{"id":58616,"date":"2016-08-02T12:30:44","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T17:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=58616"},"modified":"2021-06-01T22:06:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T03:06:48","slug":"what-to-do-in-a-power-outage-and-how-to-prepare-for-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/skills\/survival\/what-to-do-in-a-power-outage-and-how-to-prepare-for-one\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do in a Power Outage (And How to Prepare for One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

About a month ago, our household lost power in the middle of the night for a few hours. We could tell because we woke up extremely warm \u2013 the A\/C had shut off, as had the ceiling fans. When it came back on, it came in surges, causing appliances to beep and jolt a few times, waking our 1-year-old son.<\/p>\n

A couple weeks ago, after a storm in Northern Minnesota, some friends of ours were without power for 3 days and lost about 40 freshly cut fish fillets they had stocked in their freezer, along with a trash-sackful of other food.<\/p>\n

In the rain-drenched Pacific Northwest, my mom and her husband have a generator which automatically comes on when the grid goes down. It gets used on a regular basis; the reality of where they live is that you\u2019re going to lose power a few times a year.<\/p>\n

While you may think that blackouts are few and far between, and you don\u2019t need an article to tell you what to do and how to prepare, the reality is that they\u2019re a pretty common occurrence. Because of the United States\u2019 aging infrastructure, our rapidly increasing population, and a growing number of extreme weather events, the number of major grid failures (more than 50,000 households affected) in our country is doubling roughly every four years. In the early 2000s, large-scale grid outages occurred about 45 times per year, or around 3 per month across the entire country (surprising how low it is, isn\u2019t it?). Now, there are large-scale outages almost daily.<\/p>\n

Power outages are not an emergency that is geographically confined. Everyone, in every part of the country (and world), experiences them. The desert Southwest, tornado country, hurricane country (we\u2019re coming up on hurricane season now!), and everywhere in between.<\/p>\n

In order to come out the other end of a power outage safely and comfortably, there are things you can do before, during, and after the electricity goes out. Follow the tips below, and your neighbors will be coming to you asking for advice the next time the grid goes down.<\/p>\n

Preparing<\/h3>\n

Before a lengthy power outage ever occurs, there are some steps you can take to ensure that when (not if) it does happen, you\u2019ll be ready, and emerge out the other side with no, or minimal, harm done.<\/p>\n

Have a stash of emergency supplies that includes a few outage-specific items.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having a stash of emergency supplies on-hand at home is crucial no matter the dire scenario. There are a few things though that are related specifically to power outages that you should have handy, perhaps even in multiple places in the home\/garage.<\/p>\n