We finally got our power turned back on at 12 noon on Wednesday. That was three full days without any electricity. Thankfully, it wasn't the week or two we had been hearing rumors about. We learned so many things about how to deal with no power for days at a time so I've decided to share! I have a feeling this is going to be long so if you're not interested in reading the whole thing, I don't think my feelings will be too hurt. But for those of you that do hang in there, I hope it's beneficial if this ever happens to you!(though I really hope it doesn't)
**Disclaimer - This is what worked best for us. You could find yourself in a completely different situation. Don't hold me to anything I may say in this post.
I'm not quite sure where to start. I'll try to organize this list as best I can, but there are quite a few random things I've just stuck in there.
- Be sure you can get in your house if you are not home when the power goes out. We've lived in our home for over a year and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've used the key to the front door. We always use the garage. Just make sure you have a house key on your car key ring or do the hide-a-key thing(just hid it well, you don't want to give easy access to burglars!) Luckily we were home when the power went out so we didn't have to deal with this problem.
- Know how to unhook your garage door. I had to have Tyler show me how to do this. Once it's unhooked from the motor, it's fairly easy to open and close manually.
- Go to the store! Even though this happened on Sunday afternoon, I had a feeling the outage was going to last a while so after about 2 hours I went to the store to get ice, batteries, lanterns and candles. There was no line and I was able to get what I needed. One of my friends waited until Monday morning to go. She had to wait in line for 45 minutes and they were out of ice.
- Have plenty of cash on hand. The stores might be out of power too and might only be able to take cash.
- Don't open your fridge or freezer. The less it's opened, the longer it will stay cool. After a couple of hours though, you'll want to start cleaning it out and getting stuff in coolers. Dump leftovers that can't be eaten cold or isn't worth taking up room. But...
- Don't put anything in your sink disposal. You would think this one is a no-brainer. Well, apparently, I don't have a brain. Moving on.
- Take your freezer stuff elsewhere if possible. Depending on how widespread the outage is there could be people with power or at least generators that are more than willing to share. We have a small chest freezer so I put everything in that and we took it, along with another friend's chest freezer to another friend's house who had power. Otherwise we would have lost a whole quarter of beef we just bought. That's a lot of meat!
- Use your friends. I was able to go to my friend Melanie's house(where our freezer was) and do my hair. I know that sounds dumb but I need a hair dryer!(our hot water heater is gas so we still got hot showers!) I also did my wash there. I don't know what I would have done without her! Use your fellow powerless friends too. We had a grill and our friends Ben and Dori didn't. So they came over and were able to cook the chicken that would have gone bad otherwise. The next night we all went over to another powerless friend's house and ate her hamburger patties that were thawing. It was like a party every night!
- Turn off everything you remember was on. If the power comes back on in the middle of the night and every light in the house is on, it would be a rude awakening.
- Keep at least one flashlight where you can easily find it. I don't think it would be very fun to go searching through your storage and camping supplies by the light of your cell phone.
- Be sure to have at least one flashlight, lantern or lamp per person. Then you can go to the bathroom without leaving everyone else in the dark
- Have several different kinds of light. We had a couple different flashlights, a battery operated lantern and an oil lamp. The flashlights were dim enough that it wouldn't disturb Kayden when I checked on him at night. The oil lamp gave off a nice soft light but it was hot, you wouldn't want one of your kids carrying it around, you also wouldn't want to set it next to a hand towel in the bathroom. The battery lantern was a more harsh florescent light but it wasn't even warm to the touch so you could take it anywhere without worrying about starting a fire.
- Use paper plates and plastic utensils. Everything you use will have to be washed by hand and I don't know about the rest of you but I hate doing dishes. In an emergency you should be conserving water anyway. Which brings me to...
- Have plenty of water!! We had two 24-packs of bottled water plus about 4 gallons in jugs. We didn't use much this time because our tap water was ok but it was nice to have just in case(we did use it for Kayden's bottles, just to be safe). This is especially important if you have well water. The pump won't work without electicity so you would be totally without water.
- Conserve water. I've already talked about this one a little but I'll share a few more tips on how to conserve. Take little or no showers. Use antibacterial hand gel instead of washing your hands. This one's my favorite: if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down (name that movie!)
- Have a regular toothbrush on hand. If you only use an electric toothbrush, it will run out of power soon!
These are a few items I'm glad we had:
- car plug converter - you can plug this into the lighter in the car and then plug anything into the converter! It's wonderful. I was able to charge my cell phone even though I don't have a car charger. And I was actually going to try to plug my hair dryer into it the day the power came back on (it might be too high of a voltage for that though).
- lots of batteries - we had at least one pack of each size. I did have to buy D batteries at the store and got one of the last packs. That is the size most lanterns and big things like that use.
- camp stove - this was great. it's exactly like a gas stove burner, I was able to use my regular pans on it.
- extra propane - small canisters for the camp stove and big ones for the grill.
- dutch oven - we didn't use it this time around but if it would have gone any longer we would have.
- battery powered radio - this was our only contact with the outside world!
- entertainment - cards, board games, etc.
I think that's it. Lucky for us this couldn't have happened at a better time of year. It was the perfect temperature so we didn't have to worry about staying cool or keeping warm. If there are any tips and tricks you guys can think of, please share! We need all the help we can get in these scary times.
This experience, even though it was very mild, made me so greatful for the modern-day convieniences we have. I missed my tv and internet! I'm greatful for a microwave. I'm greatful for my dishwasher and disposal. I'm greatful for my garage door. Man, I don't know how those pioneers did it!
