# What's the longest you've been without electricity? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 7, 2023, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844 "2023-01-07T17:31:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/1 "2023-01-07T17:31:47Z")
Not camping or anything like that. What’s the longest time your normal electric service has been interrupted? A tree fell during California’s bomb cyclone last Wednesday and took down a power line supplying our house. Three days later they’re still working on removing the tree. Work on the power line itself probably won’t start until late today at best. So the total outage is likely to be well over 72 hours. This might be the longest interruption I’ve ever experienced. It’s amazing how much of my daily life depends on electricity. No heat, no hot water, no lights, no laundry or dishwasher, laptop battery died yesterday… (We’re also expecting at least two similar storms in the next week. Yay.) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/2 "2023-01-07T17:36:51Z")
Not sure which was longer but either the derecho that hit my area in June 2012 or the one that hit this past summer. It was close to four days each time before I got power back due to the massive tree damage in the area. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/3 "2023-01-07T17:44:51Z")
Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, we lost power (at my sister-in-law’s place) on Monday evening. We left on Thursday and she still didn’t have power. She has a well, so we had to take water from the pool to flush the toliets. In my own home? When I was in primary school we lost power for a day or so. Where I am now? Not even 5 minutes. Buried power lines are nice. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/4 "2023-01-07T17:54:46Z")
8 days ( see note ). Aftermath of hurricane Hugo. Note: A few days after power was lost, power was restored…for about 15 minutes. Didn’t come back on for several more days. I figure it still qualifies for an 8 day loss of power. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/5 "2023-01-07T17:57:49Z")
I think it was 2-3 days in 2021. General power outage from a storm. I ran the RV generator to keep the chest freezer going in the basement, and ran another cord to run a space heater in the house. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/6 "2023-01-07T17:59:00Z")
About 3 days. We live in suburban Chicago, in a neighborhood with a lot of older trees. The primary reason why we lose power is if a tree or tree limb takes out a power line in the area during a severe thunderstorm. About a decade ago, we had a bad summer, over the course of which we lost power three times, each time for two days or longer. At that point, I bought a backup generator, which we’ve not ever had to use, as we’ve not ever lost power for more than a few minutes since then. (I suspect that the electric utility did some trimming of problematic trees near the power lines after that bad summer.) ---
**Author:** ![nofloyd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nofloyd/32/2870_2.png) [@nofloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nofloyd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/7 "2023-01-07T17:59:09Z")
Nine days, no power or water, Sandy. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/8 "2023-01-07T18:07:23Z")
I think 4 or 5. Ice, trees, wind. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/9 "2023-01-07T18:11:10Z")
Several days at a time, on the farm. Always in winter. We never had a generator, but we had wood heat and gas range, and we could use the barn pump manually to get water for the cows and the house. Not much to do after dark, though! ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/10 "2023-01-07T18:14:39Z")
Sandy was 11 horrible days. The Nor’easter a few days later really compounded things. My little generator running on propane struggled in tthe cold. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/11 "2023-01-07T18:21:24Z")
We’ve had multiple outages of several days duration, most recently a 5-day no-power period when we lived in Ohio, due to an ice storm. Nothing significant in the nearly three years we’ve been back in Kentucky, though I fired up the generator for an outage of an hour or so at the culmination of a two-week stretch in which we had _three_ ice storms. > [@markn\_1](#): > > No heat, no hot water, no lights, no laundry or dishwasher Like Robinson Ca-ru-so, eh? You have my sympathies. The 4+ days without water when the main line into our home froze last month was no fun either. “Showering” with baby wipes sucks. ---
**Author:** ![TheCuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thecuse/32/2854_2.png) [@TheCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCuse)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/12 "2023-01-07T18:26:43Z")
12 days, I think. Back during the Labor Day Storm of 1998: > **[Today in History: Labor Day Storm, 1998](https://www.cnyhistory.org/2014/09/labor-day-storm-1998/)** > > Today in History: Labor Day Storm, 1998 ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/13 "2023-01-07T18:30:38Z")
The blackout that hit in 2003 affected people from Boston to Detroit, lasted 3 days at my place outside of Detroit. As I recall it was damn hot. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/14 "2023-01-07T19:00:46Z")
> [@Die\_Capacitrix](#): > > Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, we lost power (at my sister-in-law’s place) on Monday evening. We left on Thursday and she still didn’t have power. Eight no-electricity post-Sandy days for allthegood but not me, as I wasn’t living with her yet. No generator, but a wood stove and a supply of firewood was on hand. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/15 "2023-01-07T19:06:47Z")
Five days a couple of years ago after a storm in the Chicago area. After the first three days, we found a hotel room in an unaffected area for the next two due to the lack of running water (local well) and air conditioning so, technically, _we_ weren’t without power for those five days but the house was. On a side note: when we got back and had to empty out the fridge and freezer, it made me think about how fortunate we were to have the resources to restock hundreds of dollars in spoiled food and thus inspired us to set up a monthly donation to a regional food bank. So some good came out of it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/16 "2023-01-07T19:11:54Z")
About 12 hours after a bad winter storm. It (the outage, not the storm) was fairly localized, and the roads themselves weren’t too bad, so I grabbed a book and headed to the local bar & grill (as did most everyone else in the vicinity; the place was packed!) to ride it out. Some clam chowder, some stuffed mushrooms, they made a great pork tenderloin sandwich, many glasses of wine, pool tables, dart boards, my book…not a bad way to spend a day. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/17 "2023-01-07T19:13:17Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Like Robinson Ca-ru-so, eh? Yeah, not a single lux-ur-y. But surprise, we just got power back. The tree that I thought had interrupted our power is still down, along with the power lines around it, so I guess our power is coming from the other direction, and was interrupted for some other reason. Total downtime was about 66 hours. As soon as power returned I immediately plugged in all my rechargeable batteries. I’m expecting another interruption sometime in the next few days when the new storms roll in. Hope it stays up long enough to heat up water for a shower. Still no internet, but I can live with my phone’s hotspot. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/18 "2023-01-07T19:18:32Z")
When I first moved here a couple of decades ago, I noticed that everything was overhead power lines. I assumed that this would result in a lot of power outages, since overhead lines are a lot more susceptible to problems from wind, storms, ice, etc. So, being an electrical engineer, I started to plan out putting in a backup generator, complete with a transfer switch, a separate breaker box so that the generator would only have to power essentials, and all that. And then nothing happened. No power outages. We eventually had some, but I could count on one hand the number of outages we have had in the past 25 years, and almost all of those were brief, lasting maybe an hour at the most. The longest was when a suicidal squirrel decided to take out a main transformer at the local substation. That knocked the power out for about 4 or 5 hours, IIRC. I never did install that backup generator. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/19 "2023-01-07T19:19:43Z")
60 hours here. We have a small generator which powered our fridge/freezer but not much else. The taps flowed slowly due to pressure in our well. We took water from the hot tub to flush the toilets. It was summer and we didn’t mind cold sandwiches. It worked out okay, just a mild PITA. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2023, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844/20 "2023-01-07T19:20:19Z")
About a month, last spring. They cut hours at work the previous winter tremendously; once the overdue bills bit me in the ass, things had changed to the point where I was working ridiculously long hours, and basically came home to sleep, change socks/undies, and throw some food at the cat … so I didn’t really give a shit if the power was on or not. Charged my phone at work - blew through my data plan, granted - and finally used some of my candle stash. _shrug_ My fridge was an absolute hazmat zone once I could finally get it clean, but that was about the worst of it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-longest-youve-been-without-electricity/977844.md?page=2)