Summer Time Power Outage! 10 Items you Need!

What's going on guys? It's Prepper Live. We're going to talk about something today with summertime coming, the summertime storms. There are power outages at times. Typically they're very temporary but you never know. The other thing about this is is in a grid down situation these items are going to fit in just well. So one of the things about being a prepper is that you're prepared for the small storms. You're also prepared for long term. But the key is to get prepared for what's happening around you and then you're going to be better prepared in the long distance. So we have 10 different things we're going to talk about. A couple of these I think you're going to be like, oh I don't know about that. I'm hoping. Some of you may be like, I have no idea and that's fine too. We're going to talk about some things, some of the pros and cons and some things that you need. This isn't an end all. These are just the top 10 to kind of cover the most important things that could happen in a summertime power outage. Before we get started, I want to give a big thank you to ExoTac. They make some of the best fire starters on the market and they're made down in Winder, Georgia. They're just excellent and you get a 20% off using Suge20 with the link down below in the description. Listen, fire cooks your food. It boils your water. It gives you heat. It gives you light. It can keep predators at bay. It just builds morale. Having a fire kit is vital to survival. While I didn't actually have it on this list, this is something that you need as well. Having a good fire kit, you know where everything is. You can get right to it. So fire kit. Also check out sugear.com. We're doing a big giveaway right now for the month of May. We're doing monthly giveaways. So go over there and check that out. Very easy. Just sign up with your email. We don't share it and we have a lot of stuff going on over there and monthly news, weekly newsletters and different things that, and of course the Suge merch. And we really appreciate that support. Okay. So let's get into some fun. One thing about power outages is that really it just slows things down a whole lot, especially if you're at home or you have electronics or you're on your computer or whatever. You know, I know when we've had power outages, it's just like time to chill. And number 10 is actually addressing that, which is have a good book, have some cards, games, especially if you have small kids just to pass the time, because typically you're just kind of sitting around or if you're like me, I'm going to take a nice nap. The afternoon is perfect for that. And so, you know, getting a good nap, but being prepared to kind of sit and kind of wait. That's, that's a big deal. Now, before we kind of move on into the list, we will be taking questions. We'll go through about two or three. We'll take some questions. Sarah Mack right now is on the computer and she will be taking those questions and giving them to me. And for those of you who have been asking, she does have a mic, a lapel mic. So she's going to be able, you're going to be able to hear, hear what she's saying. Okay. First and foremost, and I think this is something that most of us will agree on, is light. Having some sort of light. Of course, obviously, you know, we have flashlights and typically if the power goes out in the middle of the night, you grab a flashlight, you look around. Having your flashlights available, having, having them charged up, if they're rechargeable, of course, having batteries. But that is the first source of light. Light is your first, your number one security tool. So having a good flashlight you should have near you at all times, if not on you. If you're in the bed and the power goes out, you're not going to have it on you. But hopefully, unless you're a real diehard. But having a good flashlight is going to be key. Now, with that though, flashlights are not so good when you're trying to light up a bigger area. Recently, when we had our long-term power outage after the hurricane, is this really came in handy. This is what they call the haloop. And it just, you can mount this. We had it mounted on our chandelier in our den, our dining room. It's battery powered, but you can turn it on to a low setting. And I'm not going to turn this. And you can turn it on to a low setting, or you can get it really bright. But the brighter you get it, the faster the battery is going to run down. So having something like this, and it went for a long time. I mean, we'd hook them up, we'd leave them for a couple of days, and then, you know, we would charge it up. And that's one thing about this. This is a chargeable light. So this is a pretty cool option. It's just different though, but I'm just going to give you some options. Also having just your standard lanterns. I mean, this is a, you know, hurricane lantern. We have our fuel that goes with it. Make sure that you have your wicks. Make sure, you know, you have what you need. Now, Coleman lanterns are great, but it's according to how you got one, of course, having the propane for that, making sure that you have the supplies you need to have the light. Now, let me say this before we really get on going. All of this stuff, and we've bought this for a number of years for the power to go out. And I was searching and searching and looking, and we're dragging stuff out of a closet, and we have something in the garage and all that. What we did, we took big containers and we put our items in there. And then certain items that were a little bit larger, we put them on a specific shelf. So we know where everything is immediately. Another thing too, before we get into this is a, and I did a video about this, is a blackout box. Those are just the bare items that you need to get you to a point where you can get to this stuff. So having a good place for it, having it packed away. Guys, I don't use these lanterns that much. You know, I don't use the propane. We use it for different things, but typically we keep it in a certain area. Having all these items, extension cords, things like that, having them in a box. We have three large containers that we keep all this in, and it's on one shelf. We know where it is. When a power outage goes, goes though or happens, you're going to be kind of confused at first. And then you're like, oh crap, the power's out. It's just a lot easier just to have everything in one place. Okay. So lights. So first again, we have the, the HALOOP, which is a great option, but something is different. Of course, hurricane lanterns, a lot of people have. There are rechargeable lanterns, and these things work great. You keep them on lower power. They'll run all evening. You cut them off. In fact, we have some in our den and we have them set up on a shelf just for some nice lighting, ambient light. And we have it on low and they'll run for a week or more, you know, with one charge. And some of them are AAA or AA batteries. So just having it set aside, you know, you can just turn this on. It makes it really nice. And of course, again, the flashlights. Now, one thing that I want to really recommend, and this is something that we absolutely love when it comes to lighting. And I didn't take it out of the box because, and we've talked about it before I did it. I've done a full review on this and this is the BioLite. Now I got this, I believe it's Sportsman's Guide, but we have these on our website because this is just one of those things that we love. And I've been using it a few times, but when we had our power outage for a week, this was awesome. And it comes with a small solar panel and it kept these lights charged the whole time. We never had, even though the sun was out for a couple of days, we were able to keep light and it was very comfortable, very low ambient light. We keep it on the lower setting and it just gives a nice light. And these daisy chain up and you can see there's three different bulbs in their LED and you have a base. Even the base has a light. So these are just, I can't recommend these enough. I have really, we have really loved these. So we keep this handy. So it's the BioLite, but this will give you that light that kind of gives it out. Now you can go with candles. Candles are great. And we do that a lot of times. First thing we do actually light a candle, we'll have two or three candles going. There is a fire hazard with the candle. You want to be careful, but candles and there are candles that'll burn 24 hours. So, and even longer, sometimes, you know, different times that they'll burn long lasting candles. So there are a lot of options out there. And then there's just your standard Yankee candle that you have on the counter and then it smells good. So having that does give you some light, but having some other options, it's more efficient with light. You know, like your lantern, your lantern is very efficient. Your, your small battery powered lanterns, this BioLite, hook it up. We hooked it up in the, with the curtains up at the top with the curtain rods and the light just came down. I'm telling you, it was very relaxing on top of that. So just a great way, but you need to have light. And that's number one. Number two is a generator. Now I brought out this small little Generac and this is one of the, like the inverters is kind of quiet and it runs really nice. Generac makes great generators. We have a gas powered generator that we run as well. And having a small generator, it just makes life a lot easier. Plus in a power outage, if it's like a day or two, you got to start thinking about your refrigerator, your freezer, things like that. That's the most important part. When, when our power went out, it was, we got to get these refrigerators and freezers going. We have two refrigerator freezers and then we have just the dedicated freezer. And so we wanted to make sure that we kept it running and we were able to pretty easily. One thing about it though, is you don't have to run your generator for 24 hours. You can run it for about three or four hours, shut it off, run it again in about three or four hours, just sporadically checking it out at night. We just leave them off. And so this, the generator and guys, these are fairly, they're not super expensive, especially some of the smaller ones that would just get you by. Now there are much better home generators. And of course with ours, ours is a big 6,500 watt generator. But what I would recommend if you're looking for a generator in more of a survival type mentality is to go with a dual fuel or a tri fuel. And that means you can have gasoline, but you can also run it on propane. Propane is very stable. Gasoline, you're keeping a lot of gas around. It's very volatile. So I'm big about propane. And it's one of the things that we're just going to get very soon is get one that has the propane and the gas, and you can get it set up with LP or natural gas. And if you have natural gas lines running, that way you could keep your power going a lot longer. So definitely generators. And to come in with that is a solar generator. Now here we have the EcoFlow and I've got it kind of behind some things, but this Jackery's also one, but this is an incredible, this is another item guys. I am stoked about EcoFlow. As far as a portable source, you can get the solar panels with it. We didn't bring the solar panels in, but you can hook up your solar panels and you can run this if you run out of gas. So having both really is ideal because one of the problems was, is a couple of days we didn't have sun and our EcoFlow was starting to get down. We charged it up with our generator. So we have this dual way to be able to keep things going. And the one thing about a solar generator is that it'll keep going even if the grid is completely down. Now again, caveat, if the sun's out, the sun's down, you know, or the sun's cloudy and you're not getting a lot of sun, that's going to hold you back, but it will give you power longer. Here's the Jackery and Jackery's been doing a number of things. I think they have a big system as well that they've come out with. I haven't tested it, but this is great for all your devices, different things that you're using. So having that kind of backup, battery backup is crucial. And we'll get into battery backup in a minute because that's another point, but having redundancy works really well. And again, in a crisis or even in a disaster, having multiple options is just going to give you more options, you know, whatever's available. For us, when the storm was out, there were gas stations open. They were on down the next couple of exits. So we were, we had access to gas, even though the gas lines were pretty full and we had access to propane, but we stocked the propane because it is very stable. In fact, a can like this will last pretty much indefinitely because of the way they're sealed. And so, and then with your gas can, which we have gas here and you need to have gas, you need to have that. We're going to talk about that in a sec. All right. So power is your second. And again, we rely on a lot of power. One thing that we've done is we've gone with Starlink and we have the Starlink system for our internet. So if the internet goes down, Starlink is a great option, but that's more toward, well, it's more toward keeping us online, which may or may not be a good thing. Okay. We're going to go to this last one and then we're going to, we're going to take a couple of questions. So next is, is extension cords. Now, if you have a nice big generator, you need a good heavy extension cord. You don't need the cheap household extension cords, even this power cord. Look and see what the generator requires. We have big, heavy, yellow, yellow extension cords that we purchased just for our generator. So you want to make sure that you have the right extension cord because these can actually catch on fire. You don't want that. Power outage is bad enough. You don't want your house on fire. And so having your extension cords, but also, and I need to look, cause I've got so much on this list. And again, and that was part of it is your gas. Of course, you want to have some gas put back. I mean, it's summertime. You should have gas put back for your lawnmowers for different things that you're using. But having some gas put back is going to be vital to keep your generator running. If it's a gas generator and then having the propane set back because you're going to need that fuel. And there's different things that you're going to be able to run. We can run our Coleman stove. We can run our lanterns. We can run our grill, whatever. So having your propane is a very versatile option. And again, my big thing is it's very stable. You don't want to keep gasoline in your garage. As far as propane, we do keep some in our garage, but really having an offsite or all that stuff is the best. And then of course, if you have a big propane tank, in fact, we've got one coming. We're still on a waiting list from Helene after Helene, because people just went nuts. So we are going to be getting a big propane gas tank. We can't get LP or natural gas because of where we live. There's just not enough demand for it. So that's our options. Okay. Let's go to a few questions and see what we've got. Trey Taylor asks, Hey Sooch, I live in a coastal North Carolina town and have plenty of access to saltwater. Is there a good efficient way for desalinization? Yeah. The one thing about that is typically very expensive. I've seen some videos of guys going down to the ocean with a water bottle and they take it and they put it in the sun and all the salt goes down to the bottom. I don't know enough about it because I don't live on the coast. I haven't really researched a lot about it, but the big desalinization plants are very expensive to produce and to run, but there are ways to do it. I wish I could tell you, I just haven't because of where we live. I'm not really a key or privy to that, but I will say that there is a lot of brackish water along the coast, at least in the areas that we go and that water can be filtered. It can be changed. You can drink it if it's filtered. Just make sure you filter it. So getting a really good water filter and getting a good system to get that water that's just past that salt line. But yeah, that's just not one of my fortes, but I have seen some things. In fact, we were down at the beach and there was a guy that did some experiment. I don't even remember exactly, but he filled a water bottle up and he set it out in the sun and then all the salt and everything went to the bottom. So do you remember that video? I just remember it was just a short, but it was really good, but do some research. I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you. Nick Tower asks, hi, I'm from Florida. Aside from water and medical, are there other common pepper weaknesses that you see? Also, I love my ExoTac products. The lighter seldom needs to be refilled. Yes, and that's one thing, and I'm just going to get a little side note, but the butane lighters, it's funny, typically butane lighters will evaporate in no time. You have to keep them filled. The ExoTac lighters, they seal up and so they stay for a lot longer. I think this is a match cap, but they have a small thing like this. They are. Thanks, Nick, for bringing that up. To me, medical and water are vital, super vital. So yes, those are the two big ones. Of course, self-defense, and that should be a big one, but you should have that. That's a static thing. A lot of guys don't hear like that anyway. They've got that covered, but cooking is a big one because if you're cooking over just an open flame and open fire, you can get a lot of carbon monoxide and the smoke's not really good for you. So having some other options for cooking, we're going to talk about that in just a second, but it is an option to cook outside, but having some power source of some source, even if it's something small that has a little solar panel to where you can have some ability to do some charging and your phone may or may not be, you know, there may not be any phone service, but being able to keep radios going and flashlights and, you know, even if you have a little small laptop, keeping it running, if you have some information on there and you want to access it, those kinds of things to me, and obviously batteries. Batteries are a big deal. We have what we call the battery daddy, and it stocks up all these batteries, and it's just a great way to have them in one place, but we keep these around quite a bit. So let me think, and just food, where are you going to get your food source, you know, in the long term? You know, are there local farms? Are there local areas, you know, farmers markets will continue as long as they can get food and they have food because those markets are going to open up to a lot of things, just like in some of the, a lot of the third world countries, markets are a big deal, and if we get to that situation, markets are going to be more important. So making sure maybe that you have some barter items and you have things that you can trade off on, but people like to call me on live, I don't know why, and it's guys that are probably on live right now, I just saw them, but yeah, and fuel, having your fuel put back of whatever fuel you can, you know, you're going to use. Propane to me is my number one fuel, but fuel is important, so I hope that gives you a little bit of light, but really water and medical is my key. Haley Hill asks, what are your essentials for first aid? I wonder if I have too much or not enough of the right things. Well, first aid is so broad. First off, I want to have a trauma kit because I want to be able, if something is life-threatening, I want to be able to at least treat that until professional medical help can come, if it can come. One thing that I would recommend, my wife's a nurse or was a nurse, and so we have a huge bag with all kind of different things in it that we carry. Also, one thing that I really like is the AMP3, they have a outfitters, it's a clinic in a role. It's amp3.net and it's a USN ER doc, great guy, doctor that put together this role, and you know, there's a lot of stuff in there, but the big thing is to me, first and foremost, is your trauma. That is your first responder, that is, you know, having your tourniquets, your hemostatic agents, your chest seals, having things like that, that, you know, you can treat somebody that's been injured really bad and that can possibly save their life. But then from there, you can get dysentery, so having some different Imodium and having different things that treat your stomach, having antacids, you know, stuff like that, you know, during the Civil War, that was really two-thirds of the deaths were from sickness. It wasn't even from bullet shots or combat or battle, it was because people got sick, and then, of course, infections and things like that, but really just dysentery. And so, really, having a good water filter system is going to be important. You don't want to drink raw water, you need, that's going to be a first help thing. Having hand sanitizer definitely can be something important in a grid down situation if water's not running, so you want to keep your hands clean and keep your area clean. But overall, having, you know, your basic medical, I don't think, honestly, that you could have too much. One thing I will recommend is having a lot of gauze. Have more gauze than you think you'll ever need, because here's the problem, if I get an axe, you know, I'm cutting wood and an axe comes and cuts my leg or something, and you have to dress that wound over and over and over. Yes, you can use t-shirts, you can use whatever, but having some good sterile gauze is going to go a long way, and you really need quite a bit of it. So, that is one thing that I would ramp up on that a lot of people actually don't really think about. And, of course, your, just your standard medical, a lot of Band-Aids, boo-boo kit stuff, all that's great, because you need it if you, if you get an infection, it's going to get really serious in a hurry. So, make sure that you treat that, keep the infection from happening, so you don't have to worry about getting infection and then trying to treat it. Okay, we're going to go on, we'll come back to some questions in a sec, because we have things to talk about. Okay, number four is water. Now, water is definitely something, especially in the summertime, you need to stay hydrated. You know, it gets hot, and if you're without power, you're without AC, and so having a lot of water, go ahead and have it put back. Of course, if your taps are running, then great, but drinking water, drinking water, but electrolytes are vital as well. And we keep a lot of these body armors, they're really great electrolytes. We, in fact, we go to the range, we take body armors and water, but we really make sure that we're drinking those body armors to keep our electrolytes up. And having that, and of course, you know, having some of the bigger ones put back, and just having water set aside, having a couple of cases of water, and then as things are, you know, as you get hot, and the one thing about a power outage, or any kind of disaster, is there's a lot of work involved, a lot of work. And it's little things, it's taking the solar panels and putting them out, it's turning them, it's getting our extension cords, it's moving them, it's cutting on the generator and cutting it off, and making sure we have gas, and going to the gas station, you know, back and forth. Cooking is a lot more labor intensive. It's not just throw something on and cook it. You've got to get your fire ready, you've got to get, whether it's your Coleman stove, or you have an open fire pit for your grill. So having a lot of water is going to be, or fluids, are going to be very important. And if you don't, and you need to, again, in a long-term situation, water filters, water purifiers, water, even if you have to boil your water, having a big pot to boil your water, all of that comes together, if we're lacking water. I'm telling you guys, you know, we talk about prepping, and it's like, man, he's got all this stuff. If the power goes out, things get really complicated, because our system is very vulnerable, but yet it services us every day. So having all the different, the things that you need can be a little overwhelming. But we live in a very convenient world, and it's beautiful, and I love it, and I want to stay in that convenient world. But when it comes down to my life, and the lives of my family, this is important. Okay, number five is cooking. Now, cooking can be done a number of different ways. Now, if you have natural gas, you're good, you're cooking with peanut oil, you know, you just go in there and cut your... Now, some of the natural gas, though, for water heaters, and for stoves, have a small electric start, and if the power's out, sometimes, some ranges, some water heaters will not heat the water. It's kind of a safety thing, it shuts it off. So that's definitely, if you know how to bypass it, I'm not telling you to do it, but that's definitely something that you might want to figure out sooner than later. But also, there are Coleman stoves, which use your propane, but then there are butane stoves, which are really good. In fact, I have a can of butane, you can get the butane, you can run these, you can cook on your grill. Of course, grills, we have grills, even if it's a small tabletop grill or a big grill, whether it's charcoal or you use propane, but if you're using charcoal, you may or may not be able to get more. So having a propane grill, which we use all the time, this... Or if you like to smoke, you know, meat, and you have a big smoker and you like that, just have some extra put back, and that way you can feast. But having your Coleman stoves, your butane, a rocket stove, let's say you live somewhere and they don't allow you to... Which is crazy to me, there are places now that won't allow you to have a grill, a propane grill, and especially out west, west coast. But having a small rocket stove, I built one with bricks and built this kind of a chimney without any mortar or anything, just set the bricks up and had an opening at the bottom, and then it just had a centerpiece here, and I can put small biomass in there, and I can... These guys, I have some friends of mine that are watching right now, and they're on the phone. Would you please get off the phone? They're going back and forth and it's driving me crazy. So having a way to cook is going to be vital. And with that rocket stove, and there's a ton of different types. And the great thing about a rocket stove is you don't have to put together a whole lot of wood and prepared wood. You can take small sticks, leaves, pine cones, whatever, and you can run them. And then the way they're set up, you can put your pot on there and then you can really go. So cooking is one of those things, just to have a few things set back, but it is a lot of work. Now, again, like I mentioned, cooking over an open fire is easier because, well, it's not really easy. It's really more labor intensive. You've got to put your wood out. You've got to set your fire. You've got to have something to hold the pot over it. But if you're doing that on an everyday basis, this can cause you to have smoke inhalation. It can cause you to breathe in that carbon monoxide or what's burning off the wood, and it's not good for you. So just keep that in mind. Yes, grilling hot dogs over a fire, there's nothing better, or s'mores or whatever. That's great. I love to do it. I don't care if I get a little smoke. In fact, I think it's like a little good for you, but too much over a period of time can cause you some issues. So just keep that in mind. All right. Number six is batteries, just having batteries. Now, one thing that we have a lot is rechargeable batteries. You might want to have some extras. Rechargeable batteries only run for so long, and then they just start to dwindle down. And having a few rechargeables, but really for a standard summertime power outage, having just your way to charge. One thing is to have your cables. Have your cables so you can hook them up to your chargers or whatever you have. But guys, batteries, these things are, I think there's a 10, 12 year, 12 year shelf life on these batteries. It's going to give you a lot of time to stock up on them and just use them and rotate them out as you use them. But keep a good stock of batteries. And if you have a little small transistor radio, you have flashlights. I like to have flashlights that use AA batteries, or I don't really care about the big decals, but I like them because typically batteries are around and you can typically find them. And we use AA batteries for gaming consoles or whatever people are using. So having batteries, stocking them up, and then of course, CR123s. If you have scopes and things like that, of course, the 2032 batteries that go in there. I try to keep some batteries put back for a long-term situation, but even for short-term batteries are really going to come in handy. Okay. Number seven, right below that is power banks. Now I keep these power banks and this is the, I really like this power bank. And in fact, I've got some, I'm going to do a review on it, but it's the Shargeek. I had to make sure I pronounced it right. It's the Shargeek, S-A-R-G-E-E-K. And I use these with my wireless charger for my phone. So I set my phone on it. I hook it up to this and it charges my phone and keeps it charged all the time. And then I switch them out. When this one runs down, I just put this one on. But Shargeek, these are great battery chargers for battery backup. And they have a number of different outlets. So check out Shargeek. And we do have some others that we're going to do a review on because I was just very impressed with them. And I've been using these for two years just on an everyday basis and they run great. So, but having a battery backup, having the cables, you know, for the old lights, you know, you have a magnetic pad that fits here. So you want to have those and you want to make sure you can just plug it in and you can charge up your lights. And of course, any other kind of light with the USB-C, again, cables are going to be important. Then we go a little bit bigger with the Jackery. This gives us just more power. It's a bigger battery. It's going to give you more. There's a number of different options, even like for the cigarette lighter type thing, and then even plug-ins. You can actually plug something in. One thing that we did was we plugged in fans into our, in fact, I think it was the Jackery. We plugged a fan in there at night. We'd open the window and let air come in and it was a low powered fan. And so this really did well. And of course the EcoFlow is the beast. It's just awesome. So we could do all kinds of things with this. One thing I want to tell you, one thing that's important is if you want coffee. Now for me, if I don't have coffee, it is S-H-T-F hands down. I'm done. Got to have my coffee. When I took my coffee maker and I put it in the mornings, I'd come out and I just set it on top of my EcoFlow. Because it takes a lot of power, coffee makers, and I would run it and it would take very little power out of it. But I have a buddy of mine that has a solar charger, solar generator, and he took a Keurig and it almost drained the battery. If you have Keurigs and it's a power outage, guys, it's best not to use them. You need to have some kind of backup because they use an immense amount of power. Just FYI, because that's what happened to him. And I didn't even realize it myself. It was like, and he said, my generator went. So just a food for thought. Okay. So different type backup batteries. And of course there's a bazillion different types and you can also get some that are solar powered. Those are great. That way you can continue to keep your battery charged. In fact, that to me is one of the most important things if for a long-term situation. Now, one thing that you need to also think about is the batteries on your phone. If you know storms are coming, guys, make sure you go ahead and plug your phone in. Top them all. Get them charged. If you have certain items that you want to make sure they're charged. I have an emergency radio that I like to keep handy and especially if the power's out and the internet's So I like to have that, that weather radio and you can charge it, but then you can also put it for solar and a hand crank. And that's not necessarily on this list, but having a some kind of emergency radio is vital. And really it gives you some communication with the outside world. If the power were to go down where everything's down. Okay. Let's see. Number eight. And then we're going to get a few questions. Number eight is keeping cool. Now this is one thing I get a lot and you know, which is understandable, especially you guys that live down in the Southwest or for that matter, Southeast and in Florida and places like that. One of the biggest things, well, this is one thing we do at the range. This is a very simple is we have a cooler and we have ice in it. We'll drop rags down in it and then we'll wring them out and put them around our neck. It is amazing how much that helps. And there's a lot of other options for that. There's even some now we have our gel packs and you can put them on. You can take a patch that's cold and put it on your back. And those will keep your body temperature more lower. So having a way to keep cool. When we used to do a lot of training classes for shooting, tactical classes, especially in the summertime, we would keep these. And as soon as we sat down after we did whatever training we were doing, we were throwing these on our neck and the temperatures were really excessive. And that really kept us going because one of the things you don't want to do is have heat exposure or heat exhaustion or sun, you know, getting sun exhaustion or whatever and just blacking out because it can happen. So you're going to want to try to stay cool. Another way to do that, and this is something they used years ago, is taking a sheet, a big sheet, wetting it, getting it good and damp. You don't want it dripping. You just want it good and damp and then hang it up over your windows, open your windows and let the air blow through the sheets. And with that water, it's going to create a lower temperature in your home. It's not going to be like air conditioning, but it sure as heck is going to be better than just baking inside the house. And so having just some sheets and most of you should have some sheets. And again, just take them, bring them out. You want them damp, put them up in the window seals and just let the wind blow and let it flow in. There are days where this wind's just not blowing that well. So, but when you have a little bit of a breeze, this is going to give you a big help. Another thing is, is blackout curtains. Now this is dual purpose for me. If you have sunshine, specifically in a window, you have the sun hitting in one big window and it's just bearing down. Taking some blackout curtains, putting them up is going to block out the sun. It's going to keep the heat from coming inside as much. What I also like about blackout curtains is in a grid down situation, they can't see the light. You want to hide the light. You know, if there's a lot of stuff going on around you in that way, it just makes you more invisible. So if you have lights on, you have everything, especially if you have power and nobody else has power in a grid down situation, it could draw unwanted attention and having blackout curtains is going to be a great way to do it. Even if you just do it in one room where you keep that, I think it was the quiet place or one of those where they blacked out everything and then they went in and they had their room where they did their thing. And then, you know, having a room that you can keep cool specifically, it would be a great option and it's going to conserve other areas. Okay. And you can get electric fans, the small little electric fans. Those work great. You know, personal fans or just a small little electric fan that you can charge up to your generator just to keep the air flowing because that air flowing is going to be great. And then, of course, let's see, there was one other thing. Oh, spray bottles, a small spray bottle with water and get overheated, just spray yourself off. And what that does is it evaporates off of you and it takes away some of the heat. It cools things down. It acts like sweat because that's what sweat does. It just evaporates and it keeps your body cooler. And so having a little spray bottle can also help. Now, another, and this is number nine, is get outside, get under a shade tree, get under an awning, get under a lean tube and rest under there. Let the wind come and kind of keep things, just keep the sun from baking on you. When we go to the range, a lot of times to do our videos on our Seuss channel, it can be 75 degrees or 70, but if you're standing in the sun for four or five hours, you get really hot and you can feel the heat. So it doesn't have to be 90, a hundred degrees. You can get overheated and just kind of a little bit lower temperature if you're in the sun the whole time. Again, there's a lot of work that needs to be done a lot of times. So take time to get in the shade, cool off. Maybe there's some things you can do in the shade and then you can take that time and that'll just give you a little cooling off period. And number 10, which we talked about from the beginning was cards, playing cards, games, books, things, you know, and you don't want to have something that you're going to be putting a lot of energy into, something that you can kind of sit back and relax, especially if you have kids and just kind of relax and sit back, maybe learn some things. You know, one thing that I have, and I'm big about this, is I have a library, actual books. I know that's archaic now, but I have books and I have a library and I have a lot of different type books, but I have a bigger section of more survival, whether it's reference books or it's, you know, fiction books, and I say science fiction because really it is science fiction, but the Going Home series, you know, Alas Babylon. Right now I'm in the middle of The Gunslinger, which is Stephen King, and it's a post-apocalyptic, but it's got some weird stuff in there too, but just entertaining and two, just having entertaining books, but there's a lot of great books out there. I don't have it right with me, but one of the books, this one of them, what I call my one of my bibles of survival is the Modern Survival Guide to the Coming Economic Collapse, and it's actual events that happened in Argentina. I bring that book up every live because it really will change your opinion and your mindset on prepping it because it's actual events, and Argentina at the time was first world country. They're coming back big time by the way, but that is one book. It's listed down below in the description. You can click right on it. It's an Amazon link. It's an affiliate link, and a lot of people have bought that book, and I've gotten a lot of feedback from it, so that's just one thing to have a library and have some, you know, not just your Kindle, not just those things that are going to take away your power, and of course, if you're going to be able to read at night, you're going to want to have something to read by, so make sure you have that or your lanterns or whatever. Okay, let's go to some questions. We got a little bit of time left. Elena Brick says, how about a good gas can snout replacement? Some of the originals are hard to use. Listen, I hate the safety nozzles. I hate them, but especially for these, I'm sure that there are certain nozzles. I guess you got to make sure that you have the correct thread or what fits to get the right adapter. I have some military jerry cans. Well, some of them aren't even military. Some are just off-road. These Awavian jerry cans, they're pretty expensive, but they are incredible, and you actually get the nozzle. You order it, and it fits, and it closes things off. I really like the way they work, but one of the problems, again, with gasoline cans is that they can be a real pain, and for us, one time, I ran out of gas, of all things, being a prepper, but I ran out of gas right next to a freeway. We tried to put gas. It was in a Hummer, and we tried to put gas, and there was a section about this wide from where the gas can went in to where the hole was for the gas, and it wouldn't work because of the safety nozzles. So, yeah, being able to get some replacements for that are just really smart, but yes. You can buy attachments that work just like for when you're filling up your gas in your car. You can find them in different places, like on Amazon. Well, that would be great, and if you get some kind of pump system, you wouldn't have to necessarily lift it up to build some pressure, but yes, thank you, Elena, and yes, this is one of those things that just drives me crazy, so maybe I'll look into that. Angie asks, how about for low income? I survive on $1,000 a month. I know of others that live on less per month. Two, probably as far as a small space, a lot of times people have to deal with that. Let me tell you one thing about prepping, and this is something that I did early on. I would go to yard sales. I'd go to flea markets, local flea markets, go to Goodwill or Salvation Army or some place like thrift stores, just thrift stores in general. We went to a thrift store, Sarah Mackinac, and we did a video about it, finding survival items in a thrift store, and I told her before we went, I said, we'll probably have to go three or four times to get enough stuff. I'm telling you, we went one time. We had stuff piled up. We even had a Berkey water filter that was brand new in the box. We had candles. We had all kind of stuff that surprised me. One way that early on when I first started prepping would be yard sales. One time I went by a place, and this girl was a mountain climber. She was a climber, and she was selling a lot of her stuff. Now, a lot of the climbing stuff was cool, but she also had a lot of camping and different things, headlamps, all kind of stuff. In flea markets, we have gone to flea markets for years and picked up stuff, so that is typically a really less expensive way to go. Then, too, if you have some items that you want to sell, and you can all actually do that yourself. I have been to flea markets before, rented a table, put a bunch of stuff on it, and sold it. In fact, when my kids were small, we would do that sometimes. I'd just take them down just for kicks. We'd just get rid of a bunch of stuff, and we would make some money. We could take that money and go buy lunch and have a lot more because we could do real well. Don't look at it necessarily as your income, but also as what you can do to offset it. One problem is, a lot of times, is when you are on a low budget, you're buying low-quality items because they're cheaper, and that's all you can afford. Instead, go to a flea market or somewhere. One time, I went to a yard sale and bought six pairs of these very expensive shoes, very expensive leather shoes. It was a guy that did that. Go to nice areas, though. Go to really nice areas. People that have the time to go camping and hiking, they don't have the time and they sell their stuff. You can find items that way. It's not necessarily how much you have, but what you can do with what you have. You can, a lot of times, get some good quality stuff that way. FB Driver's Train Network asks, what is, if any, pro or con to reverse osmosis water filters over or compared to a Berkey? The problem with reverse osmosis, from what I understand, I am not an expert. I'm not going to pretend to be, is that it does take out a lot of the minerals and the things you need that are in water. I've heard that. It's kept me from doing that. One thing, I think it distills water. When you distill water, my brother-in-law got in a kick where he was drinking distilled water all the time. He wouldn't drink anything else. It caused some issues. You need some of those minerals and things that are in the water, the raw water. I'm not big on reverse osmosis because of that. Yes, there are a lot of... Berkey has been a little bit back and forth. We are on a serious search right now for coming up with a recommendation. It does take time because a lot of times, it's just like with the Berkey. It'll say it takes out this much, whatever. You put your filter in, it'll filter this much. At that time, six months from now, you're going to have less effectiveness. Then as it goes, less and less and less. Where does it get to the point where it becomes dangerous? That is one thing that we're doing to research. One thing that we're getting ready to do, we've been planning this for a little while, is to get back to the roots. You want to filter water and you want to know how to do it with charcoal, sand, grass, gravel, the old-fashioned way, and run it. You still need to boil the water once you run it through that. It gets all the sediment. It gets all the junk. It does filter it out to a decent level, but then boiling it really puts it over the top. You want to have the ability to be able to do these things that aren't necessarily store-bought. That is one thing that we especially water. Water is a big one. I wish I could say reverse osmosis would be awesome, but I've heard some negative things about it. Again, I'm not an end-all expert. I could be wrong, but that's just what I heard. Someone did recommend it as a way to get the salt water. That may be a good process if you live on the coast. The guy that asked the question earlier, I'd have to research it to recommend that. A lot of times, listen guys, here's the problem with the internet. There are so many different, oh, you need to do this to bring your health. The doctors aren't telling you this, you need to do this, you need to do this. We're big about naturopath medicine and holistic medicines as far as treatments and the way we live, but sometimes you've got to be careful and know your source. That goes with water, it goes with medical, it goes with whatever. Just be aware. DZ Ren says, what are the main things to maintain on a generator that is not used on a regular basis? Well, you just want to keep it clean. You want to use non-ethanol gas. When you finish with your generator, you want to drain it. You want to keep it drained. Actually, what we do is we'll have a little bit of gas left and we'll run it out. That gets it out of the carburetor, it gets it out altogether. Non-ethanol gas is going to go a long way. Your oil, make sure you keep up with your oil. Then there are certain things that are moving especially on the outside that you want to just keep maintained. Certain springs, make sure that you keep it stored properly. That's another thing. Overall, that is pretty much keeping up with the oil is typically the only issues that really require a lot. With this, it's a very self-contained type generator system and it is quiet, but our big one is loud as can be. One thing I want to say about generators, guys, is make sure that the exhaust, where the exhaust is coming out, it's going away from your house. It's going away from wherever you are because it's one thing that when we first got our generator, we had it under an area behind our house and all of a sudden, we had that thing on and we could smell it. I went out and we turned it and made sure that it was going in the correct direction. Get it going away from your house. As far as really just keeping up with the oil, if there's certain things that need to be done and keeping it stored properly, I think that is a big thing too as well. Two, start it up. Every once in a while, get out there and just start it up. That's a big deal. One thing I like is there are some that are just push buttons. Then there's some that are pull. I like to have both if possible. I don't want to just have a push button because that is a failure point. I want to make sure that I do have my pull cord option. I can use the push button if I want it, but if I need to, I can jump start it with that pull because for me, what can go wrong will go wrong. Kaylin Strain asks, I live in a small apartment and don't drive. Can I store a 10-pound propane tank on my deck? Some apartments are freaking out, so you might want to just check unless you keep it hidden. If I was going to do that, number one, I would keep it hidden because somebody will take it. Keeping a small propane... One thing you can do though is these. These are great, little one-pounders. Again, there's a lot of people that have asked questions over the years that have said, hey, my apartment that I live in, they won't allow for you to have propane. Butane is an option, but they may not know about it, but it seems to be a little bit more discreet. The one thing you want to be careful of, guys, and this is especially with an apartment, you have people that are around you and you got to take some responsibility for that. And you don't want something that's volatile that can, if a fire starts, that it can get worse. So personally, keeping a propane tank or 20-pound propane tank outside and keep it covered where somebody doesn't know what it is, I would do that. I would do that because that is going to give you some advantage. Let me just... And I've said this a number of times in our videos, but prepping is not an end-all. And what we're talking about right now is not necessarily prepping for a grid down, but it's even for that. Prepping is not an end-all. It is something that will buy you time. There will be a new normal. There always is. There's terrible things that go through history that have happened. Culture's decimated, things happening, and big wars and civil unrest. But sooner or later, things kind of dwindle down and people's emotions kind of peter out and then there's a new normal. And that's what you're looking for. But you want to survive until that time. And that's one of the things to me about prepping. You can't do it all. You're not going to have everything you need to the end of your life. But you can have some things to get you through a year, two years, that'll help expand you into another place. Mike, you asked, do you have any power banks that work with Apple products? Mine doesn't stay charging on a power bank. My phones do. We have Apple phones. We do. I have an iPad. It will. My wife has an Apple computer. That's different. It's a desktop and you're not going to be necessarily unless you have a bigger generator. We haven't. Have you ever had that problem? I've never had that problem with my Apple phone or my iPads. Any problems with your iPads? No. Maybe just make sure that you have a good cord. That might be a potential problem. Yeah. Make sure you have a cord. Make sure that the port's not messed up. In fact, I had my Apple phone one time that I'd charge it and it wouldn't charge. I kept trying to get it to charge. I took it to the Apple place and the guy looked in the port and there was lint in it. He took a little pick and he said, you need to keep this clean. Now, I have it enclosed. The port is closed. It doesn't get that lint like it did before with what I was using. Check your ports on there. Check your cord and then check with Apple. To me, a power source is a power source. If it's getting power, you're able to charge your devices. Especially looking into the wireless charging. If you can find a wireless charging for your iPhone. Now, he could be talking about a number of different items. Make sure that you have enough power to back up what you have. It may be something small may just not have the capacity. I would check into that as well. You can find that online. Again, not knowing exactly what you have. You could have like a big notebook or whatever and try to keep it charged. This will not charge it or it will charge it very little. Something larger, more capacity. You're probably going to be able to charge it. C. Pullnut says, hey Don, with all that has gone on the past year or so, have you done any updates to your blackout box? Well, you know, it's funny. We didn't really. I've still got my blackout box. It stays in our closet, our emergency closet. And it's where we go if there's a tornado or whatever. And it's a pretty large closet under our stairwell. But what I have expanded and expanded it greatly is my blackout big box. And this is really, like I was saying earlier in the video, we have containers of the supplies. I don't have my generator in a container. This is actually when I purchased from my parents. They live next door to us. And we have a generator. So theirs was out. So we got this for them. And it was portable, so it was easy to bring in. But we have like extension cords. We have our lighting. We have our lanterns. We have our fuel. We have some propane cans. We have batteries. We have all that stuff in three different large containers. And we have it in one place. So my blackout box has expanded great. You know, it really happened when we had a power outage a while back. And then when we had the big power outage, it was like, okay, when it was over, we were like, we are going to have this organized because I don't want to search through everything. So overall, this is pretty much our blackout box. And we have these items in there, but the box has gotten huge. We had a really big one, but it broke. So we, you know, the handles in it. So we've got three smaller ones, but yet it fits everything in there. And guys, again, we know where everything is if we need it. So, but my little box, yeah, I keep that still in the closet. If I need something immediately, I go in, open it up. I've got what I need to get to this stuff. So, but as far as overall items, what I'm talking about here is pretty much a scaled down version. Okay guys, well, it's one o'clock, man, that went by fast. Thank you for being here, guys. I mean, these are items that just a standard power outage, if it's just for a couple of days or a day for that matter. And this will give you what you need to keep your refrigerator going. We'll give you light. Again, a couple of high points, the BioLite, highly recommended. And I think we have a link on our website. We have a little store where we do our website. We have that. The EcoFlow, huge, huge. The EcoFlow is a little bit more expensive, but huge nonetheless. And so guys, thanks for watching. Again, a big thank you to ExoTac. And this is a vital part of your power outage, especially if it's for a number of days, you may need to start your grill. Maybe your magneto is not working. Maybe you need to start a fire. Maybe you need some light at night, whatever. Having a fire kit is going to be important. ExoTac makes some of the best fire starting tools out there, made down in Winder, Georgia. You get 20% off using Sooch20 with the link down below in the description. And a big thank you to Ceramac. Also check out soochgear.com. That is our website. And we really would appreciate you stopping by. And we have a newsletter and we have a big giveaway that we're doing this month. We do a monthly giveaway. So go check it out. No, no charge to enter. But anyway, we're going to, in fact, that one's going to run down by the end of this month. So be strong, be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the Republic.