My father needed D Cell batters for his flashlights but the problem is he went a few days late after the panic. NONE nowheres NO D cell batteries at all....The strange thing tho is AA and AA Are as abundant as if there was nothing at all that they powered in this world. I have narrowed my battery usage down to AA and AAA but i guess most the world is still alittle slow to roll on the simplicity and abundance of this.

There's no shortage here, we have two bricks of Duracell alkaline D-cells that I bought when there was no panic or crisis. They're good until March of 2018. Why wait until an emergency to secure your stockpile? I have a couple D-cell Maglites and my other half has a couple D-cell LED lanterns.

I would probably get some of the LSD Ansmann D cell or Imedion D-cell , they are pricey initially but they will work out much cheaper in the long run.

The Ansmanns work very well with the Ansmann Powerline 5 Charger, which will take a 12V Cigarette power Supply

...also, a while ago I saw AA to D cell form factor converters of 3 different types on eBay. The most common one accepting 1 AA cell is easy to find, the less common 3 AA cell holder may not fit all kind of electronics (MagLite is OK, though) and usually expensive, and once I've stumbled upon the 2 AA cell holder model - less effective, but should be more compatible with tight battery compartments. Just google it if interested.

By the way, I have also standardized on AA cells. And I don't see any problems improvising a D cell out of 3 of them using some duct tape and parts from a dead D-Cell, or even just aluminum foil instead.

Frisket, the rapid disappearance of D cells from store shelves is something that people commonly comment on after various events, which is one big reason why I have tried to standardize on AA for most of my battery operated gear for quite some time now.

However, that does mean that many people may have some spare D cells during an event, so I wouldn't totally throw out all your D cell flashlights, in case you need more batteries and the only thing available from someone are D cells. With the amazing efficiency of LED flashlights now, you don't need big D cells to get many, many hours of usable light nowadays. In the past, you needed big 6V lantern batteries or multiple D batteries just to get some decent runtime before your light started rapidly turning a dim orange.

In many cases, C cells are also pretty available when all the D cells have been gobbled up, so that's another option. But more equipment take AA's than C's so you probably get more interoperability with AA's or even AAA's.

I've "standardized" on AA also, but I keep a supply of most other batteries with the exception of C cells and coin format.

I stock a mixture of AA and AAA batteries, both rechargeables and lithiums. I have a Goal Zero rig for off grid recharging. Appliances using C's and D's are disappearing from my kits. I try to keep enough batteries on hand so that what might be available in stores is irrelevant.

I was noticing that on the news here, too -- that stores were stripped clean of "D" batteries.

I haven't used those for years. I'm all AA, AAA, 123 and the little button and wafer batteries -- and have gobs of them.

We have weather-related power outages often enough around here that it is mind-boggling to me that more people don't have multiple functioning flashlights on hand, always.

At the height of "Superstorm" Sandy, I had flashlights (Fenix and Surefire) in multiple rooms and had a Petzl Zipka on my wrist.

And there are other occasions to use them, of course, A couple years ago I gave a friend one of Doug's e-PICO lights. For all I knew she'd thrown it in a drawer. But turns out she threw it in her purse. She e-mailed a few months ago to let me know she and her husband had returned to Dulles Airport after a trip to find that their car battery was dead.

Her husband was lamenting not having a flashlight when she whipped the e-PICO out of her purse. It did the job and after that she asked for recommendations for a bigger flashlight to keep in their cars.

What friends are for.

I've mentioned this before, but my entire "prep" for this year's hurricane season was to purchase a 4 pack of "D" cells and a Coleman High Tec 3AA LED lantern....the D's are for my ceiling fan project and a 2D LED MagLight....the AA Eneloops work the 2D LED MagLight with adapters (I stick a quarter in the base to make better contact) but only get a couple of hours on the fan as opposed to 9+ hour output of a D cell...very happy with my conversion to AAs across the board.... the CR123s are for the high output SureFire LEDs (retro fit modules from Malkoff and SolarForce (HK)...

D cells are pretty much paperweights to me. When digging thru some boxes last summer I found an old 3 x D-cell Mag-Lite I bought back when they were the SOTA (in other words, somewhere around when I graduated HS...1987). It hadn't been used in a decade and a half at least but I decided to see if it still worked. When I looked for batteries I was stunned to see how expensive D's had become. Now, I had no intention of dropping $9 on Energizers when I didn't even know if the light would even work! Eventually I found some off brand alkaline D's at Big Lots.

BTW, the light worked...but it still sucked! Even my cheapest $7 Chinese LED was brighter with better throw and more usable spot.