Having spent 2.5 weeks last May without electricity (other than a single extension through the courtesy of neighbors with power, used for a room lamp, a fan, and some computer access) and without running water, ten and a quarter years after a winter ice storm left us powerless for a week, some observations:
Most central heating depends on electricity for ignition/spark, fuel pumping, and/or a fan circulating the heated air. So lack of power in the winter can be a problem even when one’s heat source is not electricity.
Rural areas typically draw well water with pumps – electric pumps. So a power outage may leave one without water. A gas-fired water heater that does not depend on electricity in any way may provide hot water – but some gas-fired heaters use electric spark. Though we could get pails of tap water from the neighbors, flushing toilets was a major issue.
Refrigeration is essential for a wide variety of foodstuffs. Though some things can be preserved using (purchased) ice, a lot of spoilage will result.
One can cook over Sterno, charcoal, or propane-fired devices – maybe, Depending on the foodstuff, some things cannot be cooked through. And boiling or baking anything is near-impossible with most such devices (as in most cases is roasting).
Lack of light, especially in Northern fall and winter, is an issue during extended outages, particularly during times of overcast or when the moon is not up after sundown. Lack of contact with the outside world may also be a critical issue for some.
You can survive just fine as long as you have water, food and shelter (=heat). The biggest challenge would probably be adapting to live without food refrigeration. But the keyword is surviving. Living a reasonably comfortable modern lifestyle would be very expensive.
And nobody needs A/C to survive other than the very old and infirm. Even less so with running water available.
If she lived in an apartment with neighbors on all sides, her apartment would stay within about 10 degrees (and often closer than that) of the neighbor’s due to heat flow through the walls, floor, and ceiling. I did this for 5 years running when I lived in an apartment…I had the option, but never felt the need to run my heat or AC.
Even a flush toilet is not a necessity. I have an aunt who lived for years (decades, actually, come to think of it) without a toilet with running water. At first, she used an outhouse, and later, an indoor toilet that she flushed with a bucket full of graywater that she kept in the bathroom.
If the OP’s criterion is “survival” then sure, electricity isn’t necessary. After Hurricane Andrew in Miami, lots of us went for months and months without it. Dipping buckets in the canal provided water for toilet flushing, in lieu of the electric pump on the well. Potable water, and some ice, could be purchased after a drive to less blighted parts of the county. Canned goods keep in the cupboard. Propane grills can cook most anything, if you’re creative. Sponge baths only require water heated on the grill.
The human condition for tens of thousands of years involved survival without electricity. But that isn’t modern society. That’s why, after many years of wilderness camping, we bought a motor home.
I likes me some aspects of modern society, air conditioning and food refrigeration among them.
I grew up in the rural US without electricity or running water or sewers or telephone until 1949, age 11. We were in the swamps along the river in the northwest corner of the deep south.
When electricity arrived a few lights and food refrigeration was the first thing I remember persons buying.
I wouldn’t call Florida “the South” for purposes of this conversation. People weren’t moving to Charleston as a vacation sort of thing. South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama - all of these places had really major cities long before AC. I went to college at Agnes Scott in Atlanta, which has historical dorms that always rate very highly on the Princeton Review and such… except there’s no AC. We survived just fine.
I was without electricity for eleven days last December. The pump didn’t work so there was no running water. The oil furnace didn’t work, because the combustion blower and circulation pump require electricity. The indoor temperature fell into the teens, and the heating pipes froze and burst.
Good point. One of the worst things about the power failures in Northeast and Kentucky & Arkansas during December (New England, NY, Penn) & Janruary (KY, AK) was that both ice storms nailed areas where a great many people had wells instead of city water - so no electricty = no running water for several days. We were fortunate enough to have a small stream on the property where we could go fill buckets of water every day to flush the toilet, but I don’t see that happening for a lot of people. No water ranked #2 after no heat (it took using the fireplace 12 hours a day to keep the house 50-55F) in what made that week so miserable.
Once I lived in some cheap apartments (in Alabama). My neighbor was a guy who was often standing outside his apartment, so we talked a lot. Eventually, I found out that he was quite poor but had gotten a good rate on the apartment, so he was able to stay there, but he couldn’t afford electricity. So he didn’t spend much time in the actual apartment. So this guy lived for months (possibly years) without electricity at home.
Of course, he was a single guy, no kids, and he seemed like he might be just one step above being a homeless person.
A bunch of people die in southern Europe from the heat every year.
Most of them wouldn’t be able to afford a/c. Most of them have forgotten how to use a botijo, or to stay out of the baking sun. Many have blood in their alcoholstream (promise, this is quite common for gents over a certain age).
The heat alone doesn’t kill them, any more than it killed a single person in my home town on that summer when the thermometer broke 50C every day for over a week… but that was before a/c became expected in public buildings and people forgot how to use a botijo.
Botijo: an earthenware vase which cools water down. Must not be used for other drinks.
I grew up in rural Virginia. We didn’t have a/c until the late 90s, all window units. We had an attic fan that drew the air in through the windows and box fans. If we really needed cool, we’d go into our full basement.
