I'm sitting here in sunny, mild Boulder, Colorado typing this, but all over the news and my Facebook page, are reports of the havoc Hurricane Irene (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] being wreaked on the East Coast by Hurricane Sandy. I remember Hurricane Irene well because it devastated my home state of Vermont with destructive flooding the likes of which the state has never seen, though like now I was experiencing it from afar. And now, Sandy is bearing down on even more of the country, spreading out from New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and even reaching Ohio. And apparently it's much, much stronger than Irene. According to the reports I've been reading on Facebook, there are predictions that thousands of folks could be without power for a week or more. I cannot even imagine how challenging, not to mention miserable, that would be. In fact, last winter during a huge snowstorm, we lost power for a full 24 hours and it was rough. We had no heat, no lights and no connection with the world except for our cell phones. I kept going to do things like make toast--ooops, the toaster needs electricity, or vacuum the rug--oops again, or check the weather forecast on the computer---acckkk! I felt like everything I tried to do was dependent on electricity and technology and while that makes likes extremely convenient when it's working, it makes life extra hard when it's not. When we lost power we were using cloth diapers and I had plenty clean to get us through the mere 24 hour power outage. But now I'm wondering how so many parents of little ones are going to survive being without modern conveniences for up to a whole week. Sure, Grandma used to wash cloth diapers by hand in a big old washtub full of hot water back in the old days...but can you even get hot water in a storm? I know plenty of people who stocked up on bottled water, canned foods and filled their tubs with water just in case. But were they planning on washing their diapers too? Believe me, I know that surviving a storm (and I don't mean just physically surviving, I mean surviving with your sanity intact) is MUCH more challenging for those with one or more mobile, chattering, climbing and crying little ones to care for and entertain than for say, a young and still childless couple enjoying nature's drama while sipping wine by a roaring fire and snuggling under blankets. Many of you are probably preparing cold meals for warmly bundled children who are either scared of the wind and rain, or just tired of being cooped up with no cartoons for an hour or two of entertainment. I've been there, though thankfully, it wasn't for very long. So as I sit here thinking of all of you and all of my friends and family hunkering down and waiting out the storm, I'm hoping you'll have some survival stories to share. Did you use your cloth diapers knowing you may be stuck hand-washing in cold water? Did you buy disposables just in case? And how did you pass the time with your little ones? I hope you are all safe and sound and staying dry. Move on Hurricane Sandy, move on already!
Related articles
- Why Cloth Diapers Aren't as Scary as You Think They Are (thebump.com)
- Diapering in a Disaster (theecochic.com)
I live on Long Island and lost power for 46 hours. I am cloth diapering my 5 1/2 month old twins and continued to do so during the outage. I washed diapers Monday morning, ahead of the storm, and had a full stock of 48 prefolds, 14 covers, and 10 AIOs to get us through. We were very lucky and had only just started on the AIOs when power returned (and I quickly got the diapers in the wash). We do have emergency disposables because my husband insists on keeping them around, and we would have used those if we ran out of cloth. Washing diapers by hand would have been possible (gas stove means I can boil water) but with the cold & lack of much sun, they would have taken a LONG time to dry!
I live in Pennsylvania but about an hour away from ohio and was hardly affected by the hurricane we just got a bad storm and some snow. My parents however live near Philly and they lost power for two days and school has been out for about a week now. And I was actually staying at my parents house for a whole week and left the Sunday hurricane sandy was about to hit. I cloth diaper my two month old baby boy and I hand was all his diapers, however I use a lot of hot water. I wouldn’t feel like my diapers would be clean enough with out hot water and if I needed to I would use disposables until electricity was back.
I am a huge fan of CD, but if I was to face circumstances like that, I would make sure to have a stash of disposables. After all, the idea is not to never ever use the convenience of disposables, but to have them for a real emergency. I think this justifies the trash output.
I know the hot water in our old house didn’t work when the power went out because despite the fact that it was (tankless) gas, the thermostat ran on electricity. It wouldn’t work without the thermostat. DOH! I probably would have bought some disposables just in case, or at least some disposable inserts I could use and hand wash the covers. Haven’t been in this house long enough to know if the hot water works here when the power is out.
I can’t imagine not having my washing machine !
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