Lots of people are without power in the South, due to damaged caused by Hurricane Katrina. This got me thinking about ‘backup plans’.
When I was in L.A. the power would be knocked out every year after a heavy rain. I assume people ran into the transformer that served my area, but I don’t know. Finally I bought a Coleman lantern. After I did that the power went out only once in the rain and it came back on just as I got the lantern lit – about a minute. The other time power went out was after the Northridge earthquake. That’s the way it usually works: Once you buy ‘insurance’, the thing doesn’t happen again. It does come in handy on the patio though, since I keep forgetting to get a new lamp for the patio light.
I also have some candle lanterns. After a few minutes of burning they put out enough light to read by. Nice for hanging from the top loop in the tent when I’m camping. (I monitor the rising heat against the nylon tent, but the chain seems to provide enough clearance.) I have other candles too. I don’t remember why – probably in case I wanted a candle-lit dinner or something.
I had a gas stove in L.A., but I bought a Coleman two-burner stove in case I wanted to go car camping or in case the gas was shut off after a quake. I also have a half-dozen or so Svea 123 stoves. I love those little things! And I have an MSR multi-fuel stove. Of course I have a stovetop espresso pot or three. (A ‘six-cup’, a ‘four-cup’, and a single-demitasse.) I have an electric stove in my house, so in case the power is lost I can still cook and have coffee.
Power rarely goes out here. I’ve been here two years and I can’t remember losing power for any significant amount of time. But if it does I can read a nice book, have some coffee or tea, cook something to eat, and use my PwerBook to browse the web (assuming the phones still work).
The friend I bought the house from had a little Honda generator. I think he may have used it once (for a power outage – he actually bought it and used it for power at a remote location on his last film).
I have lots of candles, flashlights and rechargable batteries.
We have a woodstove and a Propane Grill and a spare Propane tank.
I have 6700 watts of solar panels on my roof and in the next 2 years I will be adding a bank of batteries for emergency power.
I keep alot of Ice & Ice packs in freezer and good jury rig for daytime use a setup where I feed power to a few lights and the fridge.
I have an old well which still runs, water quality is poor but I could boil it for drinking.
There is a one-inch (OD) pipe coming out of a small concrete pad in the back yard. Next to it is a concrete basin set up on a tree stump. I assume this is an old well. (The house was originally built in 1934.) I’ve thought it would be neat to install a hand pump. No idea if the water is potable.
When Hurricane Isabel hit we were without power for 10 days. I owned a generator, but it was at my brother’s house about 75 miles away. It has since come home.
Luckily, we had water. Cold showers aren’t so bad in late August when it is in the 90s and the humidity is high. We cooked on the grill, played cards by candlelight, and spent a lot of time in bed doing, well, stuff you do in bed.
I have a 4 hour battery backup for my sump pump. I have a gas range, heat and hot water if the power goes out. If everything goes out I have a 4x4 and relatives in 3 different states to take us in. I’m set.
I’ve got a full disaster kit with water, iodine tablets, tent, handaxe, food, spare clothing, etc… My September project is to update it with some baby-friendly supplies
I don’t remember the last time the power went out :eek:
Hm. It might be fun to play D&D by candle light – if I had anyone to play with!
You should check out those candle lanterns I linked. I think they’re safer than open candles, and they last for like six hours. I have a top reflector for mine, since one of them is currently hanging from a hook on the overhead. It also has a parabolic reflector on the side since I don’t really need to light that little corner.
The Coleman stove runs on regular gas, so I’m covered there. The house is electric, so hot showers are out. Neither of the fireplaces work, but I do have a propane heater; so I won’t freeze in the Winter.
I’ve actually played D&D during a T-storm related power outage. It was fun and I shifted gears in the adventure to increase the spookiness factor.
If you visit Jersey, you should probably visit.
It’s times like these that one realizes just how much we have come to rely on air conditioning. The heat and humidity in this part of the country is just oppressive. People would have never moved here in droves like they have over the last 25 century if central AC had never been invented.
When it’s not powering our guild’s campsite at Faire, we have a 5500 watt portable generator that lives in the back yard shed.
I’ve also got two UPS units that could be pressed into service to run something other than a computer for a few minutes.
Now that we’ve moved into what turns out to be an unincorporated area, we’re free to park our camper at home and plan to do just that once Faire is over. (No more storage fees or “free” storage 200 miles away!) In case things go really sour, we can just hook it to the car and head for the hills.
Finally, we’ve got first aid kits all over the place, and my main kit is a large tackle box. People have thought I was an EMT when the saw the thing. I’m not, but I do know how to use what’s in it. This isn’t really a “lights go out” item, but you never know who’s going to trip on something in the dark.
Perhaps I’m just lucky but we’ve never (that I can remember at least) been without power for any significant length of time. We’ve lost it for maybe a day or two - at the most and that was when I was a child. My dad had a big old generator so we were ok. Since I’ve been an adult, the longest has only been a few hours, and we have some cool lanterns we got with our Marlboro miles that we burn, some rechargeable flashlights, and lots of battery operated stuff - CD players, radios, even a battery operated mini tv. Plus we can all read by flashlight/candlelight. We try to avoid that annoying “connect back with the family and talk and bond and play games and get to really know each other” stuff.
I grab a flashlight and go around the house turning off everything that was on, and then I light some candles, fire up my battery-powered Coleman lantern, and get some music playing on my portable radio. Then it’s just me and my books . . . though for some reason, whenever the power goes out I usually wind up calling someone (and often I don’t even mention the power outage on my end).
I don’t mind power outages on the whole, but a couple of weeks ago I had a major pipe burst in my basement, leaving me without running water overnight, and I realized that I’d rather be without water than power.
Last power failure we had, I added to my collection of candles and flashlights by getting a good old fashioned kerosene lantern, cvomplete with adjustable wick and everything.
Here’s a hint. DO NOT use a kerosene lantern inside a house with battery-powered smoke detectors, no matter how many windows you have open.
I have propane heaters, oil lamps, candles and flashlights. I have bottled water, city water and well water, although my well runs off an electric pump. I can heat water and and food on my propane heater.
I live in a heavily wooded area, so the power going out is simply a fact of life that we deal with at least 10 times a year. In the winter snow storms cause power failures, and in the summer the windy thunder storms do.
There are two mirrored candle holders in the hallway and a pair of mounted lanterns in the doorway between the dining room and the living room. A couple of hurricane lanterns also live on the mantle year round. I keep at least one, if not two flashlights near my bed. The stove is gas, so we can still cook, and the fireplace provides heat in a pinch. Our water isn’t drinkable, so there’s always bottled water, and if it gets stormy we fill a couple buckets with water from the tap so we can flush the toilets. Candles are everywhere, and there’s a battery powered radio near the phone, board games in the closet…
However, the power has never gone out for more than 24 hours in my lifetime, so I don’t know anyone who has an elaborate kit in these parts with extra food, clothes and water or so on. We just don’t get the sort of weather that destroys your house in one fell swoop. I think frequent short power outages have got to be better than a long rare one caused by something horrible.
I must be the SDMB power outage champ. Longest outage was 24 days, after hurricane Opal in 1995. Second longest was 17 days, after the Great Blizzard of March, 1993. Outages in excess of four days can be expected about twice a year.
We live way out in the woods, over two miles from the nearest neighbor, so we’re always the last to have power restored. We’ve learned to be pretty self-sufficient.
10 hp(5000 watt) portable gas generator for starters. This will power the well pump, freezer, refrigerator, several electric lights, microwave, home entertainment, TV and computer.
It won’t power: Hot water heater, electric stove, clothes drier, or central heat and air.
Our normal primary heat source is a wood heater, so temperature control is no problem in the winter. In the summer, we run fans off the generator.
We cook with a Coleman propane camp stove and propane grille. Heat water on the above for bath water, and go to town to wash/dry clothes as needed.
Obviously, we can get by for a long time with out electric power, but it’s a real pain to do so. Especially in the summer, when we’ve become spoiled by the air conditioning.
Running the generator is also much more expensive than normal electricity would be. Full use consumes about six gallong of gas per day.
When the power goes out, the backup lights (wired to switch to battery in the absence of 120V) come on. I grab one of several conveniently placed flashlights (five in all) and head out back to start the generator. Then flip a few switches on the breaker panel and come back inside to watch TV (my genset is the inverter type, it’ll run any electronics). If there’s a problem with water, I tap into my backup store of 55 gallons (cycled thru at regular intervals, it’s always fresh). If the power remains out into the night, I switch the generator over to power the RV out back and move the family into it, since it provides all the comforts of home (and it’s easier to heat and cool). If the power remains out even longer, I can resort to my backup stash of 40 gallons of gasoline (yes, it’s safely stored), to keep us reasonably comfortable for several days. I won’t bore you with the details of our canned food collection, lanterns, my two extra large tanks of propane, etc…
