In the last couple of weeks Michigan has just been bombarded with severe weather, and as a result of that there were quite a few of us without power, with limbs down in our yard (even on our house), and all kinds of debris in our surrounding areas. With that in mind, and after reading Kristine’s severe weather post, I decided to write about some of the inconveniences my wife and I went through and what can be done to ease the pain of not having power.

We were without power for about a day and a half. The thing that really saved us was that we camp, and because of that, we had some of the necessary items that we needed in order to survive a day or so without power. I’m talking about such things as a battery powered lantern, a propane powered grill, extension cords, and such. I have to be honest and tell you that we didn’t use all of those particular items because we live in the city, so we had running water the entire time. We also were fortunate that we have a natural gas stove, as well as a natural gas water heater, so we had a workable stove and hot water if we needed it.

Now after reading everything I just wrote you would think that we were prepared. Not hardly. I overlooked a few very important things that morning, and you can bet that I will never forget those again. First off I didn’t make sure our cars had gasoline. I know that isn’t something you think about when a storm is coming, but when you go to gas up because you’re low, and the gas stations don’t have power, you will add it to your “getting prepared” list. Thankfully I did find one station that had power otherwise we would have been in trouble.

The next thing I neglected was to have a battery powered radio. I kind of assumed that, because our clock radios had battery backup, that they would run on batteries. That is so not true. The batteries are only to keep time, and do not power anything else. Because I didn’t have one on hand, and because there was still a severe storm threat through the night, I had to venture out to a local store and find a battery powered radio. I’m here to tell you that that is a definite chore. Since a ton of people didn’t have power, all of the battery powered radios were picked over. I got lucky and checked out the camping section and found the last radio they had. At least now we have one though.

The third thing I didn’t think about is always keeping your cell phone charged. I am normally very good about this, but of course this was the day that my battery died and we didn’t have any power to charge it. Now I have a car charger for the cell and that is a lifesaver. If you don’t have one, I strongly recommend getting one, and then you won’t be forced to search for one at the store the night the power goes out.

Now that I’ve covered all of those negative things I want to share a few things that we had, or acquired, that helped us to live without power. And also a few tips to make losing power much easier.

• Always have a battery powered radio. This will be a life saver if you want to hear severe weather alerts and don’t have power.
• Never, ever, open your freezer or refridgerator. The amount of food you can possibly save by opening it, is not enough to warrant the amount of food that will go bad faster by it being opened. Our freezer was without power for a little over a day and everything inside was still frozen solid when we checked it. Our fridge didn’t fare as well, but it is still a very good idea not to open them up.
• If you can afford it, buy a generator. I still haven’t bought one yet, but it is on my list. I’m not sure what we would have done if the baby was already here. A generator would have been worth its weight in gold that night.

The most important thing about losing power is to make it fun. I know that sounds a little strange, but the wife and I tried to keep somewhat of a sense of humor about it, and that made things a little easier. I really do think that it helped that we have all of our camping experience, because that made things go much easier than they otherwise would have.

Being prepared, as the boy scouts say, is always a good thing!

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