Real Life

Photo Credit: Orange Steeler

So, as most of you likely know from my Mom's post yesterday (thank you mom!), we experienced a wide spread power outage here.  This severe blackout that left some 5 million people without electricity for 5-24 hours from Mexico to southern Orange County.  Businesses closed; commuters jammed roadways; people packed hospitals; and sewage pumps failed, contaminating a lagoon and a river that feeds into San Diego Bay.  All public elementary, middle and high schools closed for the day today (Friday).  The outage was due to the failure of a high-voltage power line between Arizona and Southern California.  The estimated the economic impact of the power outage is between $97 million and $118 million!

So, this was no small thing!  It was an interesting experience.  I learned a bit and hope I'm better prepared for other more serious situations in the future. 

Our Story:
It was unusually hot here when the power went out at 3:30 pm and all our  fans stopped working.  That made me grumpy.  It made the kids grumpy.  Our house got awful hot and muggy.  So, we played outside for a bit while we waited for Daddy to get home.  He had said he'd be home early (at 4:00) b/c he was sick.  He left work at 3:45 and didn't get home until 5:00.  His commute typically takes him about 12 minutes.  The streets were packed.  Imagine how much worse it would have been had the power outage be due to a natural disaster.  I thought about how I'd put off filling up the van again and again this week (we usually keep both our cars at least 1/2 full).  It was on empty.  I was glad this was nothing serious and we didn't have to evacuate.

I thought about going out to eat (before I knew the extent of the outage and resulting traffic) because I really didn't want to break out the camp stove and grill something up in the hot weather.  Then I thought about how one thing we are short on in our emergency supplies is fuel.  We have lots of food and water, but not much fuel.  Probably not more than enough for a few days.

We ate peanut butter sandwiches, crackers and THRIVE fruit b/c I didn't want to open the fridge and risk losing any cool air.  We have hundreds of dollars of food in our fridge / 2 freezers and I worried about it going bad.  I wished I'd invested in a solar generator or two to keep them going. I'd get two: one to run my appliances, charge phones etc while the other one charged using it's solar panels.  Then, we'd switch.

I also tried to limit my phone usage because my battery was low and I didn't want it to run out before the power came back.  Again, wishing for a solar generator.  I'll get a small one just to charge my portable devices.

It got dark.  We pulled out a bunch of our flashlights.  We have 20+.  Battery powered, crank, and shakeable.  The boys had fun with them.  I wished we had more candles b/c it is hard to light a whole room properly when you lay a flashlight on its side. We listened to our radio.

We checked on some neighbors and talked to other neighbors who stopped by to check on us.  We got out some cards and played games and talked in the dark.  It ended up being a fun night.  Being (mostly) prepared allowed us to relax and enjoy the break in our routine.  However, it was a good exercise that made me think through what might be some holes in our preparedness.  I will soon be purchasing:

• Additional Fuel
• A Solar Generator or two
• A small solar portable device charger
• Additional Candles
• Oh, and I will be much more diligent about keeping our van 1/2 full!

How about you: were you affected by the outage at all?  How did you handle it?  Anything you will be changing about your preparedness plan / 72 hr kit?