Whether you live in Texas, across the Deep South, into the Southeast, up into the Mid-Atlantic states or in New England, you have no doubt heard about the incoming storm. This one looks like it is going to be a doozy, with anywhere from an inch-and-a-half of ice to a foot or more of snow, depending on where you live.

Right now, the line between ice accumulation and snow accumulation is too difficult to predict, but either kind of precipitation is likely to cause complications, especially if it reaches into places like Birmingham, Alabama, that are not used to this kind of weather.

In the Midwest and Upper Midwest, the blast of cold will put them into the single digits or colder, but they will escape the freezing rain and snow that will hit half the country.

Here in the Appalachians, we’re hoping for snow, because it is less likely to knock down power lines than freezing rain that builds up to a half-inch or more of ice, causing limbs to drop and lines to break. People around here are also used to snow; we deal with it every year, so they have a plan for it. A foot might be more snow than we usually get, but there’s not much difference between a foot of snow and six or eight inches. Either way, we won’t be going anywhere.

Because a lengthy period of cold weather is expected after the storm, we don’t expect the snow to melt for days. We live on a long private road, so no one plows it.

Here’s what we are doing to prepare, day by day:

Wednesday’s Advanced Planning

Wednesday and Thursday are the warmest days this week with temperatures that might break 40°F, so we are letting our fires go out so we can remove the ash. The last couple of polar vortexes have had us burning so much firewood that we’ve built up a significant amount of ash. The smaller fireplace insert is so loaded with ash we can barely fit two decent-sized logs in there. We want to clean it out to prepare for the next wave of cold.

While our water supply hasn’t frozen yet this winter (knock on wood) it’s a concern that is always in the back of our minds. So we’ll fill up all our five-gallon Aquatainers and similar vessels on Wednesday, just in case. The chickens go through three to five gallons of water daily, so we have to make sure they are provided for. In a pinch, we can always get water from the creek for the animals and for flushing.

I will test our generator, running it for 30 minutes under a load. How do I create a load? I plug in a space heater or two and let them heat the garage up a few degrees. Two will pull up to 3,000 watts, which is an appropriate test for a 7,500-watt generator. The crucial thing is that it starts right up.

After running the genny, I’ll top off the tank with ethanol-free gas. Then I will pour our oldest gas cans into the truck and throw that and any other empty cans into the back to be refilled on Thursday.

My wife is already making a grocery list for Walmart. She’ll place an online order on Wednesday and schedule it for pickup on Thursday.

Thursday’s Critical Preps

I’ll make an errand run, including dropping off the trash, stopping at Walmart for the curbside pickup, filling our empty gas cans, and topping off the truck. If I time things right, I’ll be able to grab a hamburger and fries while I am out, since it might be my last opportunity to “dine out” for a week or more.

The most important chore on Thursday will be to restock the firewood we keep inside the house. I will also fill the bed of the pickup with firewood and park it in the garage. This way, if we have a foot of snow, we won’t have to traipse through it to bring firewood into the house. The firewood will also be dry rather than packed with blown snow, which we know from experience gets under the tarps covering the woodpiles. Of all our preps, this is the most important one because it assures us of heat for more than a week, regardless of whether the grid stays on.

If there is a power outage and we are forced to rely on solar and/or generator power, we won’t be able to use the oven unless the solar panels are clear of snow and we have a very sunny day. The 240 volt oven just draws too much power to run when we are relying on batteries. We can still use our induction cooktop and the microwave or 120 volt toaster oven for short stints. My wife is planning to bake a few things on Thursday while I am running the errands. We’ll eat some of what she makes that day for dinner and freeze the rest. That way, we can have a meal ready with just some thawing and reheating. There are already some of these pre-cooked meals in the freezer.

Friday is for Last-Minute Stuff

Since my wife has to move her car out of the garage so my truck can fit inside, we’ll park her vehicle half a mile down the road. This will put her below the steepest part and where the snowplow goes. If the snow isn’t deeper than the UTV’s  ground clearance, we can drive it down the mountain to her car. This is a lesson we learned from Helene, and one that served us well when we had heavy snow in December.

Speaking of the UTV, I will attach the charger to its battery—just in case it is low. This will bring the battery up to a full charge and then trickle charge it until I disconnect it that night. Most of my rechargeable devices are charged from the last storm threat, but I will recharge my EDC flashlight and headlamp.

Another last-minute prep is to top off the chicken’s feeder. It’s built from a five-gallon bucket, so it holds quite a bit of feed. Of course, the chickens have to go outside to eat it, which they don’t much like to do in the snow. They have a smaller feeder inside the coop, and I’ll make sure it is filled to the brim. We don’t water them in the coop because the water spills and makes a mess. I’ll continue to pry the ice out of their waterers and give them fresh water twice a day.

Hunkering Down

Last year, a snowstorm left us stranded at home for six days. In a heavy snow, most places in town will be closed for a few days, so even if we could get out, there wouldn’t be anywhere to go. I have several books I can read and plenty of work to do inside, from building bee boxes to getting a head start on our taxes. Even if the grid goes down, I should have limited connectivity via our Starlink Standby package (it will be a real-life test of our “emergency communications plan”), so I hope to post on Monday as usual.

I realize other folks might just buy bread and milk when a storm heads their way, but we go beyond that. I hope all of you within the storm’s area stay safe. If people use common sense, stay off the roads, and have a secondary source of heat and light, everyone should be fine.

As Proverbs 22:3 says, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” I expect we’ll see that play out on too many highways and interstates later this week.

Video of the Day

Here’s my favorite meteorologist who gives a big-picture view of the coming storm. This is Tuesday’s video, in which he says it could be a “crippling” ice storm in the Deep South. By the time you read this post, he may have a more recent one up.