[00:00:00] :  this. This this show is brought to you by safety FM. Warning. The following broadcast contains adult language, adult content, frank safety discussions and stories that might sound unbelievable. But believe me, every one of those stories is true. We didn't start the safety war, but we are going to fight to win it for our families, for our communities, for our workplaces and for our lives. I had a conversation this weekend with a family member who visited us and the conversation was on generators. I had recently acquired a new generator and I was telling him about it. He says my wife would love to have a whole home generator and the generator for the house and everything. But I have a hard time justifying the cost and everything else. And I said, well, you have to do an assessment here. What your needs are, what your experiences are, what the realities are. So you have, I'm gonna assume that most of the listeners are on the power grid here. Most of our people that would be uh, were connected to a generating station. Uh, somewhere it could be nuclear. It could be a coal fired power plants, It could be a gas fired power plant. Some type of power plant. When generated solar, what have you. And now for whatever reason that power plant is going to go out. It could be for a whole host of reasons here. What are we talking about? We're talking a storm may come through. My biggest experience with power outage was when a storm came through name. Superstorm Sandy, we were out of energy for about 11 days. The grid was down for 11 days, fortunately we had and I mentioned this in previous programs, we had water running water, you can't drink it, but at least you can flush the toilets. Things of that nature for sanitation, but without power, what happens? Hopefully you're going to get power restored quickly and your food and everything is not going to spoil necessarily as long as you don't open up a refrigerator or freezer and you know, everything is in there, it's gonna keep for some time, whatever that is. I don't know that little disclaimer here. I don't know. It depends on the situation. I don't know what you have in there so therefore I can't guarantee an outcome. So hopefully for 0-24 hours, what would be appropriate? Depending on the time of year, nothing may be appropriate. Okay, we're just gonna ride it out. We're gonna not have power. We're gonna just hang out for 24 hours. Maybe you have a portable generator to run a couple of appliances. Maybe some lights charge up those cellphones, maybe TV. Let's say that you're assuming that you have TV whatever. Not really a big deal. What? No, unless you have some some special circumstances like a medical issue where you have to run medical machinery in the house things of that nature. So category two from 24 to 72 or 96 hours in that range. Now you start to think, well maybe it will be a great idea to have a generator? What do you need to think about with a generator? You just don't go out there and get a generator and say, hey, everything's great. What kind are we gonna have? Are we gonna have a natural gas or propane fueled? What are we going to have a diesel generator where it's usually those are trailer mounted larger for larger applications, like big buildings or are we going to have a portable? What are we gonna have a, I won't mention the name, but there is a company that advertises in large hardware stores that has, where automatically comes on once power is lost. Right, that may work for two or three days. Now let's talk one thing fuel. Okay, fuel, you have to figure out how much fuel you're going to need for that generator. And if that generator runs, let's say for, for for a gallon an hour, let's make a simple math, a gallon an hour, which will be pretty large generator, That would be 24 hours of fuel in the 24 hour period. What would that be 100 and 56 gallons of fuel in a week at current gas prices, That would be a real considerable amount of money and fuel. But are you gonna run it all that time? Maybe? Probably not. Maybe you're gonna run it intermittently, four hours on, four hours off, that sort of thing. Something you need to consider where you're going to get the fuel where you're gonna store the fuel? Is it safe to even store that amount of fuel? Is illegal to store that amount of fuel with a gasoline generator. Okay, now, let's talk about propane or some type of gas hook up uh, with propane you only have. Now you have to figure out how much propane versus the amount of time that generator is gonna run. And remember you're running that on a load, How much are you gonna need? And again, the same questions, can we buy that much fuel is illegal to store that much fuel isn't safe to store that fuel. Do I have the facility? So the one advantage that if you have something plugged into again, the uh, gas supply for your neighborhood, which is piped through through pipelines. Well, your pipe through through pipelines. Okay. How long if the pipeline goes down, how much fuel are we going to have in there? How much pressure are we gonna have in that system? Well, I'm told about 1 to 2 days if it shuts down. That's my research that says on there thankfully. During Superstorm Sandy, we didn't lose that. But again, you know, what are you going to prepare, prepare for? Uh, I've spoken to people that are so freaked out over small engines. They don't even own a lawnmower, They wouldn't even know how to start one up? So now you buy one, can you maintain it? Can you start the thing all of that goes in there and can are you relying on one person? Do you have capacity? Can are you relying on one person in that household to operate this equipment? Whether that person is gone something you need to consider. Now we get on to a category three where you're up to one month without power. Is that foreseeable? Yeah. Was here for me. That's what we went through at that point, you have to consider, well, am I going to stay with my house or in my apartment or domicile? Whatever we're calling it? Where am I gonna bug out? Am I gonna go somewhere else? Am I going to go over a relative's house? Over a friend's house and a shelter, a second home, what have you? And if you have a second home, remember you have to have stuff prepared there in case something goes out in case you have to do a bug out over there, something you need to consider how you're gonna get there. We're gonna talk about that on a future program. How about an excess of one month. Now you're talking about a situation here. So I live in the Northeast here, New Jersey new york and you get this talk about off the grid when you start to get into over three days, four days for that power and you think that's a likely scenario like there are some places that west that are like that now, you have to consider living and working off the grid as at least as far as energy is concerned, there are many different alternatives. One of the things is people in my area and I don't know if this is everywhere. They put up solar panels on their house because they're able to put energy back in the grid, the quote unquote overall grid, but they may not be able to use that energy in their own house that only goes back into the grid. Generally speaking, it may be illegal to have those solar panels that the government just gave you a subsidy on to have it for your own house and only your own house. So that may that may be a uh, a problem. How are you going to set up those solar panels? Uh, the other thing is they do make solar generators where they hook up, you hook up a power bank to that solar panel and you have enough energy runoff of that power bank. Some of my projects run off of power banks prior to us getting electric on the project? They work pretty well. But again, one of those power banks good for, is it a battery that's only going to run for an hour for some lights or is it going to be something longer for three or four hours? Some of the other alternatives, Some of the other things, wind power that's making it come back in a lot of areas in the country is wind power. What's my point on all of this? You need to plan out for it. You have to figure out what's gonna work for you and what you're gonna be able to manage and other people in your household are going to be able to manage with power. Another thing to consider wood burning or coal stoves and furnaces and things of that nature. Some areas of the country you cannot have a coal or wood furnace for a house without a permit, fireplaces, fine furnace for and they do make them even here in the metro New york, New Jersey area, they still make wood and it's illegal and coal furnaces for houses, but you need a permit. Now you're dealing with safety issues, let's say that you're going to be uh heating the house with wood. Are you capable of responding to an emergency with like a fire? That's do you have a fire extinguisher? Is 911 going to be available or emergency services available. A lot of that goes into it with a generator. Often what people do is they put them in their garage or in their basement because there's a security issue and they end up getting carbon monoxide poisoning or fire. So you have to think about that. You have the generator outside. How are you going to secure it? One of the more creative strategies that thieves used during Superstorm Sandy was that they got lawnmowers and they put them in the back people's backyards at night. So it sounded like a generator and then they took the generator, person goes down in the morning and the lawnmower is running pretty funny in a way. But that's what people were doing. That's what people does for things fuel. Are you going to store the fuel? So for example, during Superstorm Sandy people and I'm not gonna give people ideas on what people do where people were transporting fuel unsafely and bringing it into the inner city to run generators in new york city and in other areas that did not have fuel that had fuel shortages. A lot of people got hurt. A lot of people got arrested also for doing that and that was a D. O. T violation. Those tend to get very expensive very quickly. Those are some of the things I wanted to talk about on energy. We're gonna talk about communication next. And let's not forget, assess, analyze and act accordingly. You gotta know what situation you need to be in or what you need to prepare for to win that safety war during a disaster for safety wars. This is jim in the professional safety community communication and planning are just a few keys to your program success. The question many practitioners have is where do I start dr J allen, the creator of the safety FM platform and host of the our safety show has built a global foundation to help you along the way. Go to safety FM dot com and listen to some of the industry's best and most involved professionals, including Blaine Hoffman with the safety pro sam Goodman with the hop nerd Sheldon. Primus with the safety consultant Jim proposal with safety wars, Emily, L Rod with unapologetically bold and many others. 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