A local wind storm overnight and earlier today has knocked out power for 200,000 people. Luckily for us, the lights blinked a couple of times, but the power stayed up. We lost cable TV + cable internet for a few hours, cell phone lines were dropping a lot more then normal.
The hydro company is telling people to break out the candles and sleeping bags and other supplies as power will not be fully restored until tomorrow at the earliest. It will be dark in a 1/2 hour or so and tonight's temperature will be around 42F.
All this got my attention to so I decided to recharge all the batteries, rotate water, check the pantry and noticed that a few food items needed to be topped up. Made a trip to the local grocery store for these items and managed to spend about $60.00 more then I should of...
Once home, the rest of the batteries were fully charged. Did a count and found that we have 18 AA rechargeable, 6 AAA rechargeable and 48 AA non-rechargeable batteries. The rechargeable batteries are normally used for cameras, flashlights, mp3 players, portable radios and will have to rationed when the time comes when there is no power.
Decided to look at the candle stock, there are around 100 candles of varying sizes not including 200+ tea candles.
Question for the forum, how many batteries and candles is "enough" ?
I plan on buying 10 more AA rechargeable and another card of 24 AA non-rechargeable. We have the ability charge them by 110 volt, 12 volt and solar depending on the circumstances.
Does anyone think that this is too many batteries or candles? What do you consider a reasonable amount?