Blackout -- Blackout -- Blackout

Finally, a blackout lasting more than 15 seconds! My Fenix L1P, on which I have modded the tailcap for a two stage light, along with my Basic 42 XR GT on low, gave us soft candle-like light for the two hours that the power was down.

I also got to test my Gerber Infinity IU with the red led.

Altogether, I was well pleased with my EDC choices, and it gave me some ideas for some other things I want to do.

All kidding aside, I know that a blackout is serious, and should not be taken lightly. But since the lights are out anyway, you might as well test your flashlights.

I wish I had power outages. The only one that happened lately was at Smith Food King. As I was walking in the store, I noticed the lights were out inside. I threw my HDS on my cap, fired it up and ran in the store to find my groceries. 5 seconds after I darted into the store, the lights came on. DAMN!

Where is the blackout capital of the world? I sometimes walk in my house at night and never turn on any lights while I do things just to play with some of my lights. I'm waiting for the neighbors to call the cops and say they think I'm being robbed.

Jeff

xpitxbullx said:

I wish I had power outages.

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Dude, you live in Vegas. it would be the last place that would lose power in the world. The Casinos will make sure of that....

blackouts in stores aren't fun...

I was in the local SAMS one afternoon and I had a cart full of nearly $300 worth of food and stuff, it was stuffed to overflowing but I was stocking up on everything to fill the freezer for the summer. Wait in line (it's always crowded) and start getting checked out, she gets down to the very last item which she's holding in her hand, and BOOM the power goes out. I was SO close to getting out!!!

Instead I had to sit their and wait... the store had enough emergency lights that it wasn't dark And when the lights finally came back on (only took 10 minutes) I had to wait another 15 minutes for the stupid registers to come back online before she could start scanning the cart from the beginning again... ARRRG!

nice local blackout and all I got to do was stand in line and wait

I love it in stores when the power goes out. I especially like the way that the average clerk just absolutely CANNOT make correct change without the register display telling him what to do.

Cliff

lol. i am 16 this year and have only seen one black out in singapore... and it was at night and lasted 2 hours...

who the hell needs a blackout at night?

chesterqw said:

lol. i am 16 this year and have only seen one black out in singapore... and it was at night and lasted 2 hours...

who the hell needs a blackout at night?

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i do! who doesnt need a blackout at night.

Seriously, I'm glad we have good ultilities here and blackouts are rare. It's a sign that I'm living in a place with good infrastructure and services (like police, fire, paramedic, etc...) which is much better than the alternative.

xpitxbullx said:

I sometimes walk in my house at night and never turn on any lights while I do things just to play with some of my lights. I'm waiting for the neighbors to call the cops and say they think I'm being robbed.

Jeff

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I do the same thing! And, one time my neighbors DID call the cops. I was already in bed when the cops pounded on the door... My roommate answered the door and told the cops: "We aren't getting robbed... it was just my roommate, playing with his flashlights." The cops were like riiiight. They asked us both for our IDs, to make sure we really lived there... and they left. Good stuff.

KingSmono said:

I do the same thing! And, one time my neighbors DID call the cops. I was already in bed when the cops pounded on the door... My roommate answered the door and told the cops: "We aren't getting robbed... it was just my roommate, playing with his flashlights." The cops were like riiiight. They asked us both for our IDs, to make sure we really lived there... and they left. Good stuff.

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ROFLCAKES.. getting robbed FTW

For years, I lived in an older neighborhood that had vintage eletrical service. It seemed like every time a cloud passed over we would have a power outage lasting from 4-24 hours.

As a result, I learned to always EDC a flashlight, plus have others fresh and waiting in the car and at the front door.

The old house had a large screened in backporch which served as my outdoors kitchen. I kept a 2 burner propane Coleman stove set up with a bulk tank and distribution post to also fuel a lantern. During a power outage, the neighbors would wait until my outside lantern was lit in the morning and then start gathering for coffee.

With a little planning and organization, power outages became a non-event.

i never get power outages

The other day - around 4:00pm the power went out. I was happy - even though the air conditioner was, of course, no longer cooling down the summer heat. After about an hour I thought I might actually make it until dark - after about 3 hours I thought I was going to be able to have a little light show - and then about a half hour before darkness set in I heard the house whir back to life..... darn almost made it!!!!

[email protected] said:

The other day - around 4:00pm the power went out. I was happy - even though the air conditioner was, of course, no longer cooling down the summer heat. After about an hour I thought I might actually make it until dark - after about 3 hours I thought I was going to be able to have a little light show - and then about a half hour before darkness set in I heard the house whir back to life..... darn almost made it!!!!

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Something like that happened to me also.

xpitxbullx said:

I wish I had power outages. The only one that happened lately was at Smith Food King. As I was walking in the store, I noticed the lights were out inside. I threw my HDS on my cap, fired it up and ran in the store to find my groceries. 5 seconds after I darted into the store, the lights came on. DAMN!

Where is the blackout capital of the world? I sometimes walk in my house at night and never turn on any lights while I do things just to play with some of my lights. I'm waiting for the neighbors to call the cops and say they think I'm being robbed.

Jeff

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Probably somewhere in central plains, where your just so close and yet so far from the nearest grid

chesterqw said:

lol. i am 16 this year and have only seen one black out in singapore... and it was at night and lasted 2 hours...

who the hell needs a blackout at night?

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Its not just Singapore, Most utility construction is done in the dead of the night...It happens so frequently that I bought quartz AA alarm clocks cuz my digitals keep reseting to 12AM and drives me nuts by beeping

nerdgineer said:

Seriously, I'm glad we have good ultilities here and blackouts are rare. It's a sign that I'm living in a place with good infrastructure and services (like police, fire, paramedic, etc...) which is much better than the alternative.

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For stability reasons, areas where the population density was over a specific limit, several backup grids are installed incase nature's events [or some thing] overload one grid, the transfer unit just opens that circuit and transferr to another nearest grid...

Blackouts will be non-existent for much of centuries to come...and the blackout like the New York outage some years ago...thats not too common...

sigh

xpitxbullx said:

I I sometimes walk in my house at night and never turn on any lights while I do things just to play with some of my lights. I'm waiting for the neighbors to call the cops and say they think I'm being robbed.Jeff

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Hey man, better be careful about doing that. A guy here at CPF was playing with his lights in his house at night and the cops showed up. they implied that they would shoot the guy unless he came outside and let the cops search his house:thumbsdow

Each of the casinos has their own back-up generators (some that are literally small power plants that can probably power up a small city.) I don't think they feed back into the grid to power up the surrounding areas though. But it would be ironic that the city that sits near the Hoover Dam would have a power failure

I know of one company that does have on-site backup power at their manufacturing facilities and keeps a 90 day (!) supply of fuel for the generators. They also have ability to feed the power that is generated into the grid that surrounds that plant site.

270winchester said:

Dude, you live in Vegas. it would be the last place that would lose power in the world. The Casinos will make sure of that....

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Hey, we had a short blackout here on the night of the 4th. First thing to flash thru my head was OMG! I hope that wasn't an EMP burst! (been reading Lights Out recently...) It wasn't, thankfully, and I broke out my EDC L1P to calm the kiddies. Goth them to bed & handed them all chemlights to keep 'em calm and happy. Hubby checked the area outside, once the dogs started barking oddly. Nothing going on. Had a headlamp inuse, a QIII, my L1P, a RR lantern in the living room, and my Big QIII in pocket in case the battery on the Fenix failed.

Got about 30min of blackout, and then the grid came back up.

Where I work there is a back-up generator and UPS the lights only go out for a few seconds (darn it). But this is interesting, in exchange for a discount on electrcity from the grid they run the generator during peak loading conditions to reduce the strain on public utilitites. I suspect that is quite common.

I usually EDC a Dorcy 1 AAA and/or Streamlight Stylus but left them both behind when I left the house in a hurry to go to Walmart on the 4th.

Naturally, the one day that I don't have a flashlight....the lights go out! (But only for a few seconds.)