Six Days in the Dark

This is the new normal in the US. FEMA is being dismantled.[1]<p>Until a few years ago, being prepared for loss of services for 48 hours was considered sufficient. That&#x27;s not enough any more, because there will be much less help coming from outside the area.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;26&#x2F;politics&#x2F;fema-payments-staffing-stalled-turmoil&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;26&#x2F;politics&#x2F;fema-payments-staffi...</a>

Post wants to talk about money spent and smart ways to prepare... and then goes and links the portable battery system used and it is a 4kwh battery+inverter+solar charger combo with a few 200W solar panels that costs... get this..<p>$4399.<p>These stupid &#x27;home battery&#x27; units are just stupidly, stupidly marked up for what they do.<p>You can buy a ~5.2 kwh 48v battery for &lt;$1000 these days, a hybrid solar charger inverter capable of a 6kw AC single phase output (same as the linked battery system) for ~$500, and a a load of used solar panels off any number of sites for next to nothing.<p>People are getting fleeced by these cutely packaged battery inverter charger boxes with fancy displays and USB-C chargers, all being pushed by youtubers. If you are even mildly technically minded, you can build a more capable system for 30% the cost of these things. They are relying on people just not knowing how much LiFePO4 storage batteries and hybrid solar inverters have come down in price and how easy they are to setup.

I’ve spent multiple separate weeks without electricity in my life and never really had that hard of a time. You accept that you lose your frozen foods that you don’t eat in the first day, go to your friends that are on city water, I was always on a well when we lost power, for cold showers and to fill water bottles, and cook food on a grill. If no one has city water you get used to the smell and buy bottled water. Nowadays I have a 40W panel for charging phones.<p>Of course there are some for whom a power outage is life and death because their health is tied to power. Also tornados are terrifying. I don’t mean to trivialize extended power outages. But sometimes accepting the situation and just riding with it is the way to go.

My immediate reaction was that I would look to adapt to the new circumstances, rather than try to maintain one’s former ways.<p>Candles, books, single gas burner, board and card games, water and non-perishable food, is all that is required?

A few years ago, I had a three-day power outage. Unfortunately, at the time I worked for an e-commerce company, and Black Friday was in two weeks - not the time for me to be off work. (Mind you, this was 2021, and temporarily returning to the office was questionable at best at that time).<p>Most of my neighbors seemed to have up and left. The immediate neighborhood was quiet. I ventured out and saw what had happened: a large tree had come down, taking the power lines and the road with it. So I assumed the recovery process would be something like:<p>1. Remove the tree - one company on one schedule<p>2. Re-pave the road - another company on another schedule<p>3. Put the telephone pole back up - the phone company (the poles are owned by Verizon in my area)<p>4. Restore electrical cables - the power company<p>And I realized that this would not be a quick process.<p>I threw a 100-foot extension cord out my second floor window, and hooked it up to the 400-watt inverter in my car. (Yes, I know this is terrible for my engine. The silver lining was that somehow the folks at BMW made an engine that got up to operating temperature while idling.) The other end got plugged into the three monitors and laptop on my desk. I hotspotted my phone, and... just kept going at Black Friday readiness.<p>At one point, I got an interesting sideways glance from the CEO on a Zoom call, as if to say - &quot;Why are you wearing a jacket and fingerless gloves indoors? Do we pay you enough?&quot; I&#x27;m just glad the smell of not showering wasn&#x27;t transmissible through Zoom.<p>Although I lost most of the contents of my fridge, and I ended up eating a lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly and protein bars, I did find some ways to keep it interesting during the day. I put my moka pot on the charcoal grill for coffee in the morning, and at one point I made a grilled-ish cheese on top of the engine block.<p>I used a handheld flashlight and an LED lantern for light after the sun went down. And I did treat myself to dinner with friends all three nights, charging up two UPSes at their homes while we went out, so that I could in turn run some other appliances without running the car. I seem to recall at one point watching the 10:00 news on TV thanks to those UPSes.<p>I would not have wanted this experience with a family like this person did, for sure, but I actually found it somewhat fun and interesting.

It seems so strange to me to remember that seemly most people don&#x27;t have a generator. Of course,where I live, everyone is on a well, so no power means no water, which means you can&#x27;t flush the toilet. There&#x27;s so many generators around that our current generator is one someone else threw out in the trash.<p>I was watching 8-bit guy on youtube cover his experience through the Texas snowstorm a few years back, when he offhandedly mentioned that before that, he pretty much had no power interruptions at all within the last decade.<p>I was stunned. 10 years? We&#x27;re lucky to make it 10 months.

I’m so grateful for this write up! For all the reading one can do on preparedness, it is hugely valuable to read about a real scenario playing out.<p>I’m curious about the decision to continue relying on frozen and refrigerated food. Reflecting on what I would do — immediately reverting to stable preserved foods and writing off the fridge — makes me wonder if I don’t focus enough on normalcy as to stabilise my family. What’s the point of being prepared if everyone’s morale is crushed from switching to powdered milk?<p>The point about the authors wife being a supply teacher didn’t go where I expected it to. He talks about her income drying up due to her being a day contractor during school shutdowns in the power crisis. I assumed he was going to talk about the blessing of being able to keep school going despite being trapped at home without power!

Live with only a small fridge and you&#x27;ll adapt to not needing two refrigerators and multiple freezers that need to be powered by generator when the electricity cuts out.

Talk about dramatic. You&#x27;d think this was a nuclear fallout from this guy&#x27;s reaction, not just 6 days of no power but can still order takeout. Go on a trip? Read a book?

I’d be curious to hear what his wife’s daily blogs would look like - especially as he’s talking about ‘dad-mode, protector, provider’ - what roles did she feel compelled to occupy? If he felt like he had to step up to shield her from stress, what did she feel in turn for his sake?<p>(Honestly it’d be interesting to hear from the kids too)

I don&#x27;t care for sites that punish you for not allowing their scripts. This one pushes an annoying left-to-right wave of noise over most of the content, while still letting you look.

What would be the reason to get batteries that are so much more expensive and have much less capacity than the generator? They’re cleaner and easier to use&#x2F;maintain. But for quite a short term, right?

Back in my childhood, in the mid-80s, our family had plenty of batteries on hand, as well as a nice little kerosene lamp with extra fuel. We rarely had blackouts, but they did crop up once in a while, and since my father worked for health &amp; safety, we were always totally prepared to weather those little storms. It was kind of fun to do homework by the glow of that kerosene lamp and I sort of enjoyed anticipating the opportunity to light it up!<p>Our home also featured a gas range, so we didn&#x27;t worry too much about cooking during those times, just eating whatever was in the refrigerator. I do not know about water pumping, except that our basement had a sump pump to deal with flooding down there -- definitely electric.<p>Now fast-forward to my apartment living near Phoenix - on April 1, 2020 there was a fire in my building. Yes, just as the pandemic lockdowns had taken effect, we had an emergency. The fire damaged two units on the 3rd floor, and the fire department damaged at least four more below them. The Red Cross came in to rescue those who were displaced, and the landlady came by to tell me they needed to shut off my power. I was a little panicked, because that meant I&#x27;d lose my range, microwave, fridge, all communications, air conditioning; basically everything except water, I suppose.<p>We somehow got by without shutting off my power. But if my power were shut off then I would have some trouble. Living in a 1BR apartment I do not have the luxury of a generator or any significant disaster-prep storage or preservation here. No second fridge for sure! Without Internet access I wouldn&#x27;t be able to dial up food delivery.<p>So I&#x27;d need to consider &quot;bugging out&quot; or temporary relocation. I would probably go to an extended-stay hotel somewhere nearby until the trouble was resolved. There would basically be no need for me to stay in-place without electric power. So I might as well go enjoy myself, as you say. It would be a nice time to see some movies at the theater, enjoy the outdoors, and such. And hopefully my insurance would cover the loss of use at my place.

&gt; Whatever you think you need to have saved, know you probably need more. I quickly blew through my rainy-day funds.<p>Huh!? Forget canned food and go-bags. If you only have a few days worth of savings that is an emergency. I hope I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “rainy day funds”

This all seems like an insane overreaction. I question what gets someone into this level of panic.<p>Just chill out for a couple of days and enjoy reading some books and have an adventure.<p>Unless you’ve got a medical emergency and need to have power for some devices just relax and wait for the power to be reconnected.<p>I get that there are emergencies in the world but not having power at home is an inconvenience.