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.
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.
$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.
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”
Have we gone so far in the US with fear mongering that it comes to this? Why would a black man fear for his life when a former president runs for a second term and ends up getting 20% black male vote overall (up from the 13% in 2016) , and 47% of Latino men , greater than any republican before him?
Hope this clears it up. The changes that Republicans are proposing are going to be a disaster for anyone who is not basically a white straight Christian man who doesn't watch porn.
It's shaping up to be a very bad 4 years for people like me and I encourage everyone to vote Democrat in every election they can legally vote in.
If you don't believe me ask around and any friends you have who are queer or care about abortion will tell you things are very looking grim for us.
In short it is a consolidation of absolute power in the hands of a few rich bullies who are wanting to torment minorities as a distraction while they steal from as many Americans as they can
If at this point you're really still in post-reality denial that our country isn't in the process of being destroyed by a mentally ill mobster autocrat backed by an anti-constitutional corporate totalitarian movement, then you're the one that needs help. Serious help. We can still defend our country together, but first you've got to join the rest of us in reality.
If there was some negative aspect of Trump's reign that was obviously focused on black people, I assume you would have mentioned it, since then you would have been answering GP's question directly, which would have been much more persuasive to readers. The fact that you didn't leads me to suspect that there is no such aspect, and no good reason why OP wrote "As a black man" at the start of that sentence.
But this does not mean the original article's mention of "as a black man" is invalid! The fascists use identity politics as the tip of one spear for their totalitarian agenda. This dynamic was demonstrated in Trump's first term with events like Kenneth Walker having his family member summarily executed for his daring to exercise his second amendment right to self defense at home at night. That should have been a straightforward rallying cry for gun enthusiasts. Yet the political machines went to work framing it in terms of race and lo-and-behold whole communities of people that would say things like "from my cold dead hands" instead fell right into line supporting the jackboots!
So regardless of the ultimate agenda not seeming to include sending all the black people to concentration camps, it seems likely that stochastic violence will be disproportionally targeted at them and it's reasonable to be worried about that.
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.
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.
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.
$600 is still ridiculous though.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
If it _is_ life and death, sure, get a generator.
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...>
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...
Candles, books, single gas burner, board and card games, water and non-perishable food, is all that is required?
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!
mock-possum•5h ago
(Honestly it’d be interesting to hear from the kids too)