going to sew together a couple old bed sheets together around the edges, leaving an edge open to stuff all those plastic bags into my "sheet bag." Then I'll pin that opening closed. I will toss it on my bed this late fall and winter. I think it'll make a nice light, but warm addition to my bedding! When the time comes, I'll unpin the opening and pull out the bags as needed. Do I get an "A" for this one? Incidentally, I ask the checker to put a paper bag inside my plastic bags. Those can be used for a fireplace.

-- Holly Allen (Holly3325@juno.com), September 17, 1998.