by Big D, Survival Blog:
INTRODUCTION
I am writing this within a few days after a power outage on June 18, 2023, so that I will remember the details. I am a 74-year-old and somewhat handicapped grandpa who lives alone in the country. I still get around okay but a lot of physical effort wears me out rather quickly. Sometimes I think that I still have the physical capabilities of the athlete that I was as a younger man. Mentally, yes. Physically, not so much!
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I was awakened just after midnight on Sunday morning by the sounds of a storm with very high winds buffeting the house. Within minutes the electric power in the entire house went off. No digital clock displays, no bug lights, no electric power bar switch pilot lights, and no outdoor security lights shining through the edges of the drapes and curtains. Complete black darkness. Makes me think of what Moses’ Egyptian plague of darkness might have looked like.
I reached over and grabbed the flashlight off of my bedside table. I walked cautiously through the house. I looked out the front window and could see a very heavy wind blowing horizontally. I could see tops of narrow 20’ tall decorative trees yielding to the wind and bending over maybe 30 degrees from the vertical.
At that moment I looked and saw a 30’+ high cottonwood tree next to my driveway uproot and blow down into the yard taking out the main electric service wires running from the street pole to the first security light pole in my side yard close to the garage. The wires to the second security light and electric meter pole in the back yard remained intact. They feed the house from there.
Now, I had planned on eventually taking that tree down because I didn’t want it to someday blow down on my vehicles, or on my garage. This event saved me the money of taking it down but resulted in a lot more work and headaches for four days until the power was finally restored. Then I still have to cut it up for firewood, pull the stump the rest of the way out of the ground, get it hauled off, and backfill the hole. A couple of the main roots that broke off were at least 12 inches in diameter.
I immediately realized that, even if the grid power were restored, I would be without electric power until the wires from the street pole were reconnected. My first concern was about losing the contents of two full refrigerator/freezers in the kitchen and a freezer in the garage. I needed to get emergency electric power to those units as soon as possible.
My local Electric Co-op has a reputation for excellent service and quick response but if many others were hit also, no telling how long it would take for a service crew to get to my property. They prioritize getting the grid power back up first.
PRE-OUTAGE PREPS
I have been an unapologetic prepper for many years. I currently live in a small rural area outside of a suburban town in northeastern Oklahoma near Tulsa. My house sits on 2-3/4 acres maybe 5 miles from the nearest town residential and business center. I do have neighbors but there are a lot of woods and empty land surrounding our neighborhood. About ¾ of my land is wooded.
My preps include components of an emergency solar system that I am building. My last addition to the list of needed components were two 200 ah LiFeP04 Lithium batteries. I had tested the batteries by fully charging them and hooking them to a 3,000 watt pure sine-wave inverter. I plugged in my two refrigerators and let them run until the inverter shut off for low voltage. Those batteries lasted 33 hours before they shut down! I was pleased with that. The batteries ended up running the two refrigerators and an apartment-sized freezer overnight on maybe a 40-50% charge.
I have the solar panels and other components to hook up the full system but hadn’t gotten around to assembling and testing it.
My second major prep was a 3,500-watt Harbor Freight generator (“Ms. Genny”) that I had purchased at least 15 years ago. Genny sat in the garage always ready to go. I would roll it out and test it about every 6 months. I kept it full of fresh gas treated with Sta-Bil fuel stabilizer. It was just an inexpensive modified sine wave pull rope starter generator that isn’t recommended to power sensitive electronics devices.
In addition to a functioning generator, over the years I have purchased a lot of heavy duty (12 AWG) and medium duty (14 AWG) electric extension cords of various lengths that I found on sale. I have some 50 footers but most are 25’ length cords. I also picked up various 3-way splitters for branching power off in several different directions. And, being a retired church sound engineer, I’ve always had lots of power bars and adapters in my Gig bag.
Over the years I’ve picked up a lot of flashlights, camping lights, and other battery-operated equipment including radios. I also keep a good stock of batteries including Alkaline, Lithium and rechargeable batteries and chargers in order to keep everything running.
After the battery-operated lights were up and running, the radio was tuned to the local AM news station for storm updates. And, because we live in tornado country, the local radio stations were already up and running on emergency power and broadcasting regular updates and live reports. My small portable radio receives AM, FM, weather, and shortwave bands. And, as a good prepper, I always have a backup!
The reporters said that a horizontal blowing storm came through our area (not a tornado or a twister) with 95+ mph winds tearing up everything in its path. Grid power was out everywhere. Signs and light structures were blown down. Power poles were blown down and many trees were blown down damaging power lines. It was a huge power outage event.
I have battery-powered wall clocks in almost every room in the house. They run day or night and with or without grid power to the house. I unplugged all digital clocks until the power was restored. Some that were plugged into power bars hooked to the Genny would be flashing so I just disconnected them.
Besides the electrical preps and because my kitchen range and hot water heater were electric, I had to consider what I would need in order to cook and heat water if the electric power went down. My answer to that was a new Coleman camp stove that I had picked up on sale maybe 10 years ago and had never fired up. It was designed to run on Coleman-type white gas fuel as well as unleaded automotive fuel. I had just picked up a new gallon can of stove fuel a few weeks prior to the outage because I wasn’t sure if the old ones I had were still good.
