We’re dealing with some stormy weather here (Vancouver for me, but it covers a wider area) and so a patchwork of homes across the region are having power outages. Crews are working to restore it
So on that note, what do you like to do?
- ways to prepare, what to buy, a favourite flashlight from !flashlight@lemmy.world?
- how you pass the time
- any stories that come to mind?
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Hilbernate. The other half uses the e-reader. Anything e-ink should have incredible battery life.
Can confirm. I generally prefer the comfort of holding a real book but e-readers are a godsend for blackouts and vacations.
Contemplate how close to total collapse we are every day
Playing the piano to pass the time. There’s a certain eeriness that I find quite enjoyable of having the music flow while in nearly total darkness.
This is a cool one I’ll have to try sometime!
Go to bed early because it’s dark.
Worry about all the food in the refrigerator.
Be hot (or I guess in your case, cold.)
Read books in the daytime, go for walks.
Cook stuff using the grill, drink cold brew.
Take dreadful cold showers.
Count how many socks and underwear are left, do I need to resort to hand washing some?
I live(d) in Asheville, NC for a decade. I’ve had the power go out pretty often, most recently for Hurricane Helene (4 days for us, and we were on the low end!). Seeing a 24-48 outage is frequent here.
We have our house wired for a generator, so it’s mostly about a cycle of rationing fuel to keep the fridge cold, charge things while it’s on, use water and fill things while it’s on (we are on a well not city water).
Beyond that, reading books, playing handheld games like the Steam Deck, lots of talking. Losing power is not the worst thing most of the time to me.
Wait for the power to come back on.
Think about opening the fridge and pointlessly looking to boredom eat, then remember I shouldn’t open the fridge and let the cold escape because the power is off. Repeat.
Think about how much of our lives revolve around and are entirely dependent on electricity, and how bad loss of power would be even for just a couple days, and disastrous it would be for a week or more.
Wish I’d remembered to recharge my phone power banks.
Where are all the books? I used to have books to read. They’re all on my phone now. Shit. Need to save battery.
Guess I’ll see if I can find some candles. Maybe the fam will want to play a board game.
Think about opening the fridge and pointlessly looking to boredom eat, then remember I shouldn’t open the fridge and let the cold escape because the power is off. Repeat.
ADHD, power outages, and a fridge. That’s how that goes.
Let it go unnoticed as battery and solar handled things.
Hahaha you should see the outage map of Washington State.
What do I like to do? Nothing, I hate power outages.
What I typically do is I have a large stockpile of candles from an old MLM scheme. I light those and play on my phone if there’s Internet. We have multiple battery banks for these occasions.
If there’s no Internet I will read. Both ebooks and regular books because my attention will shift.
I also try to do something productive like study for something.
Most of all I pile like eleventy billion blankets on the bed because I’m so cold. The furry ones are poor space heaters.
When I was a kid we always played games. Like charades or something. My dad would light the camp stove and we’d entertain ourselves for the evening as a family. They were nice.
I think my last power outage was 30 years ago and i loved it. Lighting candles and playing boardgames. I never even considered that that’s a thing that still happens.
I live rurally and have spent the night without power 3 times in the last 2 months.
It gets old.
Last outage we had, one of the first things I did was take a hot shower. Our water heater is electric and if it became extended I might not get another chance.
We lost power for 3 days back in 2006. The water heater still had hot water in it when power was restored. It wasn’t piping hot that last day, but was still good enough for a shower. I was quite impressed.
I’ve experienced exactly one power outage in Germany in the last 50 years, so i haven’t really developed a routine.
I was trying to remember the last time there was a power outage… I think workers had to cut the main power to our home for a few minutes a few years ago. It wasn’t really a big event.
Obsessively refresh the “There is a power outage in your area!” page.
Several years ago we lost power for 4 days after an especially bad storm. We don’t have good enough cell service at our house to usually use data or run a hotspot. Mostly it’s like camping except we get to sleep in our beds.
Prepare: We keep filled water jugs for both drinking and flushing the toilets.
We have a small generator to run our fridge, so once a month we run it for about 10 minutes. We keep gas and spark plugs for it handy.
We have a weather radio that’s solar powered with battery back-up.
We have a solar-charging battery bank (to charge our phones) as well as lanterns and flashlights that use AA batteries and a stash of extra AA batteries. Winter here can be quite cloudy, making solar lights harder to use sometimes.
We have a camping stove and extra fuel, as well as some easy to prepare foods. We use the food when we go camping and get new ones to store for emergencies, making sure the food doesn’t expire. We cooked outside (it was summer but even in winter I would do the cooking outside).
For winter we have a kerosene heater and extra fuel and wicks.
Entertainment: I would guess you’re especially asking about evenings, as during the day when our power was out we’d go outside if the weather was nice. In the evenings we played board games and card games, did puzzles and crosswords, did art (drawing, coloring, and painting), did crafts, and read.
If we know ahead of time bad weather’s coming, I’ll download some shows and movies to my tablet. We also have a DVD player to connect to my laptop while the battery lasts.
Video games lol
The power outage I remember from over a decade ago was in the nintendo DS era, and I was at a friend’s place at the time
It’s not like the device could be used for much else during a power outage so might as well play on it.
Last time this happened to me we hastely turned our dinner in a romantic candle lighted dinner.
Lots of babies are born 9 months after major power outages. I hope you enjoyed your company.
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