Are You Ready For A Major Power Outage? – Series Part 1

Learn what you should have ready in case the lights go out for an extended period.

Have you considered how your life would freeze to a standstill if a general outage cut electric power for more than two or three days? As every summer arrives, it’s a question more and more people ask, because demand for electric power is growing inexorably, and summertime is when the grid always gets strained to the max. Many experts say all it will take is one unusually bad heat wave and a single computer glitch. The last major outage happened in the summer of 2003, and it affected over 55 million people.

Once your cell phone’s battery runs down, how will you recharge it? Think you can run down to the local Starbucks to get some coffee (your coffeemaker is dead, remember) and recharge your laptop, cell phone, tablet, iPod, toothbrush and shaver? Think again. All your neighbors will have descended on that little coffee shop en masse because they’ll be without power too.

Here’s a list of but a few things that go away in the event of a general power outage:

            ·   Lights (obviously)

·     Heat and cooling — even gas heating requires electricity to pump the air

·     Baths and showers — no heat means cold washing (assuming you can get running water)

·     Medical support systems

·     Food storage — refrigerators and freezers

·     Food preparation — microwaves, stoves and ovens (even gas ovens use electricity)

·     Food availability — stores need electricity too

·     Entertainment — television and radio (not to mention video games)

·     Communication — cell towers and Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) exchanges require electricity

·     Gas for your automobile — gas pumps run on electricity