Six Days in the Dark(tonyyo11.github.io) |
Six Days in the Dark(tonyyo11.github.io) |
Of course there are some for whom a power outage is life and death because their health is tied to power. Also tornados are terrifying. I don’t mean to trivialize extended power outages. But sometimes accepting the situation and just riding with it is the way to go.
Until a few years ago, being prepared for loss of services for 48 hours was considered sufficient. That's not enough any more, because there will be much less help coming from outside the area.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/26/politics/fema-payments-staffi...
Some fat-ass government worker showed up with a tablet, checked a bunch of boxes on an electronic form to gather statistics on all the damage, gave us some information on government-backed loans, then left. This about 2 or 3 days after.
I will never forget how absolutely useless FEMA was.
$4399.
These stupid 'home battery' units are just stupidly, stupidly marked up for what they do.
You can buy a ~5.2 kwh 48v battery for <$1000 these days, a hybrid solar charger inverter capable of a 6kw AC single phase output (same as the linked battery system) for ~$500, and a a load of used solar panels off any number of sites for next to nothing.
People are getting fleeced by these cutely packaged battery inverter charger boxes with fancy displays and USB-C chargers, all being pushed by youtubers. If you are even mildly technically minded, you can build a more capable system for 30% the cost of these things. They are relying on people just not knowing how much LiFePO4 storage batteries and hybrid solar inverters have come down in price and how easy they are to setup.
So the reality was like this: really awesome power bank included with decent backpack. The power bank has plenty of connectors and adapters to plug into virtually anything. Power bank is juicy enough to power a laptop for a couple of hours, or a smartphone for all day long. Rugged construction there.
The backpack is kind of unwieldy but has some nice pockets and it's totally electronics-aware. You don't want to stash a drink or food anywhere in this thing. There are plenty of grommets for threading the cables you'll need.
The solar panel is like the worst feature of this "solar backpack". Of course, imagine the low surface area you'll get on a backpack. Now imagine how long it takes to charge a quite beefy power bank with that. It took me 3 weeks of all day long, in the clear winter sunlight, with a zero load, to go from zero to about 90%! Three weeks!
So clearly this solar power source is inadequate to keep a device going without discharging completely by dawn. But I certainly do appreciate the power bank, and I do keep this around for emergencies, and I basically just plug it into the wall until it's full, then I stash it away and I don't worry about it for several months.
The cost was also not terrible. I think the entire backpack set cost $300 or less. Not bad for a good durable backpack plus power bank, really; nevermind the solar component.
But that pales in comparison to a phone getting depleted every second day
Just beware of the "dual fuel" lure of thinking you only need propane. In the winter, the self-evaporation rate of a 20lb propane tank isn't nearly enough to even power my little 2500 watt inverter generator.
Solar panels and batteries are for if you're preparing for a really long outage when gasoline might not be available.
Candles, books, single gas burner, board and card games, water and non-perishable food, is all that is required?
I was watching 8-bit guy on youtube cover his experience through the Texas snowstorm a few years back, when he offhandedly mentioned that before that, he pretty much had no power interruptions at all within the last decade.
I was stunned. 10 years? We're lucky to make it 10 months.
Most of my neighbors seemed to have up and left. The immediate neighborhood was quiet. I ventured out and saw what had happened: a large tree had come down, taking the power lines and the road with it. So I assumed the recovery process would be something like:
1. Remove the tree - one company on one schedule
2. Re-pave the road - another company on another schedule
3. Put the telephone pole back up - the phone company (the poles are owned by Verizon in my area)
4. Restore electrical cables - the power company
And I realized that this would not be a quick process.
I threw a 100-foot extension cord out my second floor window, and hooked it up to the 400-watt inverter in my car. (Yes, I know this is terrible for my engine. The silver lining was that somehow the folks at BMW made an engine that got up to operating temperature while idling.) The other end got plugged into the three monitors and laptop on my desk. I hotspotted my phone, and... just kept going at Black Friday readiness.
At one point, I got an interesting sideways glance from the CEO on a Zoom call, as if to say - "Why are you wearing a jacket and fingerless gloves indoors? Do we pay you enough?" I'm just glad the smell of not showering wasn't transmissible through Zoom.
Although I lost most of the contents of my fridge, and I ended up eating a lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly and protein bars, I did find some ways to keep it interesting during the day. I put my moka pot on the charcoal grill for coffee in the morning, and at one point I made a grilled-ish cheese on top of the engine block.
I used a handheld flashlight and an LED lantern for light after the sun went down. And I did treat myself to dinner with friends all three nights, charging up two UPSes at their homes while we went out, so that I could in turn run some other appliances without running the car. I seem to recall at one point watching the 10:00 news on TV thanks to those UPSes.
I would not have wanted this experience with a family like this person did, for sure, but I actually found it somewhat fun and interesting.
I’m curious about the decision to continue relying on frozen and refrigerated food. Reflecting on what I would do — immediately reverting to stable preserved foods and writing off the fridge — makes me wonder if I don’t focus enough on normalcy as to stabilise my family. What’s the point of being prepared if everyone’s morale is crushed from switching to powdered milk?
The point about the authors wife being a supply teacher didn’t go where I expected it to. He talks about her income drying up due to her being a day contractor during school shutdowns in the power crisis. I assumed he was going to talk about the blessing of being able to keep school going despite being trapped at home without power!
Our home also featured a gas range, so we didn't worry too much about cooking during those times, just eating whatever was in the refrigerator. I do not know about water pumping, except that our basement had a sump pump to deal with flooding down there -- definitely electric.
Now fast-forward to my apartment living near Phoenix - on April 1, 2020 there was a fire in my building. Yes, just as the pandemic lockdowns had taken effect, we had an emergency. The fire damaged two units on the 3rd floor, and the fire department damaged at least four more below them. The Red Cross came in to rescue those who were displaced, and the landlady came by to tell me they needed to shut off my power. I was a little panicked, because that meant I'd lose my range, microwave, fridge, all communications, air conditioning; basically everything except water, I suppose.
We somehow got by without shutting off my power. But if my power were shut off then I would have some trouble. Living in a 1BR apartment I do not have the luxury of a generator or any significant disaster-prep storage or preservation here. No second fridge for sure! Without Internet access I wouldn't be able to dial up food delivery.
So I'd need to consider "bugging out" or temporary relocation. I would probably go to an extended-stay hotel somewhere nearby until the trouble was resolved. There would basically be no need for me to stay in-place without electric power. So I might as well go enjoy myself, as you say. It would be a nice time to see some movies at the theater, enjoy the outdoors, and such. And hopefully my insurance would cover the loss of use at my place.
You can move it around inside where you need it instead of running cords all over your house, they won't kill your whole family with CO2, and you can run them during a storm.
(Honestly it’d be interesting to hear from the kids too)
His wife probably knows better than him what is really valuable to keep in case of emergency: food in cans instead of 2 additional power hungry fridge and freezer. Whike I am not into child labour, non toddler kids won't lose their childhood if they have to provide manpower, help and learn about responsibilities during a specific event once in a while. On the contrary these can be good teaching moments.
Huh!? Forget canned food and go-bags. If you only have a few days worth of savings that is an emergency. I hope I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “rainy day funds”
All his purchases were directed into having and maintaining power which were not really the priority. The silly part is he had still access to takeouts so there wasn't even remote risk of starving
Just chill out for a couple of days and enjoy reading some books and have an adventure.
Unless you’ve got a medical emergency and need to have power for some devices just relax and wait for the power to be reconnected.
I get that there are emergencies in the world but not having power at home is an inconvenience.
Experienced a relatively large outage a few weeks ago. I think I had one every ten years or so. Happened at 8pm. Online monitoring system (Mobile Internet is able to run on backup power for a day) said it would be fixed by 11pm, but it was actually fixed at 9pm. I watched Netflix on my tablet for the time being.
Needles to say, there's no big market here for such generators.
Do remember that the ~2000 mile eastern section of the US is exposed to Atlantic hurricanes. Germany gets nothing like those. Additionally, US states exist in a large variety of climates, so the country as a whole has to deal with both freak heat and ice that Germany rarely faces.
Also remember that Germany is more densely populated and (until very recently) far richer than many of the US states that seem to be unable to plan for generally-uninterrupted power supply. Looking at the size and population of the various US states [0] might help put some of this into perspective.
[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...>
If it _is_ life and death, sure, get a generator.
Peopke can talk in a neighbprhiod and plan accordingly. Not everyone need a power generator, more than one family can cook from the same gas stove, etc etc
Even when total devastation happen, the radius tend to be limited and unless you live in a small island you can always find food/water and medical supply within a day of walking/cycling from the epicenter if no one is injured. When the DANA brought devastation in an area around Valencia in Spain, people would tak their bike from the main city to bring essential medical supplies to people living in places that weren't drivable too. So sure I always keep several liters of water and a few days worth of non perishable food at home, as well as a portable gas stove and a water filter I bought for hiking trips, but I would have no issue relocating me and my family for a while if needed. Adults and teenagers can easily carry 50kg worth of stuff with something as simple as a bicycle they push by hand, like people in congo do with much more capable chukudus. Electricity would be the least of my concerns.
It's cool that we can get these air sensors things, but they sure give people who worry about numbers some additional ones to worry about.
Day 4 no more deliveries but we still have takeout! For real, you can still order food from your local restaurants and you are in a panic about things. Instead of spending $4,500 on a generator you'll never use again maybe just pack the kids in a car an go to the beach for the weekend. Seriously.
When I was a kid I enjoyed the days we lost power. Grab a candle and have a laugh in the dark. It was fun.
That said, I don't want to be mean. I do think there is a generalized anxiety that is very much enabled on the internet. Like this kind of behavior - basically prepping - is encouraged.
I read analysis that suggested that prepping behavior is a way of coping with feelings of inadequacy by imagining a future world where all the person's capabilities will be fully appreciated. "All my guns and dried rice and my underground bunker will make me the most relevant person in the future". Most prepper's visions of the future are unique to them and focus on their skills. E.g. one of us tech types might think we could create a connected network and support wifi for a region and be a source of knowledge or something. Obviously if something did happen all of this would go to shit in seconds but that isn't the point..
Maybe it's all just a fantasy of feeling relevant.
When in college, no one bothered to pay the electric bill and we were without power for a week or so. Candles and the acoustic guitar came out.
A radio with batteries is always going to be a good idea to have in case of an emergency. A camp stove and lots of dried ramen will keep you from starving.
I spent $600 for a box to be delivered to family which only had batteries and battery fans.
It took my family 6 MONTHS to get power.
My sister would alternate what she did every day.
Some days, she would leave in the morning to go get gas. The line was ALL DAY. Only thing she was filling was the car up. If the temp was too high, because of my grandparents (90’s), they’d just sit in the car to cool off. They’d take the time to charge the phones.
The next day, she’d hit a supermarket. Again, a line all day, to be hopefully let in, and buy whatever is left. I mean, WHATEVER is left (if anything) because the ports weren’t open and nothing was no food being delivered. She would buy expired food, food that clearly had been too warm, then cooled down again, etc.
That and then she’d hit the more rural areas to see if anyone had fruits or anything they were giving out.
The currency at one point was ice. Cause it can keep your food safe and getting it wasn’t easy.
Cellphones were down most of the time. When they came up, they were overloaded. Then antennas would run out of gas and they’d go down again.
At 3 months, I was finally able to get my mom, my sister, and my grandparents out. Before, we’d buy tickets and flights would get cancelled. Every single day we’d go in.
When they made it to us, I took my sister to help buy groceries for my mom and grandparents.
Seeing her walk in, and when we reached the back of the first aisle, she just couldn’t hold it back and fell down crying because of the food. ‘The food’.
Seeing a woman in her mid 20’s crashing into the floor and crying just cause there’s food after being 3 months without it is sad. That being my sister was, heart breaking. Other people came, my wife explained a bit. A few stayed and talked, tried to calm her down.
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I applaud the author for taking action. For preparing. But let’s also understand, this is 6 days, and he could have drove his family anywhere else with that money. Find the cheapest rental or hotel and put everyone in a room there. That’s it.
From the reading, the hard part is keeping the kids entertained and food. He lost some. He could have used bags of ice.. but a cooler, drive 2, 5? hours and fill it with bags of ice. The fill your fridge and gift the rest. Repeat in one or two days. Only open to fill a smaller cooler for the day.
But he needs a jackery, solar panels, a generator, and $350 worth of groceries. Would $100 have sufficed for a bit and left stuff for others?
For me, while rainy funds are good, after disasters back home the most important part is community. They’re the ones helping each other. But I see nothing about it.
Then not wanting to waste the various stocked up food in the fridge/freezer. You could forgo this and consider it lost, but since you're already trying to tackle the general problem, it adds to the motive.
Other possible stressors that don't seem to be in play here are needing heat in the winter or needing cooling in the summer. Personally I'd rather not freeze to death, or even have to huddle under blankets hoping for someone else to rescue me. And an outage not in the winter is a great time to practice.
In general, problems compound so when faced with such a situation that lops off a huge amount of normalcy, the understandable instinct is to try to right the situation lest you fall even further. Camping is great and all, but you're still relying on the option to come back to full amenities and pay off the accumulated debt.
I lost power for a few days because of a downed power line in my backyard. The stress comes because all the "automatic" decisions that were made by organizing a system for your life fall apart. And you are overwhelmed by needing to continuously make new, suboptimal decisions and balancing trade-offs multiplied by the size of your family. And all your neighbors are trying to make the same decisions with the same lack of infrastructure.
Check into a hotel so the kids can have internet to do homework? Nope, hotels are already booked or also in the dark. Find somewhere farther from school and work and on top of that also puts more pressure on EV charging times? Ugh.
We were fortunate to have so many resources to help us and thankfully no one was injured, but even then, it was the most stressful week of my life in a long, long time.
As someone who has been through the long blackouts after hurricanes, a packed chest freezer will make it about 3 days before the bottom layer defrosts, so you fucking cook the lot, and feed your friends and neighbours. Hurricane block parties are a thing.
I'm not saying that's the case here (I don't know! When OP has a spare minute they should think about what would have been different in a snowstorm!). It's just that this edgy contrarian "what's the big deal just read a book man" is laughable for most situations.
The key points for survival is access to non contaminated water, shelter and food. Lack of electricity is only an annoyance.
https://www.marthastewart.com/8269604/should-you-refrigerate...
> You can technically store opened jams and jellies at room temperature—but only in a cool, dark place and for about a week after opening, says Lee. Here's why: Jams and jellies have high sugar and acid levels, which protect against spoilage. But there are still certain microorganisms, called osmophiles, that are resistant to these conditions and can cause spoilage over time,
Same thing with jars of Mayonnaise - that one gets you strange looks.
As I understand it the main thing is a lot of jams not having enough sugar in them anymore to prevent spoiling.
Many of my aunts and uncles grew up in Appalachia without indoor plumbing or electricity for most of their childhood. A cellar is more important than a generator, as the cellar doesn't require refueling and it also doubles as a shelter when there is a tornado warning.
$600 is still ridiculous though.
I'm thankful for OP writing up his experience. Did he do some ridiculous things due to stress? Yes! The whole point of writing it up is so that others can learn from it with cool heads, to avoid repeating those mistakes.