Some thoughts about the hurricane thing....
Some thoughts about the hurricane and power-outage written on Tuesday.
We got our power back yesterday, but there's still boat-loads of people without power today. Big positive to be on a main distribution line; we were among the first to be brought back. Apparently it was a failure of a 33kv feeder line, then it steps down to our lines. Once they fixed that, up we came.
This taught me a *lot* oddly enough. Biggest thing I didn't expect was the amount of exhaustion stress can put on you, and the amount of slack you can have if you don't have to worry about the stress. For example,
Not having to run out and brave the crowd for batteries was an incredible non-stress thing.
Not having to *worry* about running out of batteries because I had rechargables and a way to charge was an incredible non-stress thing
Not having to worry about my food spoiling or having enough to eat was a non-stress thing
Not having to worry about how to cook it.
Not having to worry about how to set up my backup power
Not having to worry about fuel for the generator (because I um don't) was a non stress thing
Not having to worry about candles setting the house on fire was a non stress thing
The lack of stress caused by not having these things was *amazing*. Because I was stressed enough by the question "will we ever get power back" and "why are my kids driving me bonkers". And I was able to put those into context, go outside, and fiddle with solar panels instead of hunting for survival stuff like batteries.
A note: You really don't need a lot of power to survive in style. As it turns out my fridge used 150 watts to run (with a brief start up of 1,000 watts which is why you need a bigger inverter), and only needed to be run occasionally to maintain total cool-ness. The frozen food was rock solid. Now I did notice it pulling 300 watts for an hour once which I think was it's defrost cycle, need to figure out a way to turn that off since it's a waste in an emergency. Noted.
The small microwave would pull 500-600 watts when running, but only for the minute or two needed to warm up water for tea. Likewise the coffee maker pulled about 300 watts plus 20 for the grinder.
The laptop pulls a good solid 150 watts, internet about 10. I could have ditched the laptop and been able to run my neighbor's fridge if needed (they just bolted out. Sad)
And the important things are *little* things. A few watts to charge the cell phone. The ability to charge up the rechargeable batteries for the flashlights at night. The ability to run the portable DVD player to keep the kids occupied for a bit. We could do movie nights.
And most of all, a few floor lamps. Say what you will about flashlights, battle lanterns, and whatnot but when I plugged in two of the floor lamps the house went from a dark cave lit by flashlights to something *comfortable* and cheery. It allows you to stop stressing about the fact that we're on "emergency" power and enjoy the comfort of being home, with a roof, and food, and iced tea. It's really a small load (15 watts per lamp thanks to CF bulbs) but made such a massive impact it was not funny.
I can't stress enough how important having those two lights on downstairs were. They banished the night, and when I went outside to light the patio torches the house looked safe.
Of course having the wrecking bar helped that too, but it became a friendly tool instead of a dark reminder of the coming apocalypse. Which didn't really happen as of course it wouldn't.
So, there you go. Running a full sized 6600 watt generator would really have not bought us much else, would have made a lot of "this is a disaster, be alert" noise outside, and I would be thinking about getting fuel or if it would fail. Not worrying helped me a lot.
Having a basic plan was important. I didn't have time to improvise shit, daylight was on us and I didn't have the stress of "OMG I need to get this fixed before we die!". Go with the plan, and if something doesn't work go to the backup (my backup inverter was not coming online. I let it go, and relied on the main one. If things had gone to Tuesday I would have fixed it in my spare time).
Ok, more later.
We got our power back yesterday, but there's still boat-loads of people without power today. Big positive to be on a main distribution line; we were among the first to be brought back. Apparently it was a failure of a 33kv feeder line, then it steps down to our lines. Once they fixed that, up we came.
This taught me a *lot* oddly enough. Biggest thing I didn't expect was the amount of exhaustion stress can put on you, and the amount of slack you can have if you don't have to worry about the stress. For example,
Not having to run out and brave the crowd for batteries was an incredible non-stress thing.
Not having to *worry* about running out of batteries because I had rechargables and a way to charge was an incredible non-stress thing
Not having to worry about my food spoiling or having enough to eat was a non-stress thing
Not having to worry about how to cook it.
Not having to worry about how to set up my backup power
Not having to worry about fuel for the generator (because I um don't) was a non stress thing
Not having to worry about candles setting the house on fire was a non stress thing
The lack of stress caused by not having these things was *amazing*. Because I was stressed enough by the question "will we ever get power back" and "why are my kids driving me bonkers". And I was able to put those into context, go outside, and fiddle with solar panels instead of hunting for survival stuff like batteries.
A note: You really don't need a lot of power to survive in style. As it turns out my fridge used 150 watts to run (with a brief start up of 1,000 watts which is why you need a bigger inverter), and only needed to be run occasionally to maintain total cool-ness. The frozen food was rock solid. Now I did notice it pulling 300 watts for an hour once which I think was it's defrost cycle, need to figure out a way to turn that off since it's a waste in an emergency. Noted.
The small microwave would pull 500-600 watts when running, but only for the minute or two needed to warm up water for tea. Likewise the coffee maker pulled about 300 watts plus 20 for the grinder.
The laptop pulls a good solid 150 watts, internet about 10. I could have ditched the laptop and been able to run my neighbor's fridge if needed (they just bolted out. Sad)
And the important things are *little* things. A few watts to charge the cell phone. The ability to charge up the rechargeable batteries for the flashlights at night. The ability to run the portable DVD player to keep the kids occupied for a bit. We could do movie nights.
And most of all, a few floor lamps. Say what you will about flashlights, battle lanterns, and whatnot but when I plugged in two of the floor lamps the house went from a dark cave lit by flashlights to something *comfortable* and cheery. It allows you to stop stressing about the fact that we're on "emergency" power and enjoy the comfort of being home, with a roof, and food, and iced tea. It's really a small load (15 watts per lamp thanks to CF bulbs) but made such a massive impact it was not funny.
I can't stress enough how important having those two lights on downstairs were. They banished the night, and when I went outside to light the patio torches the house looked safe.
Of course having the wrecking bar helped that too, but it became a friendly tool instead of a dark reminder of the coming apocalypse. Which didn't really happen as of course it wouldn't.
So, there you go. Running a full sized 6600 watt generator would really have not bought us much else, would have made a lot of "this is a disaster, be alert" noise outside, and I would be thinking about getting fuel or if it would fail. Not worrying helped me a lot.
Having a basic plan was important. I didn't have time to improvise shit, daylight was on us and I didn't have the stress of "OMG I need to get this fixed before we die!". Go with the plan, and if something doesn't work go to the backup (my backup inverter was not coming online. I let it go, and relied on the main one. If things had gone to Tuesday I would have fixed it in my spare time).
Ok, more later.