Surviving w/o AC - Event Date: December 07 2006

Southern Mississippi is pretty much a greenhouse (if not a blast furnace) from May until September.  A generator will run a small AC, enough to cool a room for sleeping purposes.  Other ideas I've heard:  waterbeds, sleeping or laying on tile floors.  The days will have to be spent outside in the shade (porch, or whatever) and for about $100 you can buy large tents that have a solid top but are screened on all sides.  I'm also considering a small ice maker that can run on an inverter or generator, which you could use to store washclothes as well as make ice.   Those spray/fan bottles are only a few dollars at WalMart.

Many areas of the South do not have basements, due to the clay soil. It is amazing if you keep shades pulled and the windows closed to keep the heat out it works better. Lung disease makes you feel like you are suffocating in the heat.  I think we would pretty much turn our days and nights, you also cant cook with windows open if no one else has food.  Not in the city, if you heat food when most are sleeping, people cant smell when they sleep, more crime happens at night under darkness while most are asleep so there are a lot of good reasons to switch hours. Summer is a special problem. You can heat up by piling on blankets and use a coffee can with a candle as a furnace, for heat but there is no simple way to cool down. Ponds, lakes could be infected with bf because of birds using them for drink and other. Rivers have current and maybe safer. Tons of clorine in a smaller size pool and you may have to sit in it under a shade tree all day. Use a net to keep the bugs out.  In the old days, when people were living without AC and modern convience, they died at about sixty at the oldest, most towns had only a few really old timers. So, I am not so sure they fared alll that well or just died younger from the abuse their bodies took.

Hi, never posted before. St. Louis MO had storms Wed night. 600,000 customers without electricity. 100 degree days. Seems like only 1,000 might have been prepared. All the rest came to my county to the west Thurs. morning. All needed supplies, gas, food. Also came to cool down in our malls, movies, casino, etc.  Theirs are closed. Real eye opner, they were not prepared for 5 hrs. let alone 5 Days to restore electricity.  What a 600,000 customer mess and disaster. prep on it could happen to you any day.

Would the fan run on solar batteries that could be recharged? I know we have A and C solar batteries, and a recharger, one may have to get several, but if you could buy a few sets of batterys and chargers and have some charing all the time, it maybe worth it.

Old Red, you get solar battery recharger, and recharge