Ask Lemmy

I've experienced exactly one power outage in Germany in the last 50 years, so i haven't really developed a routine.

I really really enjoy complete and utter silence and lack of any electronics outside, depending on how wide spread it is and the weather. Sometimes I just get a chair outside and enjoy the silence of all the electronics that are everywhere. Especially at night it's even better without lights ok everywhere

Let it go unnoticed as battery and solar handled things.

I like reading. Make sure your Kindle is fully charged, some books downloaded and articles downloaded in Pocket.

That’s actually something I think about quite often recently. People 150 years ago didn’t have electricity at all, what did they do?

First the things that would be really helpful if already built into your home: It helps if you have a gas or wooden stove to cook meals. Same with heating, a masonry stove for example could really make a difference.

Stuff that’s good to have is a small camping gas stove, some LED lanterns, tons of batteries and candles. Powerbanks to charge your mobile phones, maybe a few solar cells on the roof with some batteries connected to it. Maybe even a small emergency power generator. Don’t forget the fuel for it.

What you can do: Go for a hike. Read books, play boardgames and cards. Do puzzles. Write! Get a notebook and a pen ( I recommend actually fountain pens) and do some journaling. Write about your day, your dreams or your concerns. Make a list what parts of the world you want to visit before you die or anything else you can think about. Learn to draw or to paint. Maybe it’s time to put up the guitar that’s gathering dust in the corner.

Something like that. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Sleep and hope that I dream and that my dreams take me to the dream noosphere.

Stare.

The same things I do when there is power:

chat with my spouse, read, write, sketch, paint, play chess. I will also try to do some chores I have been avoiding for awhile ;)

Edit: we have a few portable reading lamps that will hold for many hours between charges, so we can read during the evening too. We also have flashlights and... candles, just in case we need them (so far, we never were cut off power long enough)

Obsessively refresh the "There is a power outage in your area!" page.

I only seem to get power outages at night, after the sun has set. So besides burning some candles or using flashlights until I'm sure I have everything I need, I usually just call it a night early and go to sleep. The power is usually back on by the time I wake up in the morning.

Before that, I'll make sure to shut down my computers. I have several of them running on an UPS, so they don't lose power when it goes dark; however, they burn through my UPS battery within 30 minutes or less, so I need to make sure they're safely shut down first.

My power used to very unreliable and I'd get rolling brownouts (flicker of power) every now and then. Which would kill my PCs. So I got the UPS so they maintain power, regardless of a blackout or brownout. Ever since, my computers stay on 24/7 without problems.

Contemplate how close to total collapse we are every day

Last time this happened to me we hastely turned our dinner in a romantic candle lighted dinner.

Bitch that the power's out.
Connect phone to laptop to drain for juice.
Sleep.

Mostly nothing special in preparation. I have a grill in the back, a propane and a sterno camping stove, so I can still cook food. I have a one-gallon water-filtering thing that I can use if we need to go to boil-water status (our water treatment plant is probably a bit lower than it should be), and I have a camping solar panel (and several power banks) that I can use to recharge the electronics. We also have lanterns, flashlights, headlamps and a lot of candles.

If it's going to be a major storm, I'll fill up the gas tank and stop by the ATM - get small bills where possible, sometimes people can't make change. Oh, and if you're running low on a prescription, see if they can refill it early. If it floods: a long time ago, in a 3am fit of doomscrolling, I figured out what the nearest highest point I can get to without crossing any streams or storm drains. And after Katrina, when all those people survived the flood but died when they got trapped in their attics - well, I had nightmares about that for a long time, and I eventually mounted a hatchet to the attic wall.

How do we pass the time? We'll talk with each other or our neighbors - gotta check in on everyone, make sure everyone's doing as okay as we can be. Maybe go for a walk to check out the neighborhood as well. We all have books and magazines and been meaning to catch up on, so it's a good time for that; family jigsaw puzzles in the early evening before the light gets too bad. It's also really nice to just sit and listen to the world without the constant background noise of civilization.

I basically start collecting everything that has power and can provide power. Basically I just check on my laptops, power banks, phones, the bag of random batteries, estimate how long I can keep going, and try to reasonably save power regardless: Shutdown instead of sleep for laptops, mobile data off on phone if not needed, prefer dedicated flashlight over to phones, fetch other options like candles.

Kills enough time that the power gets restored during that time. Then I think of how unprepared I was, how I am going to improve it, and then never do it. There's a bag of old 18650s from power banks and laptop batteries under my bed for like 2 years. I don't know what state they are in now. I know I measured their capacities, disposed of dead ones, put good ones into the bag, planned to use it for a giant power bank, but did absolutely nothing with it in the end.
I should probably dispose of them at this point. They all had like 60% of capacity anyway and years of use.

And then I also think about the bag of batteries from dad's disposable vapes. They're rechargeable, but it's possible they were overdischarged and shouldn't be used anymore. On some the wires running along those batteries were partly melted too.
I should dispose of that too. So much damn waste.

In the end after each power outage I turn to the web, obsessively looking through power banks, get amazed by those with built-in mains inverter, but in the end don't get anything as it isn't necessary.

I sit on my phone until the power comes back on. Rarely lasts for more than an hour. I think I've had more outage time from them doing maintenance than from weather.

That's why I keep a pen and paper. For power outages.

Apart from that, if there's light:

• some exercise
• kirigami
• wash clothes (by hand)
• eat random (edible) stuff which I would otherwise use to cook
  • cooking needs electricity

No light:

• sleep

Watch TV via the agm batteries and eBay inverter that I got a couple years ago.

Read a book, usually Asimov.

Playing the piano to pass the time. There’s a certain eeriness that I find quite enjoyable of having the music flow while in nearly total darkness.

The best light I have actually had to use during a power cut is this:

https://www.wexphotovideo.com/phottix-t200r-rgb-led-tube-light-3112051/

I was cleaning my walk in closet and the power went out, I was in the zone and needed to keep going to get it done, so I grabbed one of my two lights and kept going.

Read books. Go to bed early as soon as it's dark. Empty the fridge if it's going to be a while longer.

The longest I was without power was as a kid. A winter storm knocked out power lines all over. It was a week before we got power back on, the longest it took for some was 12 days. We had a wood burning fireplace so my parents invited all the elderly neighbors to stay with us. I wasn't happy about sleeping on the floor while some weird-smelling old person slept in my bed, but looking back now I'm glad my parents modeled civic-minded behavior.

Us kids played a lot of cards and picked fights with each other. Dad had us scooping driveways in the neighborhood and eventually the streets by hand just to keep us active and out of the house. It was not a fun week.

Last outage we had, one of the first things I did was take a hot shower. Our water heater is electric and if it became extended I might not get another chance.

I think we just went to bed, because it was pretty late anyway. It was like 4-6 years ago. Outages are pretty rare here, where I live.

Hilbernate. The other half uses the e-reader. Anything e-ink should have incredible battery life.

Video games lol

I don't remember when the last one happened. We have like 5 minutes of downtime per year in Germany on average