Out go the lights

I was cooking a nice dinner for my lovely wife and I. There was a nice steak from a local farm cooking on the woodstove. The rice and veggies were just about done. Then the lights went out. It had been windy all day so I wasn't too surprised.

Normally my lights are powered from my solar electric system, but due to all the cloudy days we've had the lights were on the grid. It would have been a simple thing to switch them back to the batteries. There was enough power saved up to easily get us through the night. However, we decided to light a couple of candles instead and have a romantic candlelight dinner.

While we were having dinner I noticed a fire truck drove past the house. They normally don't come around the lake, so I assumed there must be a problem out on the main road. Sure enough, after dinner I looked and could see flashing red lights in the distance. It was hard to judge looking through the trees, but they appeared to be down by the main road.

A lot of people would go down the road to see what the problem was. I didn't need to know. The last thing the firefighters needed was some guy hanging around getting in the way. Besides, when I was a firefighter back in the day I had my fill of dealing with dangerous downed power lines. No sense putting myself in harm's way when I'm not getting paid to do so.

While my lovely wife and I were having after dinner drinks the utility truck drove by. About a half hour later the grid was back up. No problem.

It did make me think. What if this was a real Lights Out situation. What if the grid didn't come back for a long long time. Well, we had the woodstove going and have enough fuel for some time. The pantry is well stocked. We have good water, and we'd be in pretty good shape for some time.

Now imagine the grid goes down where you are and stays down. How prepared are you right now? Not how prepared you could be later, but right now. Hope you feel good about your situation. If not, maybe this would be a good time to do something about it.

-Sixbears