matrixshaman
Flashlight Enthusiast
POAD - Nope that's not a new Ultimate flashlight - that's Power Outage after dark! Our area here in Colorado was without power just after dark for a couple hours. As much as I consider myself one of the very prepared it was interesting to find out what was not as ready as I would have liked it to be. The first thing I found was the emergency/weather radio with battery backup had dead batteries. The computer UPS held up fine until I got Windows shut down but in trying to find out what happened to the power in our area later that night I found I had no Internet access. I guess Qwest doesn't have UPS systems While I've got a generator I realized I did not have a power cord finished to easily hook it up to the house. While very dangerous I have in the past used a power cord with a plug on both ends to power a house from a generator. You need to turn off your Main breakers to do this and really need to be careful with such a setup - not recommended unless you really know what your are doing. Then I went out to the RV to try out the TV there. My usual thoughts when there is a power outage are along the lines of making sure it is just a local outage and that the entire country is not down due to UFO invasion or the like :tinfoil: Unfortunately I could not get the TV to come on even though the RV inverter seemed to be running. Next I decided to look for an AM radio and found the first one with dead batteries. I knew I could go listen in the car but decided instead to I try the multi-band Ham Radio which I fortunately had just charged the day before (was totally dead). At that point it appeared there was no news so I assumed no news is good news and that this was just a local problem. I used my HDS U60 as a candle on mid-power throughout the couple hours and it didn't dim a bit. Before the light came back on I counted 6 flashlights on me So I guess it's a good thing to have a little trial run like this come up or to imagine one and go through the steps from time to time to see what might be missing. As they say better to be prepared and have everything and not need it than to need it and not have it.