Things to do when bad storms coming

I don’t remember where I first read this, but it makes so much sense.

When bad storms are forecast, make sure to have all your laundry done and run the dishwasher (if you have one) or make sure the dishes are done. That way, if you lose power, you’ll at least have clean clothes and dishes for a while.

I always do this. It takes a lot off my mind.

This is in addition to everything else: make sure you have fresh batteries in flashlights/lanterns, backup battery packs for electronics are fully charged, etc.

Not always possible, nor would I always want electronic stuff running when lightening is going to be bad. I did lose a computer when lightening once hit the house, and it was on a dedicated circuit (that was the only thing hit/damaged, amazingly). I also have had lightening hit the transformer for the house, 30 feet from me (surprised I didn't pitch those pants). Felt a bit of a tingle in the air from that one.

That doesn't even cover the ice/snow storm we had years back where I changed the 100 year old neighbors oxygen tank. Thankfully, she was still on a gravity furnace, as her house stayed in the mid 50's, while we were without power longer then others. I used a washboard and lined dried my clothes in the basement, when I was able to drive back to work.

Um, BEFORE the storms start.

No dishwasher, but definitely wash the clothes before pending bad weather.

I try to make sure I've washed my hair and bathed!

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Originally Posted by nswef

I try to make sure I've washed my hair and bathed!

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Yes, that too!

When doing laundry before bad weather, I always prioritize socks and underwear. I do the same thing once there's confirmation a hurricane's cone of uncertainty involves the East coast. I keep camping lamps on our nightstands in our bedroom and in the guest room in addition to the living room and kitchen. Have a headlamp in case I need to use my hands.

The big storm is hitting my area tomorrow so I have socks and underwear in the laundry, and will run the dishwasher earlier then usual. It's generally the last thing I start before going to bed.

Back up chargers currently charging, and I have my bug our bag by my desk so all I have to do is unplug my laptop if I have to run to the basement.

Hmmm... when I've been in bad storms (i.e., I was in Tropical Storm Irene and Hurricane Sandy) I didn't really care if my clothes were clean or my hair was washed. My bad! We just lit candles, and used flashlights to check out the damage outdoors. To that point, my big concern when storms are on the horizon are, do I have batteries, candles, and my NOAA emergency radio? I fill bathtubs and pots with water and make sure my extra phone battery packs, computers and iPads are charged up.

So far that's all I've needed, but my outages didn't last more than a couple of days.

How common is it for everyone to lose power during storms? I realize that I have lived my whole life in big cities and in many places have had buried power lines which are generally more reliable, but I could be a quadruple amputee and still have enough toes and fingers to count the number of times the power has been out longer than a few minutes due to weather.

Seldom did we loose it when we lived in the city of STL on our side of the neighborhood. The other side was out of power for several days one time.

here in Hermann, I’ve only experienced power flickering off and on.

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Originally Posted by jp1

How common is it for everyone to lose power during storms? I realize that I have lived my whole life in big cities and in many places have had buried power lines which are generally more reliable, but I could be a quadruple amputee and still have enough toes and fingers to count the number of times the power has been out longer than a few minutes due to weather.

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Storms are getting worse with climate change. I’ve had no power for a few hours at a time. The thing is you don’t know when you will or won’t lose power. We had an evening of 10-12 tornadoes at the end of FEBRUARY in the Chicago area. Not normal. I had all my stuff together and spent the evening in the bathroom. There was one a couple of miles from me.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

Storms are getting worse with climate change.

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Yes.Vermont weather is totally off-course. Our growing hardiness rating has evolved a half-zone. The floods we had in July 2023 submerged the entire state capital region.

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Originally Posted by jp1

How common is it for everyone to lose power during storms? I realize that I have lived my whole life in big cities and in many places have had buried power lines which are generally more reliable, but I could be a quadruple amputee and still have enough toes and fingers to count the number of times the power has been out longer than a few minutes due to weather.

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At the old place, all my power and most of the power around were still above ground lines. They started putting things underground but wouldn't in my case due to neighbors tree, then shared driveway and concrete stairs. Snow storms you could lose power for four hours or so at a time, and I tried to be at work during them. Ice storms, which are around every 20 years, much longer.

Where I am living now, in three years, I have lost power three times, once due to a car accident that took out power to a good size area. Most haven't been more then four hours, and this house is better insulated.

The one big outage I ever suffered was nyc 20 years ago. When half the east coast was out. I’ve mentioned before making a hack jackery out of concern for forced outages during wildfire season but in 3.5 years of living in our house the only time I’ve needed/useful it was when our contractor was doing electric work. Which has been useful but also planned.

Interesting to hear other people’s stories.

In the past 20 years there has been a ton of development without the promised infrastructure improvements for the larger population's needs.

Had lots of blinks and outages that last a few hours. Elections happened and we have the much needed infrastructure improvements in progress now that we're moved from working class immigrants and a scattering of federal employees to early gentrification probably helped.

Longest I was without power was in the early 90s during an ice storm, no electricity for a week. The school was unaffected so I had to go. Did homework by lamplight like it was Little House on the Prairie. Was stationed in a small town that was last on the proprieties of the power company.

In 50 years in this house built in 1962, we've been out of power for 18 hours once in 93 after a blizzard in March. Other than that the longest might be several hours. We are rural, so the outage affects the well pump which is my main worry- toilet and water- I feel very fortunate. I do not think the power companies are spending enough time on building the infrastructure. Our county has gone from 100,000 to about 250, 000 and nearly all the houses are HUGE using way too much electricity. Now the county wants to let Data Centers come with NO rules and the use of power and water for them is gigantic.

I’m done with candles. Since we have such good LED lanterns now, they’re not needed.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

I’m done with candles. Since we have such good LED lanterns now, they’re not needed.

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Good point. We have LED lanterns, too, but I like the ambience of a candlelit room, so I'll still probably use them in outages. I consider them a "must have" and when I run low on votives, I reorder a case of 72.

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Originally Posted by Tradd

I’m done with candles. Since we have such good LED lanterns now, they’re not needed.

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We have LED lanterns plus some battery operated string lights that I can move around and they have a nice effect which might cheer me up when I get grumpy over the outage.

Another thing I did was install battery operated puck lights under my kitchen cabinets so I can see the kitchen counters while whipping up something from my non perishable food stash.

Where we live we haven't experienced that many outages and most haven't been that long. Think the longest we had was 8 hours after some really rough storms a few years ago.

We lose power a lot here. The worst was last year at Christmas when we were out for 5 days. Luckily we have a woodstove. We have a well pump so no running water and no furnace. Just the woodstove.
We are looking at a big storm Thursday supposed to get 22 inches and more power outages. I am praying that the weather stays warm and we get rain. My plan B is to lie in the bed near the woodstove and refuse to get out except to make coffee and pancakes on the woodstove. We play a lot of Scrabble when the power is out. Once I learned I could make food on the woodstove, I felt less stressed. We also just bought a little grill and charcoal so we can cook in the summer without power. Having warm food helps immensely.

We do a mix of candles, oil lamp, and battery lamp.

We have solar lights outside in our backyard. The stay lit all night by this time of year so we could bring them inside if need be to give at least some light in our living room. And we can cook on our gas grill out in the back yard. So I'm not worried. It would be inconvenient if we had a long electric outage but not a critical crisis. My homemade jackery is enough for about 24 hours of keeping the fridge running which would cover us for about as long as we would hopefully need. Is this solution perfect? No. But it's probably good enough for us given where we live (there's a fire station in our part of the electric grid so we'll be first in line when things have to get repaired)

We've never lost power for more than a couple of hours. We are also right by the public safety building, so perhaps that makes a difference. We've got a couple of kerosene lamps that provide enough light to actually do something by in the event of an outage.