Prepping For
Apartment Dwellers

Thanks to some of the sensationalistic “reality” shows aired in recent years, the word “prepper” often conjures up visions of eccentric isolationists stockpiling mountains of supplies in remote compounds or underground bunkers. While those folks do exist, intelligent people — like those who invested in this publication — know better and understand preparedness and self-sufficiency don’t require such extreme measures. In fact, they don’t even require you to own a home at all.

What You’ve Got

If you live in an apartment or condo, your first step in assessing your situation should be to determine where your basic resources are, how they work and who controls them. To be more specific, you need to understand how your water, your hot water, your heat and your electricity get to your apartment and what elements — if any — you can access or control. For example, if your unit has a dedicated water heater, you should know where it is located, how it is powered and whether you — or anyone else — has access to it. Why? Because if there is a disruption in the supply of tap water, your water heater represents an important reserve of potable water you can potentially use to survive. All you need is a short section of garden hose with a female fitting and the knowledge to drain the tank. If the water heater is located in a lockable service room, you may also have extra storage space for other survival supplies.

Understanding how your heat, oven and range work enables you to know which resources are affected during different types of situations. For example, if you have electric heat and a gas stove, a power outage caused by a winter ice storm means your heat and lights are out, but you can still cook easily and boost your morale by maintaining a degree of normalcy during a crisis situation. The ability to boil water is not only useful for cooking and sanitizing drinking water, it also means you can fill a few old-fashioned hot water bottles to tuck into beds or sleeping bags to help stay warm. Although an oven isn’t recommended as a primary source of heat, using it for cooking during the emergency can certainly help take the chill out of the apartment. You can also extend the heat it generates to other areas of the apartment by placing a few bricks into the oven while you cook. They absorb heat and can then be carefully removed to serve as sources of radiant heat elsewhere. Make sure you handle the hot bricks with oven mitts or heavy gloves and place them on properly insulated surfaces to ensure safety.

Again, the key to making use of these strategies is understanding how your utilities work and what is really affected during different types of outages. As simple as this may sound, many apartment and condo dwellers don’t have a clue. Don’t let that be you.

Back-Up Plans

Once you have a clear understanding of how your utilities work and which resources (like the water heater) you have access to, the next step is to develop back-up plans or alternatives to them. If, for example, both your heat and kitchen stove are electric powered, a winter power outage can leave you in a desperate situation. At the most basic level, you’ll need a supply of foods that do not require cooking and some extra blankets and sleeping bags to help you stay warm. If storage space is tight, the blankets can be compressed in vacuum-style storage bags or replaced by inexpensive Mylar “space blankets.”

Although it might be tempting to use kerosene or propane space heaters to generate heat, this isn’t a good idea because of the dangers of carbon monoxide — especially in a confined space. In fact, two important components of any apartment “kit” should be a battery-powered smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm. They will warn you of smoke or carbon monoxide threats even if they don’t originate from your dwelling. If your neighbors are doing something stupid to stay warm, you’re still protected.

If you have a balcony, patio or other controlled area suitable for grilling, a gas grill is an excellent investment. In addition to its obvious function during non-emergencies, it can easily become a full-service cooking station in times of crisis. Like an oven, it can also be used to heat bricks during the cooking process. To make sure it’s ready when you need it, invest in an extra propane canister and always keep a full one on hand.

Without electricity, you’ll also need light sources of some sort. LED-style flashlights are inexpensive and last almost forever, but must be supported by a good supply of batteries. For emergency use, common, easily available batteries are a better choice than the expensive, exotic ones used in high-speed tactical flashlights. The traditional solution to emergency light — candles — is also a good choice; however, they should be enclosed in glass containers to minimize the fire hazard.

My favorite source of emergency lighting is a solar lawn light. These LED lights are battery powered and charge during daylight. When it gets dark, built-in photocells automatically turn them on and they emit a low, but very useful level of light. They can be bought individually for a few dollars each and stored on a windowsill or balcony so they charge every day. If the power goes out, bring them inside and you’ve got safe, passive utility lighting.

Water

As all preppers know, water is your most critical survival resource. We all need roughly a gallon a day just to stay hydrated and healthy, and this doesn’t include water for cooking, washing dishes, bathing or sanitation.

Water can be a critical concern for apartment dwellers. If the tap water supply to your building is cut off, alternative supplies of water may be very limited. As noted previously, if you have a dedicated water heater and access to it, you’ve got a head start on a reserve supply. If you don’t, it’s a good idea to plan ahead. One simple option is to buy a few flats of bottled water and rotate them into your normal consumption every few months. If storage space is a concern, buy risers for your bed to elevate it a few inches and use the area under the bed for survival storage (more on this in a bit).

A cheaper alternative is to buy one or more 5-gallon water cooler bottles. You can buy these pre-filled, but I prefer the empty ones because they are resealable. Fill them up with fresh tap water and add one teaspoon of unscented chlorine bleach to each 5-gallon bottle. Mark the date on the bottle and repeat the process with fresh water every six months. Although heavy (about 40 pounds each), these bottles are convenient and represent a five-day supply of drinking water for one person — an easy reference. They should be stored in a cool, dark place and can easily be tucked into unused space in closets or other out-of-the-way locations.

Another double-duty method of storing water is to place a couple of two-liter plastic soda bottles in your freezer. Clean them and fill them slightly less than full with tap water, then freeze them. If the power goes out, they and your frozen foods can be moved into your refrigerator or a camping cooler to turn it into an old-fashioned icebox. They help keep your refrigerated food cold and allow you to eat it first before digging into your other food supplies. Buy a thermometer to monitor the temperature in the fridge or cooler and keep it below 40 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent spoiling. When your ice bottles melt, you’ve got an additional supply of drinking water.

In addition to drinking water, you should also think about water for washing dishes, bathing and manually flushing your toilet. If you have some advanced warning of a crisis — like a pending weather event — you can simply fill your bathtub with water. The disadvantage of this is all the water is in the same container. A smarter approach is to put a clean plastic trash can and/or several clean five-gallon buckets in your tub or shower and fill them. This way you can maintain separate containers of soapy water, rinse water and clean water and make them last longer. When the water in one becomes dirty, use it to manually flush your toilet by just pouring a quart or so into the bowl.

Creative Storage

One of the greatest challenges apartment and condo-based preppers face is finding adequate room to store their supplies in the limited space available. If your apartment has an external storage area or garage, it helps a lot — provided it’s secure and convenient.

If you don’t have a dedicated storage area, you need to get creative. As mentioned earlier, placing risers under your bed to elevate it a few inches can create a significant amount of storage space. A 6″ storage space under a queen bed creates more than 16 cubic feet of storage area — enough for a significant cache of survival supplies. Plastic bins specifically designed for under-bed storage can help you organize your supplies, make them easier to access selectively and keep the weight of each manageable.

Another space-saving approach to survival storage is to use plastic milk crates, which are readily available from most big-box stores for a few dollars each. These crates are available in various sizes, but in their most common form are about one square foot. Because of their interlocking design, they can be stacked several layers high and are very space efficient. They are therefore an excellent way of turning an empty corner, a hall closet, or any other small section of floor space into an extremely practical freestanding storage system. The sturdy construction of these crates allows them to hold considerable weight, making them ideal for storing and organizing canned goods, bulk foods like bags of rice or beans, and many other supplies. For stability and convenience, place the heavier crates on the bottom of the stack and lighter items — like powdered milk and dry goods — on the top of the stack. Top it off with a few five-gallon buckets stuffed with rolled blankets and you’ve got a formidable “pillar” of survival supplies in a single square foot of floor space.

Being prepared doesn’t have to mean living off the grid. With a little planning and creativity, even apartment and condo dwellers can ensure that they’re ready to cope with almost any emergency.

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