When the Lights Go Out
$9.99
What’s in it: 16 chapters, including:
Building a fire: fire lays, homemade fire starters, and the Dakota fire hole.
Cooking over a fire, with five easy recipes and safe cooking temperatures.
Cooking without a campfire: a brick rocket stove, a tin can stove, the old-time hay box and a solar oven.
Light when the power’s out, with step-by-step directions for the Crisco candle, an olive oil lamp and a tuna can lamp.
Shelter, including tarp shelters and a debris hut.
Making water safe, with the CDC’s bleach chart.
Food that keeps, riding out a power outage, and generator safety.
Basic first aid, knots, and keeping clean.
There are drawings of the fire setups, the stoves, the Crisco candle, the tarp shelters and the water filter. At the back are a 30-day plan, a family emergency plan page, a phone list, a water log and pages for notes.
The safety numbers come from the CDC, USDA and FEMA’s Ready.gov, like the bleach drops per gallon, boiling time, how long food lasts in the fridge, and keeping a generator 20 feet from the house. People sometimes get hurt following survival tips, so it also warns about carbon monoxide and Crisco grease fires.
Please read these parts: I wrote the opening letter and three tip boxes in your voice. One of the boxes ends with “Faith, family and a good neighbor are the best survival gear there is.” Make sure they sound like you, and tell me anything to change.