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About Black Sky Prep
A plain guide to long power outages, written for cold places by someone who lives in one.
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Who I am
I am Walter Wolf. I am not a soldier, a paramedic, an engineer or a survival instructor, and I will not pretend to be. I am a regular person who lives where winter reaches −30 (that is −22 °F), where a dead furnace in January is a real problem within a day.
I wrote a book, When the Lights Go Out: A Survival Guide, because most of what I could find was either a government pamphlet that stopped at three days or a doom forecast selling something. This site is the short, free version of the same idea, with the cold-weather parts up front.
What this site is for
One job: helping an ordinary household get through a long power outage, especially a winter one. That includes renters, people in apartments, people with no car and people who look after someone with medical needs.
I do not think the grid is about to collapse, and I am not going to tell you it is. A months-long blackout is unlikely. A bad week in January is not. Getting ready for the second covers most of the first, and it is cheaper and calmer than the internet makes it look.
How the guides are checked
- Against official guidance. Safety facts are checked against public agencies in the United States and Canada, such as Ready.gov, the CDC, FoodSafety.gov, Health Canada and Get Prepared. Each guide lists its sources at the bottom.
- Where agencies differ, I show both. The US and Canada give different numbers for water and for boiling at altitude, for example. I do not pick one and hide the other.
- Where a mistake could hurt someone, I send you to the right person. Medicines, medical devices, plumbing and electrical work need a pharmacist, a supplier, a plumber or an electrician who knows your situation. A website cannot be that.
- Examples are examples. When a guide describes a household, it is an illustration, not a story about my own life.
- If your local authority says something different, follow them.
How the site makes money
Some links go to Amazon. If you buy through one, I earn a small commission and you pay nothing extra. That is the only income the site has. There are no ads and nobody pays to be listed. The details are on the affiliate disclosure page.
I recommend gear by what the job needs, and I say so when the cheaper answer is no gear at all.
The book
When the Lights Go Out: A Survival Guide is the long version: 17 chapters and 10 printable household worksheets, covering the first night through leaving, returning and starting again.
Corrections
If you find a mistake, I want to know. Write to contact@blackskyprep.com and tell me which page and what is wrong.