We just had a series of bad weather that left A LOT of people (nothing like Texas though! My heart goes out to everyone there...) out of power for a week or longer. This happened during and after an ice storm and it was a real wake-up call. The household was out of power for 9 days total. It was supposed to be out of power for another 7 days after that, but due to a fluke in the dispatch system, a crew was sent out rigged up our power "early". In fact, they were talking about waiting until JUNE to fix us up with any power. That would be 4 months! Just to be clear - services here are not shut down, there are no supply chain issues, and zombies are not in the streets; yet they were still talking about keeping us shut down for so long!
I should admit here at the start: on day 4 my husband hand-dug our 1/4 mile driveway so that he could take the kids and me to stay with some family, who had their power restored. The rest of the household did stay for the entire time and survived fine. Before the outage, when we heard that there was an ice storm coming, they went out and stocked up on food and supplies, knowing that a power outage would surely follow. There are frequent power outages when there are storms of any kind.
The property is somewhat rural, with a 1970s house that was clearly built around electricity. There are vaulted ceilings, giant windows, an impractical layout, and a fireplace that is more for show than for heat or cooking. Luckily, the last owners had bought a small woodstove. This became the center of the household universe for all 9 days.
Living with family was extremely helpful in a lot of ways. Duties to care for the property and the people were divvied up. The kids were able to entertain themselves well enough without screens. It also provided opportunities to have some nice discussions about power, resources, and how people used to live before electricity.
Firewood is not an issue in this area, but the big challenges were more about people being able to stay warm and dry. Without any kind of oven, everything needed to be cooked on the stove (which is really not a stove so much as a heater with a flat top that can be improvised as a stove...). After setting up a drying rack next to the stove so that the outdoor workers could have dry coats, hats, and gloves every time they went outside was necessary. Putting some of the snow in containers to keep the freezers and fridge cold worked well and helped to keep some (but not all) food from spoiling. Chest freezers are far superior to door freezers. Cheese keeps well as do most condiments. Milk and meat do not!
There were 2 things that made this experience go smoothly. First, doing some preparation before the event by going shopping and getting stocked up were worth their weight in gold. Being prepared for many of the difficulties gave the space to do the work we needed for everything not prepared for.
Second, and for me the biggest help in all this, was mindset. There are some cool series about living in a primitive world setting (Primitive Technologies on Youtube or the anime Dr.Stone), which give some great ideas about what people can do in very dire situations.
That being said, the biggest practical help for me with my mindset has been the SKIP program's Badge Bits. I did a whole bunch of them in September and October (haven't posted any of them to be certified yet... probably should do that at some point...), but they indicate how to do a lot of things without electricity - flush the toilets with greywater (melted snow water in this case), use little water for washing dishes (and then using that to flush toilets!), roundwood-working without power tools, cleaning a pot without soap... SO MANY good things! It was also so much about a mindset change - especially to a kid who grew up in suburbia. It was so empowering and really took stress out of the equation, which was a game changer. So I wanted to express my extreme gratitude for the system
As I said, this has been a good wake-up call, and I think everyone has been having some great discussions and doing some research about what to do if another extended outage happens (hence reading this forum and trying to glean any other recommendations...). I am so glad you guys are here and have these discussions, too. Thank you! Hope you are all safe and warm out there <3
