What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

Just a taste from this particular website...

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Well, let’s talk about what might cause this very prickly problem. As I live in suburban Houston, Texas, likely culprits are a hurricane, severe thunderstorm or tornado taking out the power infrastructure. And since we are speaking of today and the near future, it could also be a disruption of fuel supply to the power company, or a flood inundating the power plant, or even terrorists destroying several plants connected to the Texas electrical grid. Now, I don’t particularly buy into terrorists doing this, but for those of you hungry for terrorist activities, it is a valid ‘whatif’.

Now, the typical suburban water setup in the Houston area is via local MUDs (that is Municipal Utility Districts for you non-Texans), which typically supply water, sewer and other local utility services. In my area, each MUD has one or several water wells, and usually sewage treatment plants as well. Each of these has independent electrical generators capable of handling power outages, but NOT typically capable of long term operation off-grid (off the electrical grid). So it is likely that water will still be available, but might have interruptions due to generator failures. Sewage treatment is largely passive, with the exception of sludge pumps, transfer pumps and aerators. A generator can typically handle these intermittent needs, so let’s assume sewage is also something that continues to function, but could also become sporadic.

The phone companies (those which actually OWN the lines and the switching systems- (i.e. Southwestern Bell) have lower power requirements, and generators which are designed for longer outages. It is likely that the phone system will still work just fine. Your cable system will bite the dust, as most of the cable companies have no provision for off-grid power. Your cell phone may or may not work – it depends on how they are set up. Let’s assume they cease to function for the sake of argument. And TV is toast along with radios…..except for your car system and battery powered boom box.

It’s Saturday morning, and you just came home from buying fishing gear at your local Wal-Mart, when… pfft! All the power goes off. You wait, and the wife drives up about 4 hours later after her <insert activity here> and says she heard on the radio that all of <insert YOUR area here> was without power for at least 2 weeks due to….<insert your pick of disaster here>. About this time the kids get home from <insert kids activity here> on their bikes and are complaining about how hot it is, whining for their A/C, so…

There you are in your <insert footage> square foot suburban home with the granite kitchen counters, wine cooler, giant refrigerator and massive deep freeze in the kitchen or laundry room You suddenly realize you are about to become the owner of a potential mass of corruption, as both your freezer and fridge are shut down but full of food just waiting to rot into one incredibly nasty mess…..

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http://independencejournal.com/whatif01.htm

It's a pretty good tale to tell... And will give you a good place to start thinking about what will happen IF (when?) SHTF...

It's four pages and pretty comprehensive. Though still a few minor holes.

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

Well I can only speak from experience. I would not live anywhere that I couldn't drive a well. Heck I'm in Palm Beach County and I have a well down 100 ft. Real good quality at that level. Also have a propane 7500 w genset hardwired to the house. It will power anything in the house. We do have hurricanes down here, and I can never figger out why people don't have generators. Wilma put us out of sparky for 3 weeks last year never skipped a hot shower, not to mention AC at nite for sleeping :aetsch:.

m

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

Fire up one of two gensets to keep the freezers going until we get them canned out or eaten up.....then shut it down until needed for something.

Fill the Aladin lamps for what light we'll use before going to bed.

That's about it......everything else is just convenience.

Except for refrigeration and a few lights, I wouldn't care if it ever came back.

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

How about this scenario... Pretend it's winter time in Wisconsin, no power/natural gas for a month. You have a NG furnace and water heater and no fireplace. What do you do?

Assmume that a 3500W generator is available and running with enough fuel for 2 weeks.

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

I'd be pretending that COULD happen and a have some kind of other fuel burning system as a backup....wood, corn, kerosene,etc.

Always amazes me here how many people are total electric ( heat pumps, etc ) and have NO other source of heat in mind. We get a 3 day outage from a bad winter storm and they have to abandon their houses in droves.....amazing.

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

What do you do?

You sit back and wonder why you didn't ask yourself this question earlier as you quickly freeze to death...

Life boils down to "survival of the fittest". Preparation is essential to survival.

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

Three generators and gas for four or five months, three loads of wood for one year plus, heating oil for year plus, propane for cooking for seven years, solar panel for security set up when I go to bed,......did I miss anything? oh yeah, lamps, candles, extra mantles for a long time, 50 gallons of white gas for for lamps and emergency heater.....and so on :clap2:

Re: What if you had no electricity at home for a month?
 

:rolleyes: What,me worry ?

Got 5 120 watt solar pv panels and 2 1KW wind turbines and solar hot water heating.Natural spring flows 12 gallons a minute and a big creek beside my driveway.
Enough battery capacity to last for 2 weeks if there is no sun or wind.
10KW diesel generator and 500 gallons of diesel,plus 500 gallons of K1.
Like Andy said.....I really wouldn't mind if it stayed off.No loss :applause_

Best to all,
:thrasher: RiverRat