Emergency Radios
Midland ER310 Review: Living With a Crank Weather Radio Through Storm Season
Fourteen months, one three-day ice storm and one overnight tornado warning. The crank radio is the thing on my list I would replace first.
A limb on the line, a dark house, and the one thing on the kitchen table that never needed a signal.
Fourteen months, one three-day ice storm and one overnight tornado warning. The crank radio is the thing on my list I would replace first.
A retired rural mail carrier compares the weather radio on her kitchen table with the phone in her pocket, using one three day ice storm as the test.
Ten plain reasons, from a woman who spent thirty years on a rural mail route and one long night without power.
A limb on the line, a dark house, and the one thing on the kitchen table that never needed a signal.
A five step setup for the Midland ER310, from where it sits on the table to what you do when it wakes you at two in the morning.
Fourteen months with a plastic weather radio that did the one job I bought it for, and fell short in three ways nobody puts on the listing.
One real outage, two phones, one lamp, three days. What the Jackery Explorer 300 did and what it will never do.
A three-day outage taught me the difference between a battery that keeps phones alive and a generator that keeps the refrigerator running.
Three days of ice, two phones and one lamp. What a small battery box actually did at my house, and the ten things I would tell a neighbor before they buy one.
Three days without power, two phones, one lamp, and a battery that went back to the closet with about 30 percent left.
A three-day ice storm, one 292 watt-hour battery, and the five-step routine that had it ready before the lights went out.
Thirteen months in a hall closet, one three-day ice storm, two phones and one lamp. Here is what the battery actually did, what it will never do, and the arithmetic that tells you which is which before you buy.
Two filters, one glass of water, and a boil water notice that ran from Wednesday to Sunday.
A retired mail carrier compares the filter sitting in her closet with the tablets she has only ever read about on a hardware store shelf.
A backup filter is not a household water system. It is what got me through the gap after the boil notice.
Two people, three days without power, and a filter that sat on a shelf until one glass of tap water on a Saturday evening.
A boil water notice, a filter that stops bacteria but not fuel, and the five steps I would take in the order I would take them.
Two filters, one boil water notice, and one glass of tap water. What the LifeStraw Personal does well, and the three things it will not do for a household.
Two kits, one ice storm, six meals. What the food actually tasted like, what it needed from me first, and who should think twice.
I keep both. One of them fed us for three days when the ice took the power out. The other one never got opened, and that is not the insult it sounds like.
I put off buying shelf-stable food until last November. Then an ice storm took the power for three days and I ate six meals out of a box in my hall closet.
A three-day ice storm, two people, and the 4Patriots kit that made supper one less thing to figure out.
Five steps, in the order I would do them again, from a retired mail carrier who ate out of one box for three days last January.
What the front of the box does not lead with, and the two things you have to supply yourself before the food is a meal.
Eleven months on the floor of a hall closet, one evacuation, and a check on the same four dates every year. What is actually in the bag, what it will not do, and the ten minute routine that matters more than the gear.
One order or a dozen shopping trips. Where each approach wins, what the kit leaves out, and the night the bag left the closet.
A deputy came down our road at dusk and told the low houses to leave. The bag was by the door because it lives by the door.
A deputy, a rising creek, and ten minutes in a gravel driveway. What a packed bag actually does for you when the order comes at dusk.
Ten minutes at dusk is all the notice you get. Here is the order I pack in, the water arithmetic that made me change the bag, and the four dates I check it.
Eleven months in a hall closet, one flood, and a full accounting of what is in the bag and what I put in it myself.
Fourteen months, one three-day ice storm and one overnight tornado warning. The crank radio is the thing on my list I would replace first.
Fourteen months with a plastic weather radio that did the one job I bought it for, and fell short in three ways nobody puts on the listing.
One real outage, two phones, one lamp, three days. What the Jackery Explorer 300 did and what it will never do.
Thirteen months in a hall closet, one three-day ice storm, two phones and one lamp. Here is what the battery actually did, what it will never do, and the arithmetic that tells you which is which before you buy.
Two filters, one glass of water, and a boil water notice that ran from Wednesday to Sunday.
Two filters, one boil water notice, and one glass of tap water. What the LifeStraw Personal does well, and the three things it will not do for a household.
Two kits, one ice storm, six meals. What the food actually tasted like, what it needed from me first, and who should think twice.
What the front of the box does not lead with, and the two things you have to supply yourself before the food is a meal.
Eleven months on the floor of a hall closet, one evacuation, and a check on the same four dates every year. What is actually in the bag, what it will not do, and the ten minute routine that matters more than the gear.
Eleven months in a hall closet, one flood, and a full accounting of what is in the bag and what I put in it myself.