McGustav

[Crash]

10:00 am August 28,2008 - evacuated New Orleans to go to Baton Rouge for Hurricane Gustav. 12:00 NOON September 1, 2008 - pretty much all of East Baton Rouge Parish along with many other parishes in Louisiana lose power. It is later learned that it is unlikely that there will significant restoration of power for 7 to 21 days or longer. 12:01pm September 1, 2008 - LunaSol 27, XR19 PD AlTiN coated, and Sundrop XP (among others)happily take over daily lighting chores while 2 burner camp stove and Bar-B-Q pit take over cooking and battery operated fans make feeble attempt to take over air conditioning chores.

Don, being able to know that I could unconditionally count on your lights was a big comfort amidst all of the other stuff going on during Hurricane Gustav.

As an aside, it is important to note that my protected rechargeable batteries didn't give any warning before going dark in the LunaSol 27. No problem with primaries blinking as they got low on power. Not likely that anyone reading this would only have one means of illumination with them during a power outage but I just want to give a cautionary warning to others in case they're using rechargeables in their LAST means of illumination.

Thanks from my wife, my son, and I for making rugged, reliable lights that work as advertised when they're most needed.

Sincerely,
Bill Sickinger

 

[brighterisbetter]

That is an awesome post to say the least, thanks for sharing. And I agree with you about Rechargeables, convenient in most cases, but one should always keep a reliable light filled with fresh primaries just in case.

 

[Crash]

Thanks, BIB. Pretty scary watching the 60 foot tall Sycamore tree in the neighbor's backyard whip like the end of a lightweight fishing pole. Fortunately we had no damage in Baton Rouge. We got 6 inches of water and three feet of mold during Hurricane Katrina at our house in a suburb of New Orleans that we were just about to move back into. The temporary apartment in the New Orleans area never lost power but New Orleans didn't get the sustained storm force winds that Baton Rouge got. Reportedly, Gustav caused more damage in Baton Rouge than any other storm in history. Even LSU's Tiger Stadium received significant damage.

 

[McGizmo]

Crash,
Good to hear you and yours weathered the storm OK. As you and others have commented, what might be ideal for EDC may not be ideal for specific applications. Power outages can require a different solution; especially in the case when you have some advance indication that there may be trouble and you have time for preparation. Knowledge of your equipment and how it behaves is a must I would think.

Thanks for the kind words.

 

[Edwood]

While I use rechargeable protected Li-Ion CR123's all the time, I keep plenty of Duracell Ultra Primaries as back ups.

Great to hear tales of real world use.

-Ed

 

[souptree]

There should be a blindfolded battery replacing contest in the CPF Olympics.

Great story. Glad you and your loved ones came through OK. :twothumbs

 

[Crash]

Thanks, guys. We have a lot to be thankful for. On a "lighter" note, however, it WAS a good time to be a flashaholic though.

After last week, I may not win the blindfolded battery replacement contest but I wouldn't bet against me either!!!

 

[starfiretoo]

Crash - Good to hear you making lemonade out of lemons that came your way.

I've had too many rechargables go dead on me at the wrong time. My EDC is a Ti Aleph with a simple Madmax Plus converter that will suck a primary dry. For me dim is better then no light at times.

 

[Crash]

Thanks everyone.

Just a few observations, that may help others.

I routinely use rechargeables in my EDC, a XR-19 coated in AlTiN to resist wear and make for a smoother action. I do, however, carry a Fenix L0D on my key ring as a backup.

In this instance, I charged all my batteries knowing that, at least for the duration of the storm, I would have other lights with me as well. I used the LunaSol the most but the XR-19 came in very handy. After the rechargeables were depleted, I planned to use primaries.

If someone reading this hasn't gone through a prolonged, regional power outage, I can't emphasize enough the importance of a little advance planning. Even if needed supplies are available, if the merchants don't have power for their cash registers, they will just close up and you won't be able to purchase simple things like batteries. It is absolutely true that you can't be prepared for everything and being so prepared would tie up huge amounts of money and resources. If you plan for the big things, however, you can wing-it on the smaller things.

So I had plenty of batteries. I made up a chart with almost all of the important electric items with the battery size, the number of batteries required and the run time per set of batteries. With that info, you can see how many batteries you need to sustain important equipment (like battery powered fans) for whatever time you think might be required.

The one thing I forgot was the cell phone. When we lost power, we lost the cable company supplied phone service. This can happen if you have regular phone service if you rely on cordless phones exclusively. In any case, if the cell phone goes dead, the only way to charge it is in the car unless you have a generator. Unfortunately, cell phones can't use primaries. I'm going to buy a couple of extra batteries to have for the next time this happens

 

[Sigman]

...The one thing I forgot was the cell phone. When we lost power, we lost the cable company supplied phone service. This can happen if you have regular phone service if you rely on cordless phones exclusively. In any case, if the cell phone goes dead, the only way to charge it is in the car unless you have a generator. Unfortunately, cell phones can't use primaries. I'm going to buy a couple of extra batteries to have for the next time this happens

I've seen several aftermarket battery packs (typically run off of AA cells) with applicable cell phone power connectors used for charging or making calls.

We keep/kept a couple analog phones around for use when the power goes out...HOWEVER - now that our local phone service is digital, the old "ringers" don't work. Therefore all we have are the cell phones or the FRS radios. I guess now I can see myself picking up a couple of those cell phone aftermarket battery pack/chargers.

 

[Crash]

Thanks for the tip Signman. I see they have one for a Palm phone. It isn't my model but it should work.