BristolUK

The family I married into experienced the 1998 ice storm where they went to 'shelters' at various buildings like schools for a few days so I've always been aware of the potential.

We don't get many outages here in my bit of the city, the longest was just a few hours but I know a few hundred yards away they were without for 2 or 3 days.

We have a wood stove for emergency heat and there's a hot plate thing on it. I bought a kettle for it thinking of hot drinks, instant soup but we've never had to test it in 16 winters.

If power goes out in the evening with no indication of when it's back, I immediately fill up a hot water bottle and put that in bed and consider going to bed early, avoiding becoming cold. My bedside clock/radio has battery back up for several hours.

There's usually food that can be eaten without being cooked. Tinned ham kept in reserve.

But tea lights and Balti pans. That works? Does it make water hot enough for coffee or instant soup?

It's just reminded me that we have some warmer set tucked away somewhere with stands and bowls. That might do the job.

And maybe a magicbag could be heated. I find them better than hot water bottles.

Danny B

Rete

Jim and I were at his place in Ontario when the ice storm of 1998 hit and I was locked in Canada because no transportation was going in or out of the province. We had no heat of electricity but Jim had a camp stove that we used to make tea and meals and lots of arctic wear clothing to keep warm. Granted Texans don't necessarily have those things available. The news is saying only 1 million are left without power out of the previous 5 million. Some progress has been made. You would think with the threat of hurricanes and tornadoes in Texas they would have basic survival gear stored away.

BristolUK

Just been experimenting. For lunch I was going to reheat a tomato and cheese pasta.
What we have is this:



Two tealights at each end. The flame kept going out on one candle as the dish was too close. Raising it just moved the problem to the other one of the pair. So I folded some paper and wedged it between frame and dish. That did the trick.

I put four cups of water in one - there are four of us so I wanted to see if that worked - and some of the pasta in the other one.

After an hour, you could feel warming dishes and the lids fogged up a little. I don't think the water worked well enough for a hot drink.

Removing the lid from the pasta didn't suggest much heating had occurred, but then I stirred it and was shocked by the appearance of steam. It could have been hotter but if you're cold and want something warming it was really very good.

I can imagine it would work for baked beans, tinned soup - especially the chunky kind, stagg chili etc

So, thank you Siouxie, for the great idea.

Of course you can't beat these


But it would probably invalidate your insurance in the event you burned your house down.

Jerseygirl

When we lived in NJ the electricity was often out. We had a camping stove and a small Calor gas cylinder. We had a gas fire which didn’t really throw out much heat...we had several open plan, 2 story rooms, it was impossible to keep them warm. In the basement we kept the usual stuff in case of tornadoes/hurricanes etc.

scrubbedexpat091

Always my biggest fear, having a fire in the building we live in. Luckily for us its never happened, but I can't imagine how hard it is to find a rental when your suddenly displaced due to fire along with 60 other units into a market with almost no available rentals to begin with.

It will be difficult for everyone who was displaced, and depending on how long they were in their rental, there might not even be any rentals on the market they can afford.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...fire-1.5918007

Danny B

1hr to go

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

scrubbedexpat091

Atmospheric Entry has occurred.

Listening to the live feed online.

Touchdown completed.

Danny B

It boggles my mind how they got those first few photos back to earth so quick. Great job NASA., or is it called US Space Force now

Siouxie

Ah - a little different to mine - which are the same as this one (but with a pattern on the side) circa 1987, lol... used with a couple of metal Balti dishes.. which heat up quickly.


Glad it worked for you!
(apparently mine is called 'vintage' LOL Vintage Brabantia Eternal Beau Tea light Plate Food Warmer

scrubbedexpat091

If you didn't know it was Mars, you could almost say it was somewhere desert like on Earth, although the sky does look a bit different than Earth's but maybe its my brain knowing its not Earth and playing tricks on me.

BristolUK

Canada Post gave them a good deal.

Danny B

I woke up with this song in my head this morning

scrubbedexpat091

Less than 2 million, old convivence store building + character home with 3 rental suites, under 2 million.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/120-year-old-e...n-2m-1.5319060

The picture of the rental suite presumably looks not too bad.

Danny B

Hopefully this twitter link loads where you can see the video of the new rover touching down on Mars. Absolutely amazing.

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