It has been a long time since I talked about preparedness. We had a major storm roll through last Thursday and still feeling the effects on Tuesday. It really wasn’t too bad in my local area, we had probably 1/4″ of ice twice from freezing rain on Thursday night and Friday night. But the effects have been devastating around the region.

Of course, as an Amazon driver I was at the tip of the spear for trying to get life back to normal. On Sunday, I was sent to the hardest hit area of our delivery territory to try and deliver packages. I saw power poles broken off with lines across the road, many crushed cars, trees and limbs blocking state highways and cellular service was near zero.

First, I have to say that I have lived in my house for over sixteen years and have never seen a power outage more than a blip in that time. I can count the number of times we have have a blip on my hand. So, the electrical service is pretty reliable from that standpoint. We had an outage that lasted from 5AM-3PM Saturday. Other areas that I was delivering to yesterday were expecting to get service restored on Thursday, a full week after the event began. Those were the areas that were accessible.

People were generally cold and tired but in good spirits. There were neighbors helping clean up. People used their own resources to flag downed lines, danger areas and clear roads. Everywhere I heard chainsaws and generators. Brush, limbs and lines littered the roads and right of ways. Now that I have set the scene, I really wanted to talk about the lessons from the storm.

  • Leave refrigerators and freezers closed. A deep freeze can remain cold enough for several days with no power as long as the door is not opened. I would advise not to open it for any reason if you suspect that an outage will last more than several hours.
  • Keep your freezers full. The more mass that is inside the unit increases the time to thaw significantly. If your freezer is not full, fill old containers with water to add. You can always use the ice as block ice later as a secondary benefit.
  • If you don’t have the money to buy a generator, start with an inverter. One 800 watt inverter is enough to power one refrigerator or freezer and can be found for as low as $50. Then you can use your vehicle to power the inverter and in turn keep your investment safe. Freezers only need to powered for a few hours a day to stay frozen. One more thing, appliances draw more energy when they start so a refrigerator may only use 3 amps but may need up to 7 amps to start. For those of you non-science types Ohms law is Watts = Volts x Amps; 800 = 120 * 6.66
  • Don’t forget to have extension cords that can reach from your vehicle or generator to the device that you want to power. For power hungry appliances, thicker cords are better. There is a power drop over every cord so the inexpensive 16ga cords have a maximum wattage that they can power (something like 1000 watts).
  • If you are having an ice storm you can use the ice to put in a cooler and move the refrigerator contents if necessary. Ice is a much more efficient way of keeping those items cold that doesn’t require additional electricity. From an energy consumption standpoint, making ice is more efficient than trying to keep a refrigerator running, regardless of the method.
  • I live in an all electric house. I do have camping equipment and a kerosene heater for the shop. Do have a carbon monoxide detector that works on batteries. I brought in my detector to use in the house as we started a fire and cooked breakfast on the camp stove.
  • I never got to the point of starting the heater as the fireplace warmed the living area enough, but have fuel for heat and cooking. You need wood to burn, if you have wood burning appliances. You need propane or kerosene for heaters and stoves. That stuff can go fast. My 20000 btu heater will burn through 2.5 gallons of kerosene in about 40 hours. It heats up my 16×20 space nicely during that time but it’s only going to be effective in a room.
  • When the real work needs to get done, a gas powered chainsaw beats a battery powered saw hands down. Battery saws are great for day to day pruning, but underpowered compared to gas and when the power is out, you cannot charge your batteries (at least not without a generator, inverter or solar). That is not a great justification to own a tool that you rarely use but sharing or bartering with a neighbor might be in order. Don’t forget fuel for that either.
  • We never got to the point where we needed much lighting but have flashlights, lanterns and batteries. Headlamps are good for task lighting, lanterns are good for area light and handheld flashlights are good for carrying around. I also have lights that use my rechargeable tool batteries that mostly get used for job type work. But they are convenient, powerful and long lasting as well as share batteries with other tools. With LED, battery powered lights are some of the most efficient use of power conversion there is.
  • When the power is out, so are the Point of Sale (POS) and ATMs. Even though businesses may be running on generator power, it can often be a cash only proposition. Have cash on hand with change if possible to get those things that you really need.
  • Cell communications continue to be spotty. Carriers have different levels of service and towers are in different states of operation. The best service seems to be around major traffic corridors, which were also the clearest to drive. I cant speak to land lines however but our internet was down and by far and away it seemed like the biggest losers were the cable TV connections.
  • Stay home if you can. I am not one to be squeamish about much but I thought that it was kind of ridiculous trying to deliver packages when you cant drive on the roads or even use the software to deliver. I had to run over countless downed lines (that I didn’t see until it was too late) and maneuver around road hazards only to be turned around by a roadblock. Road updates were close to nil as data service was down everywhere. Unless you are part of the solution, you are part of the problem in the cleanup and restoration effort.

These are some of my thoughts and tips around my experience. Hopefully we will all be prepared better for a next time.