The 23rd (night before Christmas Eve), our power went down for more than 5 hours. I live In Illinois, but thankfully the temperature was abnormally warm, so the house was holding it's heat fairly well.
I was working on my computers, and got them all shutdown before all of my UPS shutdown and I grabbed my CMG Infinity Ultra from my desk (I use it for cracking into computer cases under my desk). For anyone who cares, it's the pre-Gerber buyout ultra and I'm still on my first Lithium Battery with the thing!
Anyway, I had quite a bit to do, but the first thing I did was preserve electricity in my UPS systems just in case I needed to run something. The furnace fan would be out of the question, but after running around and sealing up the heat, etc., I had a lot of time to kill while wrapping presents by a fluorescent lantern. So I started thinking about what to do should the power not come on by 3a.m. as the power company estimated.
I have a gas burning fireplace that can crank out 33k BTU. It works just fine without the electric blower, but wouldn't heat the entire house... broken pipes came to mind, so turning on water ran through my mind - I'm just not certain that really prevents pipes bursting. So, I had heat covered, but what about the rest? I started to realize just how much electrical equipment I run and found myself thinking about wiring up a generator in the near future. If not just for the emergency thing - for the convenience if the power is out for a substantial time. I telecommute, so this is a non-trivial issue for me. My UPS cover brown and minor black-outs, but long term coverage would be nice.
I got to use a few of my flashlights... my
Coast Pen Light, my
CMG Infinity Ultra and a no-name over-the-ear LED I picked up. So it was sorta fun, and it got me thinking about being more prepared with food/water/power/heat. I suppose that's a good thing. I'd be interested in thoughts about localized heating - but I've just never trusted the things, so I'll need the simplest/safest models you guys and gals use. Generator advice would be great too. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
It's incredibly rare for such an outtage where I live. There is a wind farm a few miles away, a nuke in 3 different directions within an hour drive, and I think a coal fired plant as well. I'm pretty sure it was a line failure, as lights were on just down the street.