I Just Went 8 Days Without Power

Originally posted by Bakatono

Originally posted by Fylgje
A major storm hit my little town here in W.va. last friday at about 7:30pm with hurricane-force winds.

Me, my wife, and our three kids were stopping by Gino's to pick up pizza's that we ordered, when all of a sudden, the sky turned black as soot.

We get this all the time in the Mid-West. I love these storms. They are a sight to see.

I do too. We don't get them like that much in the north country. When I was a kid I stood out in my front yard when a micro burst hit and uprooted a tree, sending it hurtling across the street right before my eyes. I grew up with so many tornadoes and storms. Sometimes, thunder that sounds like dynamite was set off.

as we get more and more into the 4th dimension the power will eventually not work at all because electricity doesnt work in the fourth dimension. the activity of the sun is causing all these blackouts.the sun works on magnetism. tptb wont release the free energy so we can get through all these changes ahead. so to each get you a little alternative system for backup power if you can. peace yall!!!

Excellent post OP. Here in the UK I have seen people get nasty just because the expected bargains weren't there in a store's closing down sale (and not a thought for the staff who were losing their jobs).
While hard times can bring out the best in some people they can also bring out a whole lot of ugliness.
Where I live we grumble if the power goes out for a couple of hours. Much longer and people start to get angry.
People don't realise how finely our infrastructure is balanced. And how totally dependent we are. Yes people used to live without electricity. But there were a lot less of them, their infrastructure was built around a system without electricity and they had more living skills. They also died a lot younger too.

So what would you recommend for people to prepare for such a future emergency?

Originally posted by r2d246
So what would you recommend for people to prepare for such a future emergency?

A store of essentials so that at least you don't have to encounter the mass panic while stores are emptied out
It would also buy time to get your act together in the case of long term disruption.

Amazing story, by the way you should be a writer! I am dead serious!

Once it happened here that our water was out for a few days - it's unbelievable how such a small thing absent makes you realize how dependent we are on things we otherwise take for granted.

And yes its VERY scary to realize that in a potential catastrophic event when water/power is out, society will likely already break down..NOT primarily because of the catastrophe per se but from a secondary effect from it.

This kind of thing happens in southern WV regularly, and it doesn't require a massive storm. It rains, the power goes out, it snows, the power goes out, the wind blows, the power goes out, somebody farts ... you see where I'm going. Occasionally power will be restored in a few hours, but the usual outage lasts for days on end. Two years in a row, we lost power on Christmas eve, and it wasn't restored for over a week. After four days of no electricity, the water stops working as well, something about the reservoirs automatically emptying.

As someone who spent most of their life in major metropolitan areas, I found all of this rather shocking. Eventually, as with the lifelong residents there, I became accustomed, which is kinda sad. Though I will say I'm grateful I no longer reside in that area.

metropolitan areas are screwed if the power goes off for long enough

Originally posted by jheated5
How could you not be prepared without electricity in your house? Was there not enough food in your cupboards for a week? Not enough water? You needed propane? I guess our versions of camping differ, while yours isn't exactly roughing it....... I would welcome a power outage it would get the rest of my family to stop watching tv/computer and get them out to tell some good scary stories by a campfire while eating hotdogs and beans....

While one is planned, the other is not. Most people these days are not accustomed or prepared to go without electricity for days at a time.

There is an option for that welcomed power outage. It's called a breaker box.

Why do people act like freakin wild animals when the s hits the f? Why would anyone need propane? What happened to campfires?



Ive had the power go out for about 4 days when hurricane ike came through michigan lol. I lived in the country at the time and we had a rest area with an artesian flow. The water is disgusting but its water. We had a well, so we instantly lost water. You shoulda seen the lines at the artesian well! We had to wait in line for like an hour to get our ten or 20 gallons.

I live on lake michigan now, unlimited water :p

But i never had to witness people acting as retarded as you did. Maybe i just dont remember. Ive beeen to other places where if a traffic light stops working they act like its green in all four directions.....what ever happened to civilization?

I was without power for only 3 days a few months ago but it was horrible. Deffiently when your adjusted to modern ways of living.

The Original Poster! Exact same thing here! We were at the pool with a few friends cooking , relaxing having a good time on the fourth of July and then man , i dont know what happened! The sky turned very black , and not 5 minutes later instantaneously , this wind , going at least 60 MPH , hit us.

It was wild. I was waiting for a tornado to drop at any moment. I mean it hit us out of no where. No warning no , no build up. Just WAM.

It knocked down 12 trees and two power poles. The actual Poles. This all occurred on our street of 6 houses. I know i am sort of young , but i have NEVER seen anything like that. Not even during Katrina.

This lasted for about 10 minutes for the wind gust and then it rained lazily for an hour.

We were blessed and the power was only out for about 5 hours , the power men busted their butts to get it back online.

-------

I am very sorry to hear you being without power for 8 days. It was miserable being without power for 5 hours ... 98 degree heat with 80+ % humidity is exasperating. I would imagine about the same for you with all the heat advisories in the North.

Double post.

How did you move?

longest I went without power was a week.

I went so crazy I actually started playing bored games.

I am now the master of Guess Who.

reply to post by Fylgje


Ummm....You should try 33 days without power in January/February, in northern New York.
That was in 1998 when a major ice storm took down tens of thousands of trees and almost
all of the power poles.
The huge steel power towers were all crumpled like tin foil...All from a freezing rain and ice buildup.
It got primitive, until we bought a generator. We had to cook on our Kero-sun because the gen-set
Couldn't handle the load from the electric range. We had to manually switch on and off at the breaker
box from furnace to water pump as both were 220 and would kill the gen-set if both were
On at the same time.
We learned a valuable lesson then. The saving grace from that storm was that the wildlife population
exploded after that season. I guess with all of the felled trees in the forests it gave them cover to prosper.
(Yes there are forests in upstate New York. Matter of fact The Adderondack Park is the largest park in the
U.S. believe it or not).

YouSir

The last time I had to deal with what you dealt with was when Hurricane Hugo came through here and we had no power for about 2 weeks.

I lived in an apartment with others,, and around 10 people eventually ended up with us,,, ''camping out'.

This is where I learned,,, MANUAL CAN OPENER!! So,, if you don't have one in your home,,, go buy one, two or three,,, just in case.

Also,, this is where I learned that Water is KING... Store up as much as you can if you don't have a good source free from the public domain. The first thing we did, while water was still ''on'' was fill the tubs and every container we had possible.

Band aids and antiseptics,,, because someone always cuts themselves the first day or so. (My present bug out bag contains three separate smaller bags with medical supplies, spare contacts, eyeglasses, and dollar store cheap drugs) You can never be too prepared here,,, and women,,, get your personal sanitary supplies stored up please,,,, this was an issue for some of the women.

Food wise,, for the first few days,,, we just camped,,, ate the food that was going to go bad first from freezer,,, drank all our beer cold,,, saved the liquor for later....lol.
Later,, we had to be more creative,, but luckily had a few great cooks who could make canned beans and other things seem like a banquet. Plan accordingly to NOT HAVING ELECTRICITY.
For some reason we had Lots of Pop TARTS,,, enough to last the whole two weeks for all who where there,,, breakfast fast in the morning while waiting on the water to boil for coffee became a ritual for us.

Today,, I have given most of my Year+ supplies to needy friends,,, so I will be restocking again this week.
The Other thing I got out of this is that NOW,,, I always have at least TWO WEEKS OF FOOD and WATER FOR THE DOGS,,, ALWAYS!!!

I want to get back to WV someday,,, my family has lived around the Bluestone dam area for around 300 years, and I would love to find a cabin/shack in the woods to end my days there,,,, such beautiful country,,

Had a storm in Oklahoma a couple years ago. We lost power for two weeks, to the day, and we lost running water for 7 days. It was an ice storm, so at least we didn't have to deal with the heat. We just cooked meals on fire from the cast iron stove, which is also how we heated the house. We drew water from a nearby rock quarry. Wasn't that bad, quite enjoyable actually. I caught up on my reading.

Originally posted by Sampire
longest I went without power was a week.

I went so crazy I actually started playing bored games.

I am now the master of Guess Who.

Bored Games....the perfect freudian slip!

So let this be a warning, be prepared. Have those items already stocked away and you won't have to worry for yourself or your family.