So
one of those once in a lifetime mess-ups left us without power for
almost a week. One guy messed up and didn’t present the paperwork he was
supposed to, the power company did its thing, then fixing it all with a
weekend in between was even more time. At the end of the day we were
left without power until the mess was sorted out.
I’ve been
without power for a few days before. In fact in Argentina power would go
down almost every day for a few hours some years ago, especially during
summer. I’ve been a day or two without power more times than I can
remember and even longer too. Can’t remember if I ever did six full days
though.
Anyway, not the end of the world but it is an experience
in which you get to see what works, what doesn’t, learn a thing or two
or just refresh or remember some of them, so here it goes:
1)Not
having power sucks. I gets boring after a day or two. I like watching a
movie with the wife after the kids go to sleep. We missed that, of
course no internet, tablets and wifi for the phones. Not having rooms as
well illuminated is pretty depressing too, especially after a few days.
At first the kids run around with flashlights having fun, after the 3
rd
day they cant stop asking when is the power coming back. We have board
games, card games but we didn’t get to use them because we were still
pretty busy. It’s a good idea to have them and put them to use though.
Tip:
Try finding other things to do, and most of all, if you can, get of the
house as much as you can. It really helps fight the gloomy blackout
feeling.
2)Preparedness helps. It makes a very big difference if
you know what to do. If the blackout lasts for a few hours then just
waiting it out with a flashlight will do, but for several days you
actually need a game plan, a strategy to get by. How are you going to
heat your home, how are you going to heat water, cook food, illuminate
the house, keep the fridge going, get work done. All of these need to be
addressed and if you haven’t prepared ahead of time and know what to do
then everything gets a lot more complicated.
3)Flashlights. Lots
of flashlights. I have a ton of them. I buy them, I get them for free to
review. They all came in handy. A small Fenix that my oldest son keeps
was his personal light to get around when going to bed. My wife kept the
Lumintop Copper Prince (best looking flashlight we own!) she keeps as her own. I made good use of the
Thrunite TN12s that I have.
Those
1000 lumen lights come in very handy. Using them in candle mode,
standing on the tail and pointing towards the ceiling, in their medium
modes of 300 or so they would run for a few hours illuminating the room
quite well, especially for showering and preparing dinner they were
extremely handy.
4)Headlamps. Oh how I love those things. The
ability to have both hands available for use while directing light with
your head is priceless. If I could only have a light, it would be a
headlamp. During those days I picked the head band of my Zebralight H52W
and kept it in my pocket as my EDC, using the head strap when getting
things done inside the house. Get yourself a good headlamp. The cheapo
ones are ok but a nicer one is a valuable asset during extended
blackouts.
5)Cat 32 stoves. You remember that post some time ago
about making stoves with small tuna and cat food cans? The first day
without power I used one to boil some water for breakfast. It worked
beautifully.
After that I went for the butane camping stove and
left that in the kitchen. If you don’t have one of these yet, just go
and buy one. Not the mini backpacking one but the cheap, large one used
of camping. Its far more stable and convenient for blackouts. The one I
have is just like this one, the Coleman Butane Stove. Bottles of gas
are 2 bucks although its not hard to find them for one dollar when on
sale. Stock up. I used a canister every two or three days. This was
cooking lunch and dinner, heating water throughout the day for coffee,
tea and mate. Stock up and keep a couple weeks worth of gas. It’s cheap
enough, extremely handy for these kind of situations and can be used
safely in any kind of house or apartment.
6)If
you have a car you already have a generator that can run most
appliances in your home, one or two at a time. All you need is an
inverter. My 500W inverter allowed me to turn on the wifi, use my laptop
and charge the cell phones. Careful not to abuse it, you don’t want to
end up with burned cables or a dead car battery. These days even fuel
efficient refrigerators can be run with a 500W inverter. I would run it
for couple hours at a time, get some things done with the laptop before
going for running errands and recharging the battery. If you’re going to
use the inverter for something more than running a laptop for an hour
or two you want to keep the car running so as to avoid draining the
battery.
Tip: The advertised power of these car inverters is
usually exaggerated a bit. For charging a small laptop and little else a
300W inverter is fine, connected to the 12V lighter. Anything more than
that and you’ll probably start blowing fuses in the car. Better yet,
get a 500W to 1000W inverter that connects directly to the car’s
battery. The bigger the car and the battery the better. Still, Check the
wattage and try sticking to half of the max. wattage of your inverter.
7)Ice
bottles. Put a few bottles of water in your freezer and use it as an
ice box for a couple days, maybe 3 or 4 days in winter. Cover everything
with a plastic tarp in there for extra insulation. Don’t expect any
miracles, but using this technique it will give you enough time to eat
any perishables you may have in there before they go bad.
8)Rice,
pasta, canned tuna, canned vegetables, lentils, the more shelf stable
food you have the easier it is. We are used to eating these things
already during “normal” times, so its already easy for us to stop using
the fridge and stick to these shelf stable foods. Sure you miss a cold
drink in summer, but you get by none the less.
Tip: For rice and especially lentils, pre soaking saves a lot of fuel when cooking. Don’t forget the lid too!
9)Gravity
fed city water saved us. If you’re on a well and need to pump water,
prepare accordingly. Basically you want to look at your situation and
have plan B or even plan C for everything. Cooking? I use electricity.
If that goes down I have the butane stove. If that doesn’t work I have
the Cat32 alcohol stove which also works. I also have LPG gas bottles
used for the water heater, which ca be used for cooking with the right
burner. If you have a well, you maybe want a manual pump in case the
electric one fails. Having a plan B, and even plan C for the more
critical systems saves the day when SHTF.
10)Living next to town
made many things easier. Sometimes you picked fresh food and cooked it
right away, buying things you needed, dropping by laundry. Even simple
things like having a pizza delivered (even if I usually make my own) it
just means you have more resources available and more at hand. Even my
neighbour offered several times to hook me up to his grid if I needed
it. I don’t like asking for favours or even accepting them when offered,
but it was nice knowing that it had been offered.
11)Location,
location, location. Living in an area with tropical climate means that
when these things happen chances are you’ll get by more easily. In
colder climates staying warm is a top priority, especially in winter and
a blackout complicates this a lot. The backup systems are crucial in
this case. In more benign climates though you just don’t worry about
that sort of thing. In sunny places, even lighting gets easier, with
daylight up to 9PM in some cases.
12) Batteries, chargers and
cables. You need several of these, just like you do with flashlights.
You need batteries for your flashlights of course, both primaries and
rechargables. Li-ion ones are especially useful for those larger Lumen
LED lights. They are brighter and run for longer periods of time.
Battery banks and solar panels are also useful. The
Waka Waka Power battery
bank plus charger worked great yet again. Highly recommended. Keep a
lighter plug for the car that has two USB outputs. This means you can
charge two phones at a time when running. When there’s a blackout, this
is very convenient. A good working solar panel is worth purchasing. I’m
considering the one by
Goal Zero Nomad 20W given the positive reviews it has.
FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”
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