More Chaos At The Cannery

In case you haven't tried to contact the cannery lately, here's what's been going on. They have been getting hit with waves of people coming in and buying up all they have in stock for a few months now! I called this morning to see if they had any rice in stock and they told me they didn't have any grains - wheat, rice, oats, nor any of the pre-packaged kits the church is starting to sell. They didn't even have cans to can at home! In the same breath, the sister missionary told me a truck had just come in and that she wasn't sure what exactly was on it. I thought, I'd go down and just see what was in, hoping that maybe I'd get lucky..... and I did. I'll tell you though, I walked in to stand in a line of at least 3 dozen people and all their non-school age kids (as well as my own) and it was chaotic! After an hour, I finally was able to fill my order and they are in fact, rationing. Everyone was only allowed to purchase 6 bags maximum of dried goods (to take home and can yourself). And of those six bags, you could only buy 2 bags of each product, maximum (eg. 2 bags beans, 2 bags oats, 2 bags red wheat)! The sister missionary there told me that the cannery is no longer buying white wheat until the next harvest because white wheat is not a product the church grows and the prices are so high. The church grows red wheat on their farm land in Montana and they will continue to supply that.

I speculate that today's surge at the cannery was probably fueled by this article on the front page of the Daily Herald: "Economy Shakes World Food Suppply" http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/264091/36/
It's actually an article from the Washington Post that has been published in our local paper.

One last thing - they had a new sheet/handout at the cannery I picked up and I'll list the information verbatum:

Do You REALLY Have A Year's Supply?

Just how big is a Year's Supply of food? As explained on the previous page, our Church is suggesting the following minimums for each adult:

400 lbs. Grains (17.5 oz./day)

60 lbs. Beans (2.6 oz./ day)

10 Quarts Cooking Oil (0.87 oz./day)

60 lbs. Honey (2.63 oz./day)

8 lbs. Salt (0.35oz/day)

16 lbs. Powdered Milk (0.7 oz./day)

So, just how much is this?

Two 5 gallon buckets will hold about 75 lbs. of wheat, rice or other grains. This means you need 11 buckets of grain for each person in your family.

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If you store all your grains in #10 cans.............

Wheat, Rice, Corn, etc...

You would need 64 cans or 10.5 cases per person.

Pasta

You would need 32 cans or 5.25 cases per person.

Rolled Oats

These are lighter but bulkier, so they require more storage containers and space. You would need 124 cans or 21 cases per person.

Beans

1 25 lb bag of beans will just about fit in a single 5 gallon bucket, with a little space leftover, so 2 buckets would hold a one person supply, or 12-13 #10 cans (about 2 cases).

Daily Food

Dividing 400 obs. by 356 days equals out to 1.09589 lbs, or just over 1 lb. of grain per person, per day. That is approximately 2 cups of unground grain to cover your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Dividing 60 lbs. by 365, this works out to 0.16 lbs. of beans per day, or 2.6 oz - approximately 3/4 cup.

The other foods listed would also need to be used in limited amounts.

This is not much food, folks. Get the basics, then immediately begin to ass more kinds of grain, soup mix, canned and/or dehydrated vegetables and fruit, etc. to add variety and provide more than the minimal survival diet.

As an example, the minimum recommended amount of grain, when ground and prepared will yield about 6 small biscuits or a plate full of pancakes. It is enough to keep you alive, but a far cry from being satisfied and not hungry.

"You Are Here. Where Is Your Family?"

Have any of you seen this billboard (or one just like it) lately along I15 going northbound right around the American Fork/Lehi area? Where are you in your emergency plan? If you think about it, the idea of having an emergency meeting place set up must have some credence for the government to be putting these types of billboards out.

A suggestion - have a family night on where you'll meet if something goes wrong. Ask yourselves "If something went wrong, what is our plan?" Would mom stay at home with the kids until dad got there? Would you meet at Aunt June's house? What streets would you take? Suppose you end up at Aunt June's, but your wife and kids or your husband doesn't? Will you have a map handy that lists what streets they anticipated taking if it ever came to that? At what point do you go and try to find each other? After a day? Two days? You get the picture. This is definitely a discussion you need to have amongst your family members. You might try getting online to some place like www.mapquest.com or www.googlemaps.com and print off various routes you might take. It might not be as extravagant as it sounds, but when you're making out your routes, keep in mind there are different severities of disasters. It might be as simple as something like power lines being down in a bad storm, or maybe freeways will be totally inaccessible in the event of the earthquake. If that were the case, you'd need to find a route you could take that would still be in working function.

For your information, here's an excerpt from the Ad Council's website (www.adcouncil.org) with an interesting statistic:

"91% of Americans believe it’s important to be prepared for emergencies. However, only 55% of households report having taken any steps at all to prepare. In order to encourage more Americans to prepare themselves, their families and their communities, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has sponsored public service advertisements that educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to all kinds of emergencies. "

Be one of the 55%!

Back To Basics - This Is Where To Start

Q & A Session:

"Do I really need a 55 gallon drum of water?"

Yes - at least. The Department of Homeland Security has an information page on it. It's at:www.fema.gov/plan/prepare/water . According to FEMA, we should store at least one gallon of water per person, per day. A normally active person needs at least one-half gallon of water daily just for drinking. Take into account your family's needs. Do you have babies on formula, freeze dried or dehydrated food in your food supply, etc. Also, don't forget you're going to want to wash those dishes and bathe yourselves. I was personally in a 6.8 earthquake in Southern California and we did not have running water for 2 weeks. Not to mention all the sediment that was in the water after it hadn't been running for that long.

"What types of containers are the best for storing your water?"

There are a variety of good storage containers. The most ideal for large storage would be the blue 55 gallon drums. Ideally you want the dark blue containers because white drums or light colored drums promote the growth of bacteria. Exposing them to alot of sunlight also encourages bacterial growth. These "food grade" plastic containers come in a variety of sizes - available from 5 gallon and 15 gallon up to 55 gallon drums.

"I don't have enough money for one of the big drums. Is there anything I can do that won't cost alot?"

Water may be stored in 2 Liter soda bottles. Just wash them out thorougly with hot soapy water. I usually fill mine up with water and let it set for a couple days before I dump that water out and refill it with the water I will store ( it helps take some of the soda flavor out). If you store water this way, you need to put two drops of bleach in each bottle. I have heard mixed information on storing water in juice containers. I don't. What I heard was something to the effect of how natural sugars in the juice will turn the water bad after its stored for very long. Also, milk containers are not recommended. When my family was in that earthquake we lived off of my mom's soda bottles of water. They had a tint of rootbeer and orange soda flavor, but they worked! We used to gripe when she'd make us spend one summer morning every year rotating them, but that shut us up pretty quick!

"What about storing water in bleach containers - I heard that you could do that...?"

It's very dangerous to store your water in bleach containers. Not only does it increase the chance of someone drinking full strength bleach on accident, but after time, the chemicals from the bleach that seeped into the container become toxic. It is also important to remember that when you add bleach to your storage water, that it needs to be fresh and cannot have other additives - just plain bleach, or you'll make yourselves sick.

" I heard that we're not supposed to store our water on concrete...why not, and how do you suggest storing it?"

According to preparedness lecturer Kenneth Moravec: "Concrete attracts fluids and 'bleeds.' Anything that has been on or in that concrete will find its way into your plastic water barrel. This includes the lime in the concrete, any hazardous materies (i.e. gasoline, oils, kerosene or anything a contractor used in construction), algae, etc. Usually it is not enough to make the water toxic but it will taint the water enough to make the taste unbearable. And no amount of pouring it fom container to container will take that taste away."

The best way to store that water is on two by fours making a pallet out of it.

"Where can I find the best prices on water storage containers?"

When Macey's runs their "emergency preparedness sale" you can usually get the 55 gallon drums for around $39. I've seen them sell for as high as $89 a barrel at Emergency Essentials. Watch for the sales! There's a place I've used to purchase our water storage barrels for the ward and our food grade buckets/lids and its called Industrial Container. They are located in downtown Salt Lake City. They by far are the best priced! We got them down to somewhere around $32 ea.

I'm going to post this info for now and will be adding to it soon. Anyone with questions can click on the comments icon below and ask, and I'll try to answer it and post it for everyone to learn from.