Pretty amazing from Wright Patterson Air Force Base! 1 - 3 months they say! More than anyone else official, that's for sure!

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/y2k/ihp_pg1.html [Wright Patterson Air Force Base] ------------------------------------------------------

Food and Water Storage

Food and water are essential for survival in any situation. This should be your main priority in preparing for Y2k. Some people recommend storing between 1 and 3 months supply of food and water for you and your family. This may not be feasible for those with limited incomes and/or limited space, so store what you can. You can only do what you can do, so do that!

What kind of food should I store? Whatever you normally eat should be what you store. The idea is to build a store of foods that are part of your everyday diet, and rotate them out of storage as you use them. Of course, not all things store well. If you buy prepared foods like pasta, spaghetti sauce, cereal, and the like, check the expiration dates to see how long each item can be stored. Dried beans store very well, as do most grains. Obviously, fresh fruits and vegetables cannot be stored, but you can grow them in your yard, or in containers indoors, to supplement your diet of stored foods.

Where can I store food? Identify a cool, dry, dark place. The temperature should be between 32 and 70 degrees F, and the humidity less than 15%. The cooler the storage area, the longer the foods will retain their quality. There should also be adequate ventilation to prevent condensation of moisture on the packaging materials. Keep the food off the floor to minimize insect infestation and spoilage due to possible flooding. If you dont have a good storage place already, you may want to make one room of your house into a pantry. By covering the windows, keeping the door closed, and adjusting the furnace/air conditioning vent, you can control the climate to suit.

How should I store the food? The goal is to keep light, humidity and any critter that wants to eat your food OUT, while keeping the freshness IN. Only store food in food-grade (HDPE) containers. Plastic buckets with tight fitting lids work well for storing bulk grains and beans (restaurants oftentimes give these away). The beans can be placed directly in the containers and sealed. If you are storing grains, it is important to kill any bugs that might be in the grain before you store them. An easy way to accomplish this is to fumigate the grain with dry ice. For details on this procedure, go to page 12 of Utah State Universitys Food Storage in the Home on-line publication at http://ext.usu.edu/publica/foodpubs/fn502.pdf [Note: PDF file download; requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view].

How do I store drinking water? First, you need to ensure that your water is bacteria-free before storing it. Water can be boiled, or treated with chlorine, iodine, or stabilized oxygen. Store the purified water in food-grade (HDPE) containers that block the light and are small enough to carry. Make sure to store water in a dark place. If these principles are followed, your water should keep indefinitely. If it tastes flat when you bring it out of storage, you can oxygenate it simply by pouring it back and forth from one container to another several times. More tips for emergency water supply and storage are available from the Emergency Preparedness Information Center at http://theepicenter.com/tow02236.html .

Drinking water storage basics -- the bleach method. Prevent microorganism growth in stored water by treating with 5.25 percent sodium hypochlorite (household liquid chlorine bleach). The bleach must contain only sodium hypochlorite, no soap or perfumes. Add four drops of bleach per quart of water (or two scant teaspoons per 10 gallons), and stir. Seal your water containers tightly, label them and store them in a cool, dark place.

See the FEMA Emergency Food & Water page, http://www.fema.gov/library/emfdwtr.htm , for more details.

Since chlorine doesn't taste too great, and is also a carcinogen, you may want to consider purchasing a filter so that you can remove the chlorine from your stored water prior to drinking it.

Note: If you are storing large quantities of water at a time -- for example, in U.N.-style 55-gallon water barrels -- and you plan to fill your containers using a garden hose, make certain that the hose is drinking water safe. The hose should be marked as such, or should be of the type sold by recreational vehicle dealers for connection to motorhomes or trailers.

What about non-drinking water? You will still need water to flush the toilet (if the sewer system is working), wash clothes and dishes, and bathe. You could purchase a water storage tank and keep it filled for emergencies.

Need more information? For detailed information on food storage in the home, Utah State Extension has a 21-page publication available at http://ext.usu.edu/publica/foodpubs/fn502.pdf [Note: PDF file download; requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view]. For a complete listing of their food and nutrition on-line publications, go to http://ext.usu.edu/publica/foodpubs.htm . This is a great resource for information on food preservation!

Site free use copyright ) 1998 RV-Y2k Task Force

Last Update: 16 Nov 99 Home Prep Menu Y2k Home WPAFB Home

------------------------------------------------------ Please review our Privacy and Security Notice.

The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of the Air Force of the associated Web site or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of the Air Force does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD Web site. ------------------------------------------------------ Page Owner: Michelle Corcoran, ASC/HPCI, (937) 255-6610 ext.248, michelle.corcoran@wpafb.af.mil Page Editor: James Henley, ASC/HPCI, (937) 255-6610 ext.311, james.henley@wpafb.af.mil

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), December 17, 1999

Answers

P.S. That was from Gary North. Like to give credit where credit is due!

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), December 17, 1999.

Note that this is the first official recommendation for Victory Gardens. Won't be the last.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 17, 1999.

Some info regarding the above info:

This was not written by anyone at WPAFB, but was cut and pasted from the Rogue Valley Y2K Taskforce webpage. To get to this page at the WPAFB site, you would normally click from a page containing the following words, actually written by someone at the base:

"Chances are good that 1 January 2000 will pass without serious problems. If you live on WPAFB, you most likely won't experience any problems. Electricity, water, sewer, telephone, and even cable-TV service should continue uninterrupted. If you live off-base, pretty much the same status should prevail. Chances are that you won't experience any service disruptions at all. However, if you do live in an isolated area of Ohio and can't get a clear statement of the status of your utilities from your service providers, you might want to make a few preparations, just in case the worst happens."

During the discussion of this over on c.s.y2k, someone sent an email to the webmaster of the WPAFB site asking for an explanation of the percieved discrepancy in advice. This was the response:

"The Project Manager has asked me to address your concern and you've brought up a valid point. Pease note that the information originated with the Rogue Vally Y2K Taskforce in Oregon. The information was prefaced with the caveat that the conditions under which the recommendations applied were not likely to exist in or around urban areas such as Dayton. Given that we now have a high level of confidence that the Y2K rollover will pass largely un-noticed, I don't feel that the recommendation is valid unless you live in an area where your utilities and public services are so unreliable that you have no confidence in their Y2K Readiness status. In that case, you are facing the "worst-case" scenario and it might be prudent to plan accordingly. From your comments, it appears that you accessed our Individual and Household Preparedness pages from a search engine rather than from our Public Homepage. Please take a look at the homepage (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/y2k/) and let me know if you still have a serious problem with the recommended actions in the backup pages. If you still think there's a problem, others might also. The purpose of our public site is to educate our local community (military and civilian) so they can make informed decisions about their own preparations for the Y2K Rollover. If our pages fail to accomplish that, we need to correct them. James R Henley (james.henley@wpafb.af.mil) Y2K Project Team ASC/HPC, Area B, Bldg 676, Rm 102"

All this and more in a thread entitled:

"Wright Patterson Air Force Base recommends 1-3 month supply of food."

http://x26.deja.com/[ST_rn=if]/viewthread.xp?thitnum=28&mhitnum=0&toff set=0&CONTEXT=945467875.1155334160&frpage=threadmsg_if.xp&back=comp.so ftware.year-2000&rok=1

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), December 17, 1999.

Sheri,

You having fun going around finding all the worse case, extremest doom and gloom caca you can find?

You should have shown up a year or two ago so yoiu could really lay it on thick.

OK, it's going to be the end of the world as we know it, life will be so bad it will not be worth living, I bet you can post hundreds of sources of terrible predictions and opinions and "articles" from the web as proof that the shit will hit the fan in a few weeks and all is lost so we should just give up. You appear to be having a field day with your posts, but even the oldest oldtimer on this board has gotten over the "newby freak out stage".

As for Wright Patt, it's a military base for goodness sake! They are always prepared and are going to "protect" their own, they want to make sure the families know to be prepared so the troops don't worry about their family and can concentrate on their work. You would be having tissy fits if you had been around during VietNam, you would have been sure the world was ending back then by the way the families and troops were prepared.

You can waste your and everyone elses time with your dramatic posts, but the days for those are over. It holding pattern time, there aren't many people to convince one way or the other now.

Tracing you back to where you originate shows that Y2K is not your "thing", it is just a forum that appears ripe for the taking for our own goals. It's easy to post a gazillion cut and paste posts to make everything look extreme to the fullest!

Chill a bit, some people are here at this point in time and have gone through all of the extreme "news" you are wasting time posting. Catch up and go with the flow. The days of "dramatic" information have passed. It's boring, leave more space for the last minute "I'm right/Your wrong" arguements that are helping fit in the time till rollover.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 17, 1999.

You may want to take some of your own advice and chill! For your information I have been coordinating our county for over a year and am on the County Y2k Task Force working closely with all aspects of emergency preparedness departments including police, sheriff, hospital and writing our county's y2k contingency plans. Also host radio program since February "The Y2K Forum". So you see, Y2K is MY THING as you put it, I just didn't have time to do this forum till the last month or so. Also have my own forum.

There are new people on this list all the time. Not sure why you are here though.

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), December 17, 1999.

Sock it to her! Yeow!

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 17, 1999.

I know Sheri personally and can attest to her *tremendous* efforts to educate the general public about Y2k (often at great personal expense!) Tell me, Cherri, what contributions have *you* made to your community? (And spouting off here on this forum doesn't count!)

There are lots of new folks coming here who haven't been privy to a year or two on this forum and they deserve to read "the news" just like we all did, way back when. Your attack was totally unjustified. It's a shame, ain't it, that the world doesn't exist to cater specifically to *you*.

Luna

-- LunaC (LunaC@moon.com), December 17, 1999.

"So you see, Y2K is MY THING "

So your thing is to "what"?

Instigate? Exagerate? scare people who do not have the ability to understand the facts through their background and knowledge? Is your goal to bring people to an emotionally frightened state so they will believe anything negitive about Y2K?

Do you understand the problem in a technical way so you have the ability to pass on unbiased factual informnation about the severity of the actual possibilities of what will happen from the rollover? Why are you here instead of your own forum, did it disintigrate?

Do you know of or have you found ANY information that makes you believe that the roll-over will not be the disaster that you appear to believe it will be?

Are you here to discuss preps for the rollover or are you here to post all of the informnation you possibly can that can be twisted into just another nail in the coffin of "the world as we know it"?

Why TB2000 need you to join in at this time, bringing in more "data" to attempt to scare the vulnerable when the forum is geared to preparing?.

How can it bejustified to give only the worse possible spin so that any person who is newly searching the facts gets only the one view, that which is sure to scare them into a mental state where it is difficult to use logic and common sense in evaluating the information so they can make a biased free evaluation of what they can expect and to what degree they should prepare.

I, myself, am an individual who believes in the individual's rights to free, unbiased information with which they can make uncoerced choices.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 17, 1999.

Uh, Luna....are you serious, or do you have a drink in your hand? They 'deserve' to be able to read the news? Do you mean 'old' news? Do they mean manufactured, cut and pasted, untrue news?

Did you read the real story up above, or like the rest of the doom idiots, are you just in denial?

Lose the pomposity, sister. What you seem to be propogating is the idea that fraud is ok.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), December 17, 1999.

I posted an article - so shoot me! Who are you anyway???? And why are you here? Forgot to take your valium this morning?

-- Sheri (wncy2k@nccn.net), December 17, 1999.

Uhhh Cherri:

I really don't mean to rain on YOUR parade, but the y2k Prep Forum is at:

TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Preparation Forum

-- hiding in plain (sight@edge. of no-where), December 17, 1999.

Bad Company and Cherri would make a great couple! They are both PINHEADS and like to spout their polly crap here. Why they feel compelled to come here, I don't know, but they would make such a cute couple!

-- Matchmaker (matchmaker@weddedbliss.com), December 18, 1999.

Sherri, the question IS why are YOU here. Where can we listen to your radio show? I hear it's a real laugh riot.Old news, revised news,things to worry about. Make sure you archive your show, Sherri...Letterman never has enough material and you've got a career in slapstick comedy.

As far as Matchmaker goes, please....that's all well and fine, but tell your mother to quit calling my house. It'd be hard to match me up when she seems to be hot on my tail.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), December 18, 1999.