Lights Out!

For the first time in about four years, our power went out tonight.  And it stayed out for a couple of hours.

Now, don’t anyone think I am looking for sympathy.  I’m not.  I am fully aware that people from just about every other state in the union have to deal with far greater “emergencies” than a simple power outage.  I am also aware that a power outage here in balmy southern California is not nearly as dramatic as say, one in St. Paul in the dead of winter.  No, I’m not looking for sympathy, but I would like to remind you to get your emergency kits ready if you haven’t yet.

It was kinda cool really.  I have spent the last week stocking our home and auto kits and just yesterday opened the box containing a half dozen 100 hour candles.  These things seemed like a good idea when I saw them, and they didn’t disappoint.  I placed four of them in strategic places throughout the house and we were set.  Two hours later, I blew them out, knowing they had a good 90 plus hours left in them. Very cool.

And I didn’t have to light those candles in the dark.  I grabbed our Coleman LED lantern immediately and we were good to go. I also had my trusty Surefire G2 LED at my side as well a my new Leatherman Monarch 500 flashlights at the ready.  In fact, funny enough, we had just purchased the Leatherman today at Costco.  I gotta say, if you are looking for a sturdy, bright, good quality light at a reasonable price, you could do a lot worse than this Leatherman.  And that’s coming from a Surefire fanatic.  My Monarch is brighter than my G2, and produces a nice steady, solid beam of light.  I will probably review it in a future post.

So light was not an issue for us.  Within a minute of the power going out, we had light – a lot of light. Honestly, there is not much else to tell – which is a good thing.  But I am glad to say that had things been worse, had the power outage lasted longer, we would have been fine.  Our emergency kits are far from done, but fortunately, we have the basics, the necessities, and those go a long way.  While I am still stocking up, we could already get by for at least a few months if we had to “shelter at home” as they say.  Yes, we even have food and water reserves as well as all the tools we need to take advantage of them.

Another item that just arrived in the mail is my Eton FR300 Crank radio.  You can get one for under $50 if you look around a little.  It is one of those products that gets mixed reviews, but this is usually the case with anything electronic.  I decided to take a chance instead of wishing I had something in the midst of an emergency.  Without getting into details, this thing worked like a charm.  In my area it is hard to get any radio stations, and almost impossible to get AM signals.  There are so many hills and canyons around here, I just about gave up trying to find a radio that could get the Angel’s games.  This one gets all the stations I need.  It was cool sitting here in candle light listening to the local news, the sports talk, and the oldies stations.  It can get pretty boring when the power is out and everyone else is asleep (Ali hit the sack about an hour in).  I will tell you more about the radio later too.

Anyways, you get the idea.  And that gives me an idea.  I think I will start blogging more about our emergency prep experiences.  Survival and emergency preparation have become something of a hobby for me and , as you know, I pretty much write about whatever interests me at the time.  So, don’t be surprised if you start to see some product reviews, survival strategies, and general emergency preparedness information around her.  Hopefully, you will find it useful.

~ by Dan on October 2, 2008.