optimized living

Last Thursday we had a terrible windstorm. Gusts were 60-70mph in some areas causing many large trees to go crashing through powerlines. We ended up being without power for 59 hours– the longest I’ve ever had a power outage. Some people are still without power today (almost a week!).

Of course, even after the power came back our cable service was still out. And since our cable also carries our internet and telephone it was not a lot of fun. In total, cable was out for 116 hours.

Luckily I picked up a T-Mobile SDA a while back and was able to use that for making calls and checking email. When the power started to get low, I charged it through a car adapter and then at a friend’s house who had power.

Here are the items that I really wish I had during this experience. It’s not a complete list, but at least a place to start.

• Full gasoline tanks. Luckily my car had a full tank. Unfortunately my wife’s car only had a 1/4 tank. We spent almost half a day looking for a gas station with power so that we could refill it. My new rule is that cars should always have minimally a half a tank of gas, at least in the winter.
• D batteries. I have one of the large MAGLite flashlights, except I did not have any extra batteries for it. Ended up borrowing them from a friend who had a stockpile.
• LED flashlight. While my MAGLite was bright, it would have been better to have one of their LED flashlights.
• Lantern. I tried reading one night using the flashlight but it was not easy/comfortable since the light was so focused. A lantern would be better for reading / playing games at night.
• More candles. We had some, but not enough large ones.
• More matches. Near the end of the 59 hours we started to get low on matches.

There were a few things that worked out really well– internet on phone, gas stove, gas fireplace, and battery back-ups.

Of course with a power outage this long, maybe it’s time to look for a generator…