Texans Share Inventive Ways They’re Getting Through Winter Storms

If you wanted proof that prepping for an unexpected emergency pays off, then look no further than the events in Texas this February.

Now, Texas is admittedly a large state, with quite wide variations in the weather. Even so, across huge swathes of the place, snowstorms, ice, and plummeting temperatures have left much of the population without gas, electricity, or clean drinking water.

Neither was the crisis some brief flash in the pan, reported CNN on the 21^st of February. Snow, ice, and water failures persisted for longer than a week before there appeared any signs of a thaw.

At least 26 people died, millions of families were forced to scavenge for firewood to keep themselves warm and supermarket shelves emptied as supply chains were severed or disrupted. Because of the widespread freezing of waterpipes, up to a half of the entire population had problems finding enough water to drink – and when they did, they were urged to boil it.

Who was prepared?

Some Texans were better prepared than others. As the UK’s Mail Online suggested on the 18^th of February, they might be able to show us a lesson or two about surviving and making the best of such an extreme weather event and the ensuing emergency:

Food

• probably the most obvious and immediately helpful advice to preppers everywhere is the need for a stock of long-life, non-perishable food to see you through any natural or manmade emergency or crisis;

• the choice is likely to focus on tinned food – and, indeed, the Mail cited as especially resourceful one Texan who had laid down no fewer than 192 cans of SPAM;

• that’s a number that is going to see you through all but the most apocalyptic of disasters – though for both your health and your appetite, you might want to experiment with a little variety in the diet;

Heat and light

• food eaten cold and straight from the tin might sustain you for a day or so, but it won’t be long before you want it heated – it will prove more nourishing and the warmth may better prepare you for the freezing conditions around you;

• if both gas and electricity supplies are out, of course, you then have a problem – unless you’re happy to chop up the furniture to burn on an open fire;

• before you do that, consider the options pursued by the preppers in Texas who either took their cooking outside to the handily pre-prepared BBQ pit or butane-cylinder gas stove or brought the latter indoors on which to do some cooking;

Water

• the situation in Texas also underlined yet again the essential, life-sustaining qualities of fresh drinking water – along with the failure of all energy supplies, the lack of fresh water threatened to be the straw to break the camel’s back;

• it led to a crop of reports about people melting snow to drink – but that, of course, also required access to a butane gas stove, grill, or open fire, unless you were prepared to wait until what very little sunlight there was to turn the snow into water.

The tales from Texas in the last week or so have stressed the resourcefulness of those best placed to pull through a – relatively severe but temporary – natural emergency.

The truly resourceful, moreover, were also those who were best prepared. Resourcefulness and preparation, then, are perhaps the most valuable lessons to be learned from the Lone Star State in recent days.