The Forever Winter

Staying warm in the aftermath of total grid failure.

- William Jeffries

There is an unsettling loneliness that creeps into a person’s heart in the depths of winter. Maybe because the streets are cemetery quiet; not a car passes, no dogs bark in the distance, and there is no wind to rustle through the ice-laden trees.

All is dead, silent, dark and dreary: The grid went down in August—victim of the perfect combination of an aging, faulty infrastructure and a serious security hole in the system. The lights blinked out on a Tuesday afternoon, and by Friday, there was no water pressure, no gas and no phone service … just silence.

In the wake of lawlessness, civil unrest and near urban warfare, most people have left the cities for the suburbs and points beyond. But you stayed, certain the power would return. It didn’t. And now, winter’s chilled grip is tightening its fist.

PLAN AHEAD

You’re a tropical organism stranded in a temperate environment. You don’t have the fat, the stamina or the evolution to naturally cope. Your body has not developed sufficiently to deal with freezing temperatures, even briefly. The longer you and your lineage have inhabited warmer climates—hundreds of years for most of us—the harder it will be for you to adjust when the thermostat drops, even if it is just a single winter lasting only four or five months.

With a complete loss of services, especially during the temperature extremes of summer and winter, the first few days are crucial to your survival.

Have you planned ahead? (Blankets, firewood, propane.) Do you have your living strategies laid out? (Sleeping bags, generators, heating elements.) Are you prepared to shut up most of your house and live only in a room or two? Do you have an exit plan in case all your contingencies fail or your supplies run out?

Here are some concrete ways to keep your house, family and yourself warm when the power grid has been rendered useless.