As some of you may know, the San Francisco Bay Area is experiencing a series of storms passing through, dropping more rain than usual for this area. It is not as bad as the national media is making it out to be, as this type of thing happens here about every ten years or so. Trees fall over, power goes out, and the same areas flood as last time. But to my point. On the day of New Year's eve, I stopped by a local supermarket (Safeway) to pick up a couple of things. One storm had just passed through, and another was due within 24 hours. As I approached the store, I noticed that it was dark inside, and a small group of people were just standing around outside. The "automatic" doors were propped open, so I walked inside. There was a Safeway employee at the door to greet me. He explained that they had lost power, and that the refrigerated dairy and frozen food cases would not be opened until power came back on. With those limitations, I was free to shop. Here is what I found:

Good for Safeway: This is a BIG store, and a few of the fluorescent light fixtures were on, obviously running on a battery backup. All of the computerized checkouts were fully functional, also obviously on a battery backup. The front of the store is all glass, so some natural light was getting in (it was mid-afternoon). Most of the employees had flashlights, and were assisting customers in the darker corners of the stores. All of the checkout stands were running, and had lines of a dozen or so.

Bad day for banking: This Safeway also has a Wells Fargo bank branch in it. One reason I stopped off at this particular store was to make a deposit. There sat two bank employees, reading magazines. When I approached, I was told that they were closed, due to no power. (Apparently, they don't believe in battery backup.) I asked if there was any way to make a deposit manually, and was told no. I asked if the branch across town had power. No, the local "computer center" lost power, so the nearest branch that could accept my deposit was about 25 miles north. I don't know why they could not simply take my checks and my deposit slip, hand write me a receipt, and "deposit" it when the computers came back up. I offered them the use of my pen as a manual backup device, but apparently they have "no procedures for a power failure", other than to turn away their customers.

My neighbors: So I venture into Safeway's isles. I notice that most of the shopping carts are filled with bottled water and canned goods. I overheard comments like: "The next storm is due tonight...we had better stock up now", "Hurry while we can still buy food", and my personal favorite, "What will we do if the power is out at out house?"

I left, for I did not want to wait in a long line of near panic buying for the couple of non-essential items that I stopped by for.

BTW, my house never lost power, but our uninterruptible power supplies did come on for about one second later that evening. I had tested our small backup generator the day BEFORE the first storm, and it started just fine. So I knew that we could keep the refrigerator/freezer going if there was a prolonged outage. I did not see the need to buy any additional water or canned food. We have plenty already at the house.