No Power

Thunder, lightning, high winds, and possible hail; it is storming this morning, and I’m wondering if our power will go out again. Suddenly, the house goes dark, the stove won’t work, and it starts to heat up inside the house. Of course, we never know how long the power will be off, so we go into our routine: no opening the refrigerator unless you know exactly what you want to get out, start planning “no-cook” meals, and shut the curtains to keep it as cool inside the house as possible. We have water stored in case this happens. There are flashlights and candles if the power is out into the evening hours. For the guys, the most difficult part is not having any television!  We do have plenty of books to read through.

Power outages happen; summer or winter, and it makes life difficult. But it doesn’t have to make life unbearable. When I think of all the people in the world who live without electricity, it makes it easier for me to sit in a hot house. We have it pretty good in this country, and if once in a while things go fubar, then it’s up to us to learn to get through it. Fortunately, my emergency plan addresses power outages. I hope yours does too!

Along with the tips I have already listed above, I make an effort to plan ahead if I know the power will be off by filling extra buckets of water and having ice jugs on hand to move into the refrigerator if the power is off long enough that it cools down significantly. If we can’t watch television for entertainment, we do keep quite a few box games on hand, and lots of books to read. I don’t have a generator, but I do have one of those little power packs that you can keep charged and run a light or charge your cell phone with.  

My plan addresses power outages because they tend to be fairly common here in Michigan.  I don’t like living without electricity, and I want to be prepared ahead of time to make the experience as easy to get through as possible.