Long term power outage

The grid came back reasonably quick here after the storm. I got lucky. The source of my power outage was caused by trees falling on a major feed line across the main street of the next town over. Those get fixed fairly quickly. That power line supplied a hospital. Had the lines come down on my little side road, our priority would have been quite low.

Power was out just long enough for me to think about how I’d deal with a long term outage. The first thing I did was turn off the power switch to the Internet cable modem and router. Unplugged my Roku device that allows me to stream Internet programming on my TV. No sense in sending power to things that can’t be used.

One of my major power draws is the well pump. Even though I have my own well, we are frugal water users. The only change I’d make is I’d be more aware to do dishes when the sun is shining instead of drawing down the batter bank.

Then there is the refrigerator. My plan involved eating all the refrigerated food first and then unplugging it. Most of my food storage is dry and canned foods, so we really could get by just fine without refrigeration.

The power saved would most likely allow enough energy to run my washing machine. By then, we’d be ready for some clean clothes.

We could have gone a very long time, in reasonable comfort, using only the solar electric system. If I really had to, I could have dragged out the generator a friend gave me and fired that up. That’s my last resort solution, as generators are noisy, smelly and burn my limited fuel supplies.

I had no idea how long the power outage was going to last. While it was less than a day, it’s nice to know my own power system would have done the job for a long long time. Nothing like a real world emergency to test a prepper’s plans.

-Sixbears