Hurricane Helene AAR

[Lowdown3]

Going to try to make this thread an AAR to our experiences (continuing) with Hurricane Helene and recovery afterwards.A work in progress, adding pics and lessons learned as we go! Some of this was written while it was happening and I've added notes here and there after the fact.

Day 1 through roughly 5, random thoughts-

Every time I hear “North Carolina” in regards to this hurricane-all you seem to hear about in the news- I think of that “Marsha, Marsha! Marsha!” Meme where Jan is complaining that Marsha is getting all the attention.

South GA is eff’ed in a major way.

First off, the weather stations and National hurricane center made it out like our area was going to be in the clear- in other words, no issues. Cat 2 right over us with a lot of tornados spun off also. Lived in Florida for about 20 years and here for about 24 never seen any damage like this before now. Still no commercial power, water, net, limited cell connection.

I watched all the National Hurricane center cone projections including every update up to 7pm the night of the storm. It never varied from a track that looked like the East side of the storm might have gone near Albany, GA (2 1/2 hours from us). Due to this, we didn't even bother to pick up stuff off the porch or do the most basic "hurricane is coming" actions. Looking at the final 7pm storm cone track, they added in a little yellow blurb to the East side of the "cone" that included our area. I have never seen that before on a hurricane "cone" and it was not explained. I filled the big bathtub with water, told the wife let's make sure any dishes and clothes are done really quick, and turned the AC down. In over 24 years at this location, we have experienced some winds from hurricanes that hit Florida, but never more than 50 or so MPH winds. Since the track of this one, literally showed 100+ miles away from us, we honestly didn't take it seriously. To add to that- our local weather forecast was calling for 55 mph winds at 5pm, 60+ at 6pm and 70+ at 7pm. Walking outside at all of these times, there wasn't so much as a pine needle swaying. They were off by about 8 hours...

Added later- I looked it up yesterday and the area we live in is 167 miles inland from where Helene hit in Perry, FL. We do not live in a normal "hurricane area."

Around 2am I woke my wife up to the sound of the most howling wind I've heard in my life. I said, I don't give a damn if this sounds weak, but I'm getting into the interior closet and you should come with me LOL. We later moved to an interior hallway with more lay down space. Power and net was gone by this point and cell towers were taking a beating. We laid there hearing things hit the house for the next couple hours. About 4am it seemed to slow down a bit and at 4:30 I was able to barely get a little cell signal and pulled up the weather radar for our area. By this time it showed to be roughly by McRae with just some of the tall end of it getting to us. We went back in the bed.


When we woke up I opened the curtains on a window near my bed-



That was definitely not the worst of it. An interesting tidbit I remembered a few days later, was that we recently put that 3M security window film on all our windows. Not sure if that helped but I did hear stuff hitting the house all night and we did not suffer a broken window at all thank God. This despite the outside of the windows, our cars, everything outside was peppered with small bits of tree that are practically glued to the item they hit. Three car washes and I still have these stuck to our vehicles. The force of the wind propelling these bits is I guess the culprit.

We did a quick assessment of our house and general area. Nothing was down on the house but a lot of outbuildings were trashed, one of our trucks lost a windshield on a branch of a huge pine and trees down, hundreds of them, everywhere. An in law lives near our range and we text with him. He uses that "speech and spell" type talk to text BS on his phone so his texts are always semi gibberish. However we were able to ascertain they had some worse damage that we did. We decided to start there and my excavator was at our range closer to his place than mine.

A month or two back during the call of another hurricane, I had gone to the range and moved all my heavy equipment up range in case we got flooding. We barely got any rain that time. And since it's a major PITA to walk a slow moving excavator 600 yards, I had left the excavator down range where I had been working. We got that first because the water was now rising.

Just the little bit of distance we had to cover was slow going due to so many trees being down-



Slow going. We got to my in laws place and he had a huge oak down on a barn. He's a scrappy little guy and was already cutting what he could with chainsaws. The family got involved and we had to carefully try to take the huge oak off the barn as more movement caused more damage. Now also, he's a packrat. So he has crap everywhere, and a full size excavator isn't exactly a compact car... But I got it in there. Mr Packrat had about a dozen large around 6 foot by 10 foot windows he had in the barn, mostly broken. Some were near the base of the tree we were working on. Coming and going for hours climbing the downed tree and then....



That's after we got the bleeding stopped. Unclear if he jumped the last couple feet or slipped. We were unable to get out (roads blocked) so I got some good survival medicine practice. I later cleaned and irrigated the wound and made some Steri strips and pulled it together, then dressed it again. However initially we stopped the bleeding, I wrapped it with an Israeli battle dressing, he drank a beer and got right back out there on a chainsaw- true story.....


Spent the first day largely helping at his place.

We had commercial power out at our place but I had switched power over to our AE system the first morning. Had not yet had time to switch over to the well with solar submersible.

Day 2 we were clearing trees off of outbuildings and starting to make a "path" around our homestead so we could get to and work on infrastructure that was damaged in the storm. Our house only had minor damage (some siding) but a huge pine falling uprooted and destroyed one of our septic tanks and fell on a vehicle. We had a lot of damage to outbuildings and areas that we walk freely to daily that had to be heavily cleared just to be able to walk around.


We have cleared multiple roads- with an excavator and chainsaws and backhoe, these are not just a little brush (see pics below). Spent first day clearing 1/4 mile to get to BIL place and remove trees from barns and other buildings.

Spent the first 4-5 days helping others, all day today working on a tree on neighbors house, he paid some jackasses to cut it off, they took some money, made a bunch of horrible cuts which would have dropped the damn thing more on his house, then didn’t show back up. My excavator would have pulled off house. Easily but after spending days helping others driving it farther than I ever have, rollers started messing up and I parked it in a safe spot. Neighbor had all these friends who were going to help.. We got there at 9am, had a good portion done, neighbor was useless. I'm more and more convinced that a good portion of the public goes around either "high" from recreational or from prescribed drugs.

One old redneck shows up at 1pm and was somewhat of a help. Started to break things on my backhoe and get stuck- told after the fricking fact that an area was wet- long after I asked “what areas to avoid , any bad areas that may get stuck?” If I had not started off by asking- "where is your septic and drainfield and are there any wet areas I should avoid?" only to be told this small area where the septic was and everything else was fine- I would assume the responsibility for this, but since I was here doing you a damn favor and you couldn't even be bothered to tell me the frickin truth... well know I'm pissed cause it's messing up my equipment helping you, because you couldn't be bothered to tell me the right info.


Only pic I had of this that offered a little OPSEC for the guy's house, unfortunately you really don't get the extent of the size of the 100 year old pecan or the damage to the part of the house you can't see..Evidently a post is only allowed 5 pics, so this pic isn't posting.

Tree is off his house, scarce fuel used, saws worn, Another day of hard labor for others. Good will, that's about the extent of it.

I am 120% standing by my previous conclusions- most people are absolutely worthless in a bad situation. And for the "savior of the subdivision" pollyannas-
These are the new "preppers" that think they will stay in their cute little subdivision and "organize" a bunch of suburbanites to survive and work together after something happens. Basically a BS theory derived from survival "fiction" stories made up by new "preppers".


After we finished helping that fellow I said 'eff it, we are here breaking our arses and our equipment for other people that won't reciprocate- we cleared a 1/4 mile or so of road near houses that people had previously been standing around outside of, then when we showed up to WORK, they disappeared! .

We have to be able to work more on our own problems- hundreds of trees down. Solar power has been a Godsend but having issues with solar well.Told my wife to stay home (she has helped cut trees, direct machinery, etc). And told her to run the homestead= she’s bailing water from Hand pump to house, water clothes in a bucket with plunger, filtering water in Katadyn, etc. Perfect helpmeet in a bad situation. Enduring hard work, constant heat and bugs, no running water etc. Tough broad, thank God for her. All our family knows how to work. While we were clearing that huge pecan off the one guy's house, I watched a POS 20’ish guy and his GF do nothing to help his grandpa (home owner we were helping with the tree) when we were working on the tree on his house today- worthless, no nice way to say it.


Katadyn TRK worked overtime filtering rainwater first few days.


Tomorrow rigging up hot water shower via 12 v on demand pump and rainwater tanks. Black pipe on top of building to heat somewhat. Better than dousing rainwater over head in shower inside house- cold rain water LOL.

Solar is great, still making coffee normally, refrigeration, etc.

Fuel stored, so to hell with waiting in 2 hour lines. We did go to Walmart the other day, they were letting in 30 people at a time with a 15 minute time limit. Limiting purchases of things like water, etc.

The 15 minute Walmart run- surprised to see not even half full carts- money an issue I guess? One black woman had what looked like a single bag of potting soil or wife thought cat food. 2 hours or so in line to get ONLY that? I had fun, it was like one of those stupid “you got five minutes to shop such and such” shows. Grabbed all kinds of junk food we didn’t really need, plus some additional odds and ends. Little sleep every night, working long days in heat, been drinking a lot of caffeinated drinks. Also convenient to bring with us as up to today most work was not at home, but helping others.


People whining various places aren’t taking cards, wtf did they think??? Handed each of the family and extended family $500. Cash and said use for what you need, hold as reserve, etc. don't worry I will remember, pay me back LOL..

Few generator running in our area, we don’t need to run ours yet, solar and battery bank doing great. Will likely go to Walmart one of these next days to see if meat and fish is put on sale and fill out the freezer.

Will work on solar well set up more today, set up that shower. Was able to use 12v transfer pump to fill water tank for livestock- rabbits, etc. Chicken pen took big hit and chickens now free roaming- not a concern. One of our dogs got a tree dropped on her, I had to put her down, that wasn’t fun.

Lot of people just leaving- going to North Florida and staying. Initially said up to 12 weeks without commercial power, but starting to hear “so and so” just got power back in various areas and finally started to see work crews. Ran into county road guys on way home, they were whining about not being able to clear some smaller trees at the other end of the road. I told him we cleared this road- they looked at the massive pine stumps, I said, yeah my family cleared those.


There was about a dozen like that. And the fatarse crybabies from the road department were whining about trees 1/10th that size!


No one acting stupid re: violence or looting- but we are very rural . Friends near some of the smaller cities reporting theft of gensets, chainsaws, etc. Normal, you know everyone always acts right when SHTF LOL.There was evidently a short term "curfew" enacted in a couple of towns due to some looting to include a BANK BREAK IN. On the homestead we have seismics, Dakota alerts, thermal and NV going and of course seclusion is the best defense.

Drones ended up being useful, Day 1 threw up the Autel thermal drone. Couldn’t use the DJI drone cause it uses cellular connection and that was pretty spotty for a while and honestly almost a month later now still seems like it isn't what it previously was. The Autel thermal drone doesn't use cell connection. With that I was able to see how far road blockage went, whose houses we knew in area were trashed, etc. With the thermal overlay, you could see each and every shingle that was off every roof from about 100 meters above!

More to come and flesh out.

[Lowdown3]

Not a fan of chemical usage of all varieties, but after five days of some really messed up sleep, with sore muscles (need lighter chainsaws, some relatives could barely use mine) I took a quarter cut piece of a Flexerall (mild muscle relaxant) last night. Slept like a baby finally. Previous two nights took a melatonin which normally will knock me out till 0800 and they did nothing to me.

Yesterday when we cleared more roads, was particularly stressful and frustrating. You want to help others and that’s about 90% of where we have spent our time since this started. However you see people literally just sitting on their hands and doing nothing to help their situation or the greater good, aka the “community” that the survival polyannas talk about. It’s frustrating. My thoughts are yeah sure the local gubmint folks will at some point in the future clear these roads, etc. but damn do SOMETHING to help.

“Oh but Lowdown3 some people just don’t know how to run a chainsaw and blah blah blah excuses.” Bullshit. Take your sorry ass outside and drag the limbs we are cutting out of the way, walk out and offer a bottle of water to 4 people that look like they are going to fall out in the damn heat. Nope, instead it was pull your shades closed and act like you aren’t home while people are clearing the road right outside your house. Not a one incident but a dozens incident, damn if you didn’t see them out later getting in their cars and heading towards Walmart AFTER we had cleared the road.

Count on the people you know that you KNOW know how to work, everyone else is going to be next to or just above the worthless level.
Get your head out of this ridiculous "the community will all pull together" prepper fantasy BS, if it's not happening during a relatively minor and has to be short lived emergency situation, it definitely will not work in a more serious situation.

Health and fitness- lots of really obese people we are seeing out looking like they are dying from just the heat= still not doing a frickin thing. People acting like they will die cause they had to drive their trucks to a creek 1/2 mile away and then walk all of 20 yards to the creek from the road… These are the never open the windows in your house type of people. They are not acclimatized. People aren’t used to physical work either, so many are falling out because of that.

Was finishing cutting the 100 year old pecan on the range neighbors house yesterday about 4ish and saw an ambulance coming for someone we know of, couldn’t see which in the house but the house is full of smokers that are extremely fat. Haven’t seen them outside or clearing the couple of small things in their yard. Heat + lack of being acclimatized + lack of physical fitness and stamina = death. Most Preppers should take note of that…


While on that subject- I’ve been laid up with a foot injury since early June, had PRP and am definitely on the mend. Started cutting weight again via lower calories and was back down to my normal 185-187 range. Not writing down/cutting calories now, I know the effect on my body of reduced calories, cannot take the risk of falling off a roof or cutting myself with chainsaw while only taking in 1000 calories a day. In other words, I was on a reduced calorie diet recently, but gave that up for the time being once the hurricane hit. I know what my body will do/act like on reduced calories and right now I need the normal caloric intake to get more work done.

Got plenty of food storage?? I've always told people "Survival = WORK" and you damn well better be ready to work. If you ain't got jack for food storage, getting that work done is going to be tougher. This idea that everyone that lacks a skillset has that they will "just be a shooter or security" is BS. Everyone has that job, you will need PRACTICAL skills- do you know how to run a chainsaw, fix things, build stuff, rig up water purification? And not the "prepper" response of "Oh I have plenty of .pdf files on gardening and woodcutting and..." BS, that does NOT equate to real world experience and skill.

Some misc gear/prep stuff that I know people love- popcorn bowls, have plenty, super handy, put in sink to hold wash water, once that water gets funky flush toilet with. New buckets. Oh we got hundreds of buckets, but an empty bucket to me is like an empty ammo can- they are refilled as soon as rotated. So definitely a screw up there- should keep 4-6 empty clean buckets. Wife spent a lot of time cleaning out old buckets to haul water from hand pump, wash clothes, shower with, etc. The Katadyn TRK drip filter worked overtime early on filtering rainwater for us.

The whole fill up your bathtub thing is trite but we have been doing a helluva lot with bathtub water, one of those corner type jacuzzi tubs, not sure what it holds. Rinse water for stuff next to sink, hand washing, etc.

MANAGEMENT- (added later) a very important thing is the "simple" management of ongoing needs during an emergency. EVERYTHING will be harder to do- getting water, heating your home, doing laundry, etc. Just like the mention of the TRK drip filter above- if someone isn't filling it at night before bed, there won't be water to drink in the morning. If someone isn't tasked with doing laundry, you'll soon be short of clothes or risking hygiene issues.

Hygiene- very easy to get lax and we have seen that in people. Holy smokers Batman, WTFF people? And they are finding them (smokes), can’t clean some debris out of your yard, but you chain smoke while you watch others work. Flip side, one guy that cut exactly one tree on road, new to area was smoking. BIL had had a bad encounter with him, I believe the dude is actually Arab/Muslim. Definitely out of place in S. GA LOL. But he was smoking? don’t know Muslim stuff so don’t know if that makes him a heretic or infidel or something LOL.Anyway, I met him, him and I were fine, gave him some flashlights for his kids. He was the only one outside our “circle” of friends and family that seemed to be proactive. Introduced him to my BIL and they shared cigarettes, which I believe is some bonding ritual with smokers LOL. Hands across America or something LOL, maybe hands across Syria also LOL. Nice guy, asked him if he needed anything, had. Tent set up outside his house in the driveway, his words “We are enjoying God’s air conditioning man!” Only bit of a survivor’s attitude I’ve encountered so far- from an out of place “you ain’t from roun here” guy LOL. Will try to touch base with him again, check on him, not sure what to bring. I don’t stock cigarettes LOL.

Quick bit on preps- in 38 years of actively preparing you acquire a ton of stuff. My organization of said ton of stuff has gotten better. I definitely usually 90% of the time know I HAVE something just not always know exactly where that something is. 60% of the time it works all the time LMAO….. So Day two we are looking for some backup radios and some misc. stuff in a conex. Oh yeah, some spare well pump parts also. I’m like “ok, this is ammo can stuff, protected against EMP hopefully.” All cans are labeled, but there a lot of cans. I’m always leery of sounding heady, but if you could see you would understand what I mean, a frickin lot of cans. Wife says “well hell, why didn’t we just shoot the hell out of the hurricane!” I said yeah been buying a ton of ammo last years before it went up. She knows this, not a thing, just probably had seen the extent of it. Did eventually find what we were looking for, but drove the point home to me. While there is a “certain quality about quantity”, sometimes quantity gets in your way.

OK guys, all for now, got to get to work. Tried to draw it out this morning for a little rest, but I got to get going. Hopefully cell connection holds out and I’ll be able to post more. Won’t try pics till normal net is back, but got some cool pics.

Hope all the SE folks are good, alive and working their plans and preps. God bless.

[Lowdown3]

Got our solar well back up today, that building took a helluva hit. The damage we have received hasn’t been really to living structures but infrastructure and buildings housing necessary infrastructure.

Was very nice to hear that water running into the bathtub from the solar well. Wife had just finished another load of laundry in buckets. I told her “honey we are ‘moving on up’ - tomorrow you should be able to do the wash in the house in the bathtub!”

The delay in getting this going had several reasons- 1. Playing the good neighbor BS for days helping others which means no time to clean up your own problems. 2. Damage to infrastructure as mentioned above. 3. Forgetfulness. #3 was the killer. Example- solar well pump building currently doesn’t have a roof on it… but at this point doesn’t need it. Cleaned debris out, checked connections- water not flowing to house. Today I put in “me” or rather “us” time. Had time to figure it out. Since this well is connected to our grid but largely just used for orchard irrigation it has a series of ball valves and check valves. Basically to be able to control where output goes and doesn’t go. Almost a week of hard work, exhaustion and to be honest stupid forgetfulness.. Once I got everything cleared I opened the wrong ball valve. Was watering the orchard instead of pushing water towards house. Normally we put PVC ball valves right near the ground level as stub up outside of ground valves tend to freeze in winter, get hit by mowers, etc. Where this is located it would be impossible to maintain a stub up shut off valve set up- it would get broken in no time, kind of a traffic area. So a couple minutes of light digging around, tracing PVC lines and DUUUUHHH, figured out the wrong valve was open and water going solely to orchard. Couldn’t find original notes, so drew new sketch and instructions, brought wife over and said “if I lose my damn mind one day and can’t remember this again, here is how all this is.” Will copy diagram several times, put in gun safe, cabinets, misc. homestead notes and in spare parts bin in building once we re-roof.

It’s a Sunpumps solar submersible, shown years ago on my old YouTube channel, 147 feet IIRC. It will chug out water via a 12 volt 280’ish watt panel, but no pressure. We put 8 of our older Trojan L16 batteries in a small 12 volt system right there along with a Xantrex C40 controller, power coming in off of two 280 watt panels to bank. This small system’s one purpose is to run a Shurflo 12 volt “on demand” water pressure pump- like used in RVs. The battery storage is overkill for the little pump, but I was replacing L16 batteries in our main system and just put some of the better “old” ones in this little system. Some are dated “14”, I.e, 2014. For those folks that think “old skewl” lead acid flooded AE batteries don’t last- they lasted 8 years in our daily system and then were recycled for use in this water pump system.

When things get better back to normal I’ll drop some pics in here of this stuff, suffice to say it will all look like hell due to the damage/dirt/debris, so the analytical types can rip me up about that LOL.

We relied a lot also on our rainwater catchment tanks also. We have a few near the house and one at an outbuilding near our animals. I had years ago rigged up a 12v on demand RV pump that could be used to transfer water with. This along with a short hose and a normal length garden hose allowed us to fill the water tank for our rabbits easily by just connecting the battery to the pump.


This can also be connected to a shower set up on the roof of this outbuilding. It's basically flexible black pipe run around the top of the roof. The water is pumped up there either via normal pressure, or shut off one ball valve, open another and connect the above pump to a rainwater water tank and it will pump the rainwater up to the roof to warm for showers.

When I mentioned previously about how we stopped cutting calories because of the intense workload right now the other lesson from that is having a good supply of food storage. This “2 week” mentality is utter BS. We’ve been joking about the “72 hour kit” mentality as it’s just been in the last day or so that we have even seen any lineman/county people/utility workers, etc. The dope that just had the “72 hour “ mindset would be eff’ed hard…

Having a large amount of food storage, to be able to do this kind of work day in day out for a long time is essential. I doubt this will be “over” within 2 weeks even. We won’t starve if it goes a long time, but suffice to say truly having a large food storage supply is important.


Chainsaws- two is one, yeah all too true. We are running old skewl Stihl 290 saws, two in constant rotation, two more in deep storage, spare parts out the ying yang. Last few months I have been pulling out large oaks at the range, cutting into trailer size logs and dragging home for future firewood. Saws have seen a lot of action recently. Had one serviced recently and was running like a top, other one was kinda lagging. Day three or so clearing huge pines on road, the “good” saw wouldn’t start, no damn matter what we did to it. Stopped, did “all the things” and nothing. Tonight had a little time right before dark and did more of “all the things”, can’t get it to fire period. Will likely pull another one from storage next day or two and put it in rotation. Get the other one in for pro service after.

Dakota alerts just went off, we are very secluded . Got some nice thermal views of a handful of deer playing in the driveway via the Iray RH25. Got to enjoy the little things.

On the people front- county cleared the lower end of our road- we had cleared the larger stuff on top end already. Was able to get down and check on other neighbors. This end of the road is squared away, a couple of vets live down there, good folks. One wasn’t there at the time helping someone clear out a freezer. Talked with the wife for a while, only person I heard say they had no need of anything and asked could they help us. I hear his generator, I mentioned that. Wife said “he runs it for us, he loves this stuff, he wouldn’t even have the generator if it wasn’t for us.” They had moved in semi recently and had met them a couple times running the road. Talking I got the sense of like minded’ness. Other neighbor kinda confirmed, adding in this guy was SF. Wife seemed a bit concerned about security, I’ll bring them some items in that regard and maybe a loaner PVS14 that use for rentals in classes. Sharp contrast with the other end of the road full of worthless folks waiting for handouts. Gives me hope :)

[Lowdown3]

Physical issues- we are now over a week in. Averaging probably 8-10 hours of solid hard work every day. It’s hot but honestly not that hot. The relatives we are working with are also “go go go!” Types. Bad combination with us in that no one wants to stop… Instead of shop till you drop it’s work till you drop. Only 2 of us are under 45 and one of them has outside work, Two of the others are females, mine is pretty damn tough but wearing down after a week.

Spending time in the wee hours of the morning stretching, rolling on foam roller , stepping on each other’s backs, etc. Two days ago I remembered to start taking vitamins again and just started back with multi and a potassium and magnesium supplement. Have muscle lock up issues before, want to avoid that.

Bug zapper- we have screens on our windows and a screen porch and having those open are crucial now. But getting a lot of skeeters in. A few days after the hurricane it was like a mosquito fertilizer bomb was set off and suddenly we had tens of thousands of the blood suckers around. As I swatted a couple before pulling sheet over me last night I remembered we have some portable USB charged bug zapper I had gotten to use in chicken pen- free protein. We will start running that in house. This actually worked pretty well and gave off a bit of light.

Cleared some folks driveways in the area yesterday a little better focusing on areas where linemen would come in and restring wires. Want to try to make it easy for them to come in and get this area done. Maybe some beer and bribes are in order? LOL.

About two years ago fast internet finally became available in BFE here and we got that- unfortunately it’s run on the same poles the electricity is. We had crappy dish internet (no tv just net) previously. If we had net things would be relatively normal around our place. Solar has always been a Godsend for us, finding myself more paranoid than normal about output, but everything is doing well. Big freezer, normal fridge, and other normal household stuff no problems. Will likely add a mini split in the future that we can run off of solar so we could have AC via alternate power.

Chainsaw- got out to a place yesterday while getting a new battery for excavator- plan that everything that can break will at some point during recovery! Evidently the chainsaw I was having issues with was just flooded. I told the guy- I changed plug, fuel filter, air filter, cleaned carb, not sure what TH. Some of our folks aren’t super used to running saws and evidently flooded it. It started up after they cleared it and will be put back in use today. Was on the list to start digging out #3 but I’ll leave that for now.

Still no looters!!! Worst shtf ever!!! “These aren’t the hordes of city born looters we have been expecting but Wes says these days you gotta take what you can get!” Wes Huntley lied… LOL. Then again we are in kind of a FAFO type attitude area with low population density- always critical for that sort of thing.

Guy we spent a day cutting 100 year old pecan off his house showed up with a case of beer yesterday, so at least some thanks. Said the jack legs that told him $1500. To cut it that he had paid $200. To had finally showed back up acting like they were going to finish the work (days later). I said “yeah they could drive by and see we had done the eff’in work already!” They tried to get more money out of the guy even, the guy told them- those stupid cuts you made made the damn thing worse when some guys were cutting it later! Again, people are stupid, just operate from that perspective and you won’t be shocked later.

Roads- another people are stupid AF situation. Lines are down in roads everywhere, even still in the small towns. Yeah they are obviously not hot, we wasted some time day 1 and 2 worrying about that and avoiding cutting certain things but quickly figured out they weren't live - “Hey I’ll give you $50. To grab this wire,” LOL. But still, it’s a giant arse piece of wire, some under tension. Don’t drive like an idiot around it!!! We slow, swerve way to the side, etc. If someone is coming the other way, nope they are hauling butt and don’t slow down. I have slowed my normal even on the highway speed down considerably, I think most people have sped UP by 20 MPH.. Again, people don’t think. My thoughts are "hey your a little late trying to outrun the hurricane, calm the hell down..."

Next few days going to clear some areas at the homestead and buildings needed to try to get more of our backup infrastructure going, already have seen damage to some wires that will need to be replaced, probably try to acquire them today as folks here don’t work weekends normally so not expecting to be able to find 6-3 UF on a Sunday..

Been making coffee once every 2 days, putting excess into mason jar and putting in fridge then microwaving the next day. Probably saves a bit of energy as coffee maker runs longer than microwave, both are pretty good draws. Mt. House granola and milk with blueberries has been my staple breakfast with toast instead every couple days. We usually work through lunch, grabbing a granola bar or something, then eat dinner later. Cooking isn’t an issue with gas stove. We changed out the old skewl pilot light one about two years ago for a really nice Thor, but it does pull a bit of electricity when first lighting.

[Lowdown3]

(Posted later)

Still without commercial power.

After three days of overcast suck, solar battery bank started getting low. We have normal fridge, deep freezer, etc. at house and would like to keep all that ok, so we cut back on power consumption dramatically the last few days.

Finding some of this due to more hidden damage….

At the combiner boxes to all of the arrays had at least one or two switches that look like they had tripped. Guessing this happened in storm itself. Damage to some other wiring as it entered structures, etc. More work LOL.

Big old 12KW China diesel gen set having issues, trying to run them down so we can use as backup for solar power (charge battery bank, not back fed to house) and pump water from main well. Starting problems. We thought it was starter and starter solenoid. Pulled it and brought it to another town that thankfully everything is working in. Dude tested it and said it was o.k. There is another solenoid (these gensets weren’t typical setups I’m told). Showed pic of that solenoid to guy that checked starter “looks like an old Ford solenoid.” And found one at an auto parts store. Replaced that yesterday late afternoon and put starter back on and still nothing. Brand new battery.

We have a Murphy switch that starts the unit as well as shows pressure, hours, auto shut off for low pressures, etc. My first thought was that the Murphy was the problem, and it appears to be so. Found the wiring diagram online- not sure if it didn’t come with one 26 years ago or it was lost- anyway, will try messing with that today and will jump it if nothing else to try the starter.
Learning a little more about starters which is cool. So many of the China diesel/Hardy diesel spare parts were hard to find, I bought what I could. Good to know some of these things can be substituted- will add more to the spare parts after.

When not helping me with these things, wife has done a boatload of laundry by hand. She pumps the water from the deep well hand pump well into buckets and does the plunger and bucket thing. The clothes end up clean and we've put a beating on some clothes with the non stop work we've been doing.




We had to pull our backups to the backups small power stuff- Goal Zero 20 watt folding panel to charge USB and others, small panels to charge phones, IPads, little USB rechargeable work lights, etc. Pulled the solar string lights off one of our outbuildings we use for BBQ and put it inside the house, etc. Have used 18650 up doing a lot of thermal scanning checking stuff at night when seismic and Dakota alerts go off, charged those, portable receiver for Dakota alert so we can hear them while out working etc. The small solar stuff has been nice to have last couple days.

I’ll be adding a couple of Dewalt 20v portable fans, got tons of those batteries and last couple days when battery bank was low we could have used those at night- still fairly warm here at night.

Starting to see linemen and lines back up in areas near here, they are leaving old lines that fell in road in road- hell I think everyone Is used to driving over them now….Still a little “oh sh%t” moment when you do.

We have cleared several roads around here and have cleared several sections of power lines where trees were on, so we have helped these guys a good bit and hopefully accelerated their work in our area.

Talked to a very local friend we do combatives with, we have touched base a couple times. Not completely like minded but I’ve helped him pack some food over the years, showed him some basics on rifle and pistol, etc. He is experiencing the same things I have regarding people- his comments- “no one is in shape for any outside work. We were driving around giving food to people, some of the people with us were winded and exhausted walking 20 yards carrying a box of MREs. Their houses look like they did on Day 1. I asked did they need a chainsaw, they tell me they have them but “it’s just so hot outside…” Now he does work in an administrative/office type setup, but still, he was making the point that people aren’t willing/able to push themselves a little bit. His words “I can’t even imagine if this was something more serious.”

[Lowdown3]

Still working on getting our 12KW diesel genset un’effed. It powers our main well and supplements solar in our AE system. To be honest we haven’t needed it in a while and I’ve been complacent, focusing on other stuff. Got some repairs to do. Going to also add a 10KW’ish gas/propane generator as another option for this power. Have a 500 gal propane tank near by and usually a “fair” amount of gas stored. Primary will be diesel once we have that back working.

We thought the issue was the fuel pump, as we bled lines to the pump and firing it with ether it seems as if the pump was pushing fuel out. I ordered a replacement off Aliexpress and it got here from China in less than a week- contrast this with an Amazon order for a backup 10KW gas/propane generator set that has sat in Jax for 10 days already and won't get delivered for another 2 weeks ("we don't come to your area much." )


We found out the fuel pump was on a "key" type set up so basically we couldn't screw up the timing. With that knowledge I felt confident to replace it ourselves.


New fuel pump installed- and still having same issues... Seeking some outside help and I probably have a spare fuel pump now!

Solar well did ok but not as good as it should have. 500 gallon poly tank near it was used a couple times also and allowed to refill during the day, it got down to about half a few times.

Going to get off my A and rig a system to flush toilets and have an additional shower output in one of the bathrooms off of rainwater. Have tanks outside house but close to each bathroom, thinking I’ll run PEX in and hook in a 12v on demand pump for emergency use. Hand pumping water and then carrying it 50 yards to flush toilets was a waste of resources IMO.

The big winner, absolute #1 single prep we had during this I would say was our Polaris Ranger. We pulled small branches, loaded 4 buckets of water in and drove them over to house, carried all kinds of things, transported people through bad areas, got all kinds of places a conventional truck wouldn’t have, etc. Used the living crap out of it. During some of the cleanup yesterday, the open air building with tin roof over our solar well and tank setup had literally peeled back in the storm. Still attached, but literally looked like when you peel the lid back on a can and leave it there. I needed a quick fix cause rain was coming. I climbed up, attached a rope around one of the stingers, ran the rope to the Ranger and slowly backed the Ranger up, pulling the roof back down on to the building. I thought it would work, but was kinda surprised it actually DID work LOL. That will hold for now but I’ll have to put new tin on the roof.


On the cash situation- we have talked about this before here and some people are really stupid about it, sorry for the Pollyannas but there is no nice way to say that. I was told by a supposed "prepper" that “if you have more than $50. In cash you ARE a drug dealer.” Sorry but that’s stupid AF and should never come out of the mouth of someone on a “survival” forum….

Making a recommendation on dollar amounts is subjective, as one amount sounds like nothing to one person, and sounds heady to another.

I can tell you that without adding everything up, we have blown through easily $2500. In cash (FRN’s) (doesn't include cards and was nowhere near this by the time this was "over") Some places like Walmart did take cards early on with the 30 minute wait to get in, then 30 people in at a time for 15 minutes tops nonsense. Most places did not take cards and those that did, it was a major PITA to do it (cards). I was “in and out” with cash while others were wasting time waiting on cards. Time is important in these things, and in a more “real” situation, this could mean getting out with less exposure to potential pathogens, or even just pissed off people, rioters, etc.

When the linemen finally came back after hooking up everyone in our area days ago and got to us, they all enjoyed the cases of beer and soda we gave them that we paid for in cash. I can’t tell you how many cops I’ve seen out watching linemen crews the last week and more that appreciated just slowing down and handing them a water bottle. One kinda chubby cop (I know those are Rare right lol), was dying in the heat. Had one bottle in car, then drove back with a case. Spent a couple minutes thanking me and got a lot of local intel and a new contact.

After commercial power came back-

Working through our “must do” list here also. Lots still without power, oddly enough folks a lot closer to towns and areas where you would think would have been repaired sooner than us out in the sticks. Seeing crews pulling line and replacing high speed net lines out here, so hopefully back to “normal” with that soon. Also ordered Starlink, so one way or the other will have good net again next week.

Found a replacement for bad fuel pump on China Diesel genset as well as a place to rebuild current one. Also adding another breaker input on box to well for adding in another dual fuel generator as backup to the backup. Been on that “to do” list previously also known as “get around to it one day” list… Letting life getting in the way- till it affects “life.”

So will end up with all fuel options to power main well and put additional power in the battery bank.

Pushing water- have a 12volt on demand RV pump near the solar well that provides some water pressure. On the end of the house near that well, pressure is good. On the other side of the house, not so good. As cooler weather gets here I’m going to climb up in the attic and see about adding another on demand pump, maybe 110 for inside the house to boost pressure farther inside the house.

Had I built a new house today, I would run two sets of plumbing- to include one that would allow me to pump rainwater in the house from catchment tanks around the house, and one with “normal” well water.


On the location thing- this area and Rock’s area, hurricanes reaching this far inland is extremely rare. I’ve been here 25 years and nothing this bad and all the old timers been here since great granpappy types around here say this is not something ever experienced in this area. Kind of a black swan in magnitude. Every area of the country has some sort of weather issues and resulting problems that come up. It’s all really a trade off. The six foot of snow in SD can kill you, or can be your ally. The blistering heat down here means longer growing seasons and with today’s slack arse culture, the heat plays the same “ally” role that six foot of snow in SD does in a way. Hell it was late September and not THAT hot during this, but people were dying in the heat, sitting around on their asses due to the “heat” etc.

One thing one of the utility workers told a friend- “you all don’t play around down here. We got to so many roads that were already cleared by citizens. Other places we have gone no one does that.” Heck I got a massage the other day and the gal that does my massages was talking about how she cleared trees in her area so people could get out. So the RIGHT PEOPLE (still a small % not the whole “community” BS) were getting things done.

Always a remnant, it’s never the whole.

[wwdnet]

What you've gone through, and what you've been able to do, is both heartbreaking and amazing. Like so many people in isolated rural areas, you had equipment to help clear roads and remove fallen trees. You helped your neighbors before yourselves, and learned who was worth a darn - and who was worthless - in an emergency. From what I've seen in NC, the work has been done by mostly locals with very little gubmint assistance, and lots of volunteer organizations. It would seem that GA needs to brush up on emergency preparedness; FL is used to these storms and massive damage, so the prep level (and emergency funds) is much better. Power restoration after 2 hurricanes in 2 weeks was pretty quick. BTW, you married well❤️

We have 2 chainsaws, a small one I can handle and the other is a giant Husqvarna that I can barely pick up. We only have 2 small trees in front of our house and a giant live oak in the back that's far enough away to preclude any damage to the house. My neighbors on the other side of the street have huge trees close to their houses, so I would worry about trees falling for them. No solar (thinking to get a small portable unit), but we do have the Generac and enough fuel to last 8-10 days, plus a smaller gas generator. I would expect roads in my area to be navigable and power restored within a few days to a week, so propane could be refilled. Food? I'm at about a 1 year supply of FD, canned, and MREs, so that would be the least of my worries. Plenty of water (potable and flushable), and enough fuel stored to run the small gas genset, equipment, and vehicles for quite some time. We have 2 camp stoves and 3-4 months of fuel for those. Our well pump is electric but could be run intermittently via the generator to refill any containers. I mostly keep the small gas generator to loan to our neighbor if needed. Cash? Yes siree Bob, I'm not counting on my debit card for everything in an emergency. Organization? I keep trying (had it all done before my husband got worse), but between preps and tons of medical supplies the VA sends, it's getting close to a losing battle. There is only so much room in this house!

So, definitely not as prepared as you are, but prepared enough for our situation. The hitch in our giddy-up is my husband's life support equipment.

I was just talking with my cousin in NC, who takes supplies up to the mountains every weekend. He told me there are 100+ unidentified bodies in the hospital in Asheville. The death tolls reported would seem to be undercounted...

[wwdnet]

I'm glad your power is back on so you can focus on getting your alt power squared away, and maybe get some repairs done that you haven't had time for. I've been pondering Starlink for a while - it's pricey but has been invaluable in the hardest hit areas. In view of the extreme weather we've seen this year, it's probably a good investment, just like that solar backup I've been eyeing. My daughter's furnace took a turn for the worse, so I sent her a chunk of change to help with several thousand $ in repairs. It's good that I had the extra cash, but maybe need to invest some of what's left in this house.

[Lowdown3]

Every time our Fedex guy shows up and I help him get boxes out of his truck, there is at least 6 to a dozen or more Starlink boxes that I can see in the very back of the truck. Everyone you talk to asks is you got high speed net back yet, then the conversation turns to Starlink.

[prc-104]

We recently ( 4 months ago) went to starlink since our rural dsl was rapidly going to the toilet.
Been great, occasional short interruptions as it re-synch's but so far has been excellent.
BTW, works great on the VOIP backup telephone.
If you're a ham, then consider $15 for an eBay voip phone and then use this to get set up

Go to the hamshack hotline web site and create an account. Once the phone arrives you access the account and open a ticket to establish a new HH number and to provision the phone.

A few days after opening the ticket you should receive an email answering the ticket. It will have a link to provision the phone. When you access it (the link) with the phone on and connected to the network, the phone will be automatically provisioned, will reboot, and is then ready to use.

It will take a couple of days for you to show up in the directory.

Something to think about...two is one and one is none

[Lowdown3]

Still having issues with the 295D diesel generator. Replaced the fuel pump, put oil in, bled lines to fuel pump, made sure fuel pump was full of fuel, etc. and still doing the same thing the other (original) fuel pump was doing.

Fuel isn't leaving the pump and going up to the 2 cylinders.

Turned the unit over starting it with ether numerous times thinking the fuel would pick up from the pump at some point. It never did. Got an old skewl diesel mechanic out the other day, he tried all the same things we did and he was baffled by it also. Took the original pump with him to his shop to check out and see if he could figure anything else out.

This is a old skewl China Diesel later called "Hardy Diesel" 295D engine 12KW generator. This was a mainstay of survivalists and AE folks in the 90's. And has been pretty darn reliable over 26 years.

[prc-104]

I'm sure you did but did you crack the injector line at both injectors and turn it over and look for fuel?
Can always try to pre-flood the lines with diesel.

Likely none if this will help but passing it along anyway.

Sending good thoughts your way.

Forgot to mention, since my detroit 5.7 is pretty similar only with more cylinders and is also direct injection.
Worst case, I would squirt zippo lighter fluid in the air intake. Not gas, not kerosene. Only lighter fluid. It's just enough to make the engine fire on compression. Don't flood it with zippo, I held the can up and squirt, when it fired and stumbled would squirt some more.

Don't let any backfire thru the intake hit your hand. Likely won't do that ..but sometimes.

[Lowdown3]

Yes we did that. Using ether to start it.

Going to keep messing with it.

The Murphy start switch is also bad. It's an old EA150


Normal operation is holding the momentary over to "test" and it will crank the generator. The switch is wired in to several points on the generator set and does not "just" turn the unit on. The way I understand it, it has auto shutoffs for low pressure, if your oil was low, etc. etc. The "engine running" LED looks like it's lit up in the pic but it's just the light hitting it right. When the unit is running that will light up, the others are all red led warning lights.

We jumped wires on the starter to crank the unit, and it will turn over that way. However I'm concerned something in the Murphy switch may be precluding the generator running correctly. Not sure what would tell the fuel pump (which is not electric and is NOT connected in any way I can tell to wires that go to the Murphy switch) to not pump fuel however.

It's another avenue to explore as a potential failure point, but everyone I know has said this shouldn't be the problem.

The one time maybe 17 years ago I had an issue with the generator it was fuel related, and the Murphy switch attempted to fire the unit every time I clicked it to "test."

[prc-104]

Never worked on one of those.
Does it use glow plugs to get the initial start?
Ether is generally a no-no for diesels, especialy diesels which use glowplugs.
Ether on those will ruin the glowplugs,,,,,,,that's why I only use lighter fluid.
If it has glowplugs, do an ohms test on them. If they're 0 Ohms, they're toast.
Wish I could help more.
:-)

[Lowdown3]

No glow plugs.

I'm going to try to replace the "test/auto" momentary switch on the Murphy switch just itself if I can find a correct replacement. I'm still not 100% sure the Murphy switch isn't somehow adding in to this problem.