We’re dealing with some stormy weather here (Vancouver for me, but it covers a wider area) and so a patchwork of homes across the region are having power outages. Crews are working to restore it
So on that note, what do you like to do?
- ways to prepare, what to buy, a favourite flashlight from [email protected]?
- how you pass the time
- any stories that come to mind?
Several years ago we lost power for 4 days after an especially bad storm. We don’t have good enough cell service at our house to usually use data or run a hotspot. Mostly it’s like camping except we get to sleep in our beds.
Prepare: We keep filled water jugs for both drinking and flushing the toilets.
We have a small generator to run our fridge, so once a month we run it for about 10 minutes. We keep gas and spark plugs for it handy.
We have a weather radio that’s solar powered with battery back-up.
We have a solar-charging battery bank (to charge our phones) as well as lanterns and flashlights that use AA batteries and a stash of extra AA batteries. Winter here can be quite cloudy, making solar lights harder to use sometimes.
We have a camping stove and extra fuel, as well as some easy to prepare foods. We use the food when we go camping and get new ones to store for emergencies, making sure the food doesn’t expire. We cooked outside (it was summer but even in winter I would do the cooking outside).
For winter we have a kerosene heater and extra fuel and wicks.
Entertainment: I would guess you’re especially asking about evenings, as during the day when our power was out we’d go outside if the weather was nice. In the evenings we played board games and card games, did puzzles and crosswords, did art (drawing, coloring, and painting), did crafts, and read.
If we know ahead of time bad weather’s coming, I’ll download some shows and movies to my tablet. We also have a DVD player to connect to my laptop while the battery lasts.