Just got power and internet back after it was out for 116 hours after the Northwest windstorm. Here’s a couple things I learned from it.
POWER I had my generator and gas set but I couldn’t find my spare spark plugs, oil or generator manual. I was able to run my gas fired furnace with variable speed motor and fridge at the same time with a 1850 watt generator. Energy efficiency is great. I took my furnace offline for 4 hours a day to run my chest freezer. Keep a set of gloves near your generator my hands got stinky from refilling 5 times a day.
If you get any warning of a power outage charge EVERYTHING you have that can be charged. Cell phones, razors, laptops etc.
LIGHTING We have 2 battery powered lanterns and 5 flashlights. I need to lock them up next time. If you have 4 people you only need 2 flashlights out at a time. If you have them all out they will all get used at the same time and someone will leave one on somewhere in a room that they leave with full hands. Also make sure you have spare lamps for you flashlights I had one go out and didn’t have a spare lamp for it.
Candles worked pretty good, my wife wants a candle lantern or candle holder that will hold multiple candles in one place. Also my wife went through matches like candy the first few days until I showed her to light one candle and then light other things with the first candle. She was using on match per item to light.
TELEPHONES My cord power phone had broken at sometime and I didn’t know it until I tried to use it. It wasn’t in the cords I checked those something failed in the hand set. I need to get a new one and remember to check it once in a while or find a jack to leave it in all the time so I know it works.
Cellphones worked but service was a bit spotty. Also I ran out of money on my pay as you go phone and had no way to add more money to my account for a couple days.
GAS I fill my tank the night before the storm, I’m not sure why. I didn’t actually think no power=no gas but something at the back of my brain said “HEY! You better fill up now” so I did. Many gas stations had no power and no way to pump gas. The lines were a mile or better long in places for a few days until more power was brought back online and more stations re-opened.
HOUSEKEEPING I bought a manual carpet sweeper this summer and ended up using it everyday to keep the floors clean. Laundry piled up but it wasn’t too bad to put dirty clothes back on since I had clean underwear and t-shirts.
I need to add a burn barrel to my preps because if the garbage pick up was out the garbage would build up fast after the first week. The clean stuff went into the fireplace but there was a lot that needed to go outside.
FIRST AID/HEALTH We found ourselves using more band aids for small cuts and nicks. More manual labor, couldn’t see as well in the dim light, gave myself a good gash one night filling up the generator in the dark, splinter from firewood, etc…
Take turns staying up late, every night one of us was up until midnight or later, either cleaning or waiting to fill the generator for last time before bed. I got pretty tired because I was the one that stayed up to fill the generator. My wife now wants a lesson on how to run the generator.
FOOD/WATER We followed the path of least resistance and ate the easy to prepare and comfort food first. If I was going to be in an extended outage food management would be very important.
Water service never went out, but I already know I need more water in storage.
PUBLIC SEWAGE Sewage service would have eventually gone out because the sewage lift stations need power to pump the sewage, they managed to get generators on the stations until power was restored.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT I didn’t hear squat from the state or county government. I guess the “Governor” sent out a recorded message to all the radio stations and declared a state of emergency, I never heard it. I don’t know what the county is up to. The local city has been pretty good. I see police cars twice a day and they’ve been handing out flyers about the state of the power grid. They also had an emergency police van set up at the local park with cookies and coffee and there were to officers there ready to help.
The utilities and charities opened up shelters for people but nothing from the “State”.
We got through this as an incontinence many people weren’t so lucky. There are probably a dozen or so more smaller things I learned from this outage but these are the major points.
Darn spell check the last should say
We got through this as an “inconvenience” many people weren’t so lucky.
I think “incontinence” could very well describe the state’s response…
RNeville — 20 December 2006, 13:52
Thank you very much for the story of your experience’s, these real world story’s are invaluable to us all.
I agree with all the above. I only lost power for 18 hours. I was sick of it and me. I am so spoiled, I like my tv, electric furnace, lights, computer, internet. I will never have enough preps for 3 months or longer. I can only downgrade myself and decide what is lifesaving and what is luxury. I do appreciate all the of PUD and PSE employees and their effort to restore electricity for everyone. There are still 100,000 homes without power.
RNeville — 20 December 2006, 13:52 Your experience shows how exhausting it could be to try to maintain ‘normalcy’. I think I will be seriously redefining ‘normal’.
We were only out of power for about 48 hrs. I’ve been wanting to do a dry run on my preps but hubby isn’t so concerned. This was a great opportunity for me. ( I was secretly wanting it to stay out for a few more days) By the end of the second day things were just starting to get interesting.
The dishwasher was full of dirty dishes and we switched to paper plates. ( you can use those really thin, cheep ones if you put them on a clean plate for support) I only had to hand wash a few pans for cooking and used hot water from the wood stove.
Thankfully we are rural and have a couple of wood stoves and years of wood to heat/cook with. The wood stove did fine for heating water for tea/coffee, sponge baths… Heat is not a problem.
We broke out the camp stove and had no problem with food, but we did go to the easy/canned foods first. I totally agree food management is an issue. When I think the power is going to be out for an indefinate period this will be critical. We have a generator and only ran it periodically to keep the fridge and freezer going and to check the news for a few min. each day. Being winter we didn’t go through the same amt. of fuel as we would if it was summer. Plus we could put stuff out in the garage to keep cool and save from opening the fridge door. I appreciated having thermometers in the fride and freezer so I knew for certian when we got close to the critical temps. Just how warm was our fridge.
Things I’m going to miss:
you all, the internet for news/info… I am in the process of expanding on my reference notebooks in case I can’t get online. Also, downloading a bunch of files to the hard drive …
my washer and dryer. We were fine for a few days and I was ready to break out my bucket/plunger set up and give it a real life test. but alas hubby was more into taking it over to his sisters in town who had power.
The things I really took away from this is that I’m going to benefit from having really thought things out a day or two in advance. Things that I take for granted are really going to take a lot more time and I’d already accounted for that, I thought. Putting the beans for tomorrows meals on the stove to soak before I go to bed. being frugal with my water usage.
One of the most interesting and important things was that when the power goes out, espcially in winter, when the sun goes down and it’s dark I really just wanted to hunker down and not do much moving around. Even with lighting. (it was hard to break the habit of hitting the light switch when I went into a room) I suppose I’d grow used to that after a while but it was hard to get up and do much. Maybe I do need to rethink my lighting. Then again I really don’t want to announce that I’ve got that much covered… hum… will have to digest that more.
All in all it was interesting for me to see how other people handled it. You could really get a feel for how many people are totally unprepared and expected others to come to their aid.
On a good note, I believe it was an eye opener for my husband. I think he was glad that we already had all of these preps in place. I can tell you that on one hand I felt really proud of myself for getting my family prepared as I have and yet on the other hand I realized how totally screwed we’d be if this is happens soon. Not for lack of our preparations but of all the other fall out. OK back to my planning…..
All in all it was interesting for me to see how other people handled it. You could really get a feel for how many people are totally unprepared and expected others to come to their aid.
Tomo - Can you expand on that? How did your neighbors handle it? 48 hours versus 48 days versus 480 days is a huge differential.