Almost 24 hours now without power

Well I'm in a particularly unlucky neighborhood in the greater Los Angeles area. Last night was a freakishly harsh rainstorm. Strong winds, heavy rain the works. It knocked out power here.

My flashlights have been holding up fine contrary to a lot of people's die hard beliefs that anything less than a Surefire will simply not work. Considering the best light I have is a Solarforce, and most of my other one's are "blank"fire lights, all have stood up admirably. I've given all my lights a thorough workout, basically they're pretty much always on high and I figure even with this heavy use I have 3 nights worth of power. I've done a count and at the start of the blackout I had 28 fully charged 18650's spread among a bunch of flashlights. As of now I've used 9 of them. And hopefully I won't deplete my entire supply. I can always just charge them up in my car though.

But the reason I say I'm unlucky is because everywhere else I look, and look up on the web, all the rest of Southern California is fine and power is up and running including surrounding neighborhoods. But not in my particular section. Must be a total of 8 blocks out of power. And I do seriously hope they get power back up and running. The generator is running a little low on gas right now.

Those power guys better not be on their union break, because seriously I feel like I'm in the last neighborhood of CA without power, all because of one night's storm. Literally. Sunny in the morning preceding it, and as I type sunny on the afternoon after. The rain came and went in a matter of 7 hourse or so.

Good luck with your ordeal. Not fun when power goes out that long. Up here in northern CA we have areas that can go out for days, particularly the western part of Sonoma County, and other west coast counties. No matter what brand, when a flashlight works it is good.

Bill

There was a lot of rain here yesterday but didn't realize it was bad enough to cause any power outages.
Hope they get it back up soon. I'm glad you have your arsenal of lights and batts working for you:thumbsup:

It's kind of funny, actually: I just commented on how perfect the Malkoff M61LLL module would be for blackouts, over in the LED/Malkoff thread.

-Trevor

Your flashlights are confusing the line crews, they think the power is on in your neighborhood.....

No power in your house? So how did you surf the internet and posted the message? From your blackberry?
I love flashlights too. Have a 2-pack of XTAR 18700 which are based on Sanyo cells.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I remember when every year during the windy times and spring storms we would lose power for hours at a time but never quite a day and it got annoying because you never knew how long an outage was going to last was it a few minutes, a few hours or half a day? I remember looking across the street and almost every time we had no power they always had power. They would have maybe one short outage a year for a few hours while we averaged a day and a half worth of outages. Since the ice storm of 2007 here that all changed. We rarely have power outages lasting more than half an hour but we have had some weird power issues like only getting 60VAC which would run lights but nothing much electronic would operate. So I went from thinking about getting a generator to back to working on better battery based solutions.

This is exactly the reason it's good to have a few lights that have low modes and use common cells. Longer run time, less cells used, and in the event that you exhaust your rechargeables - you can go to the store and buy a pack of alkalines.

We've had some serious storms on the Eastcoast that's taken out power for about 3 weeks over the last 2 yrs. I've got the bases covered with moonlight/single-digit lumen power-sipping lights that run triple digit hrs per Eneloop, and then solar chargers on top of that.

But I'm curious why you always run your lights in high, and why you keep 28 18650s fully charged - isn't it bad for them to store @ 100%?

I'm sure they don't STAY at 100%.



I charge mine to 100% all the time...but I use them constantly, so its not really planned for a storage scenario, I have a set in the lights I use daily/regularly, and set I rotate in while the others are charging.

If the power were to go out...the car charging station would come out.

If the rig's charging was unavailable, the Cotton Picker Solar Station would be unfurled in all its glory to use the SUN to recharge the cells.

:devil:

Hope it comes on soon. Make sure you keep an AA light on hand for times when you run out of rechargeables or primaries. Low modes are also nice to have in the event you just need enough light for common tasks and want to conserve battery life.

Sounds like you are very lucky

Not often does the power go out here, so rare is an opportunity to use my lights in a suburban setting. Supermarkets usually have generators in power outages here so keeping food frozen isn't really a concern.

I'd welcome a few days without electricity in my neighborhood.

Having a smart phone comes in handy in the event of outages, weather and internet at a glance.... hard part is keeping it charged

Quiksilver said:

Sounds like you are very lucky

Not often does the power go out here, so rare is an opportunity to use my lights in a suburban setting. Supermarkets usually have generators in power outages here so keeping food frozen isn't really a concern.

I'd welcome a few days without electricity in my neighborhood.

Click to expand...

LOL

Be careful what you wish for....



When Hurricane Irene hit the right coast last year.....areas were w/o power for MONTHS. I'd be driving a truck with a snorkel through door height flood water to get to "islands" of neighborhoods...and houses would be rolled over on their sides, no one had power or gas, or oil....or dry clothes in many cases. One of my hospitals was deluged by a river going over its banks, and flooding the hospital's basement AND first floor. They had the emergency generator in the BASEMENT of course.

So, no elevators, and the first floor was flooded...and there's patients on the floors above that....and there's no emergency power.

Another hospital 20 miles away had parts of the roof blown off, and windows blown out....

There was debris every where...but the companies with dumpsters and trucks to haul the stuff were under water/water damaged.

Electric sump pumps could not keep the water out for those who normally would have weathered the extra water...so finished basements, offices, etc...flooded when the power went south.

And so forth.....100's of thousands of people who HAD the power go out...and DIDN'T enjoy it.

I got to use flashlights A LOT, and you know what....I was too distracted by the things the light showed me to enjoy the light itself.


But, as Mrs Lincoln said...

Other than THAT, the play was pretty good.

cland72 said:

Hope it comes on soon. Make sure you keep an AA light on hand for times when you run out of rechargeables or primaries. Low modes are also nice to have in the event you just need enough light for common tasks and want to conserve battery life.

Click to expand...

He has "28 fully charged 18650's ", he just needs to find a medium mode,

It's been mentioned about the positives of having lights that use common AA batteries.

But could it be possible that during a power outage or any other emergency that the AA cells along with the AAA, D, and C cells will be gone first.

I can't imagine people buying up the CR123's during these situations.

THE_dAY said:

It's been mentioned about the positives of having lights that use common AA batteries.

But could it be possible that during a power outage or any other emergency that the AA cells along with the AAA, D, and C cells will be gone first.

I can't imagine people buying up the CR123's during these situations.

Click to expand...

VERY TRUE

The common batteries are swept from the shelves as soon as the news reports the weather coming in...same with milk, bread, canned goods, plywood, etc.

The odd enthusiast sizes tend to be left behind, as no one knows anything to put them in.

Ma and Pa Kettle don't hear a weather port, and rush online to Going Gear, etc, to have a rush delivery of Li Ion super lights...

They have a few C or D, flashlights, and maybe some 9V/drycell lights/lanterns etc...and MAYBE some AA or AAA lights in a drawer somewhere.....and those are the batteries they grab when getting the other emergency supplies.

Even the stock Red Cross etc, lights are el cheapo D cell plastic fantastics.

THE_dAY said:

It's been mentioned about the positives of having lights that use common AA batteries.

But could it be possible that during a power outage or any other emergency that the AA cells along with the AAA, D, and C cells will be gone first.

I can't imagine people buying up the CR123's during these situations.

Click to expand...

Yup, also agree that AAs will be the first to go from the stores... However,

Just running up a quick mental tally in my household, I count at least 20 AA/AAA batteries in my house just in remote controls, game controllers, wall clocks, clock radio back-up batts, thermostat controllers, CO detectors, electronic thermometers, kids toys..... did I forget anything?

And yes, you can use AAAs in place of AAs - just wrap it in a couple folded dollar bills, and a put small ball of tin foil at the neg. end, for spacers.

If all you're doing is sheltering, you need almost no light at all.

If you're out looking for survivors/surveying damage, etc...a AA light is not going to help much. I typically need to be able to sweep at a 400-600 yard range, with as broad a beam as possible....that takes a lot of juice.

I carry a box O cells, chargers, and ways to make power from a rig, or the sun, etc....to recharge them as needed.


For example - They sell engine starter back-up batteries...with built-in jumper cables, etc....those can store a MASSIVE amount of energy, and, most have outputs for DC such as USB or cig lighter style chargers for example. For ~ $100, you have a long term energy storage solution that you can carry in the truck, and recharge what ever you want to - even jump start dozens of engines, etc.



To shelter, really, a teeny nightlight will fill a room once your eyes adjust....moonlight modes, those wee 9v batteries with a clip on xmas tree type LED...work fine.

If you have to set of triage, etc...well, now you need a lot more light, and it has to have color rendition to examine wounds, etc.

As for why I could post. It's pretty cool that Verizon Fios has a battery backup so it works for extended times when power is out, also I've got a backup generator.

That's also why I don't mind running everything on high, I can charge them with either the generator's power or the reserve power in my car's battery. So power power everywhere. If it were truly an emergency scenario I would break out my multimode AA powered lights and my stockpile of emergency lithium primaries. Considering the estimates from the power company said only 12 hours of power outage, which happened to turn to nearly 24 hours. I think I was safe. No it's time to recover all my flashlights and charge all 28 cells back up to 100%