We’re dealing with some stormy weather here (Vancouver for me, but it covers a wider area) and so a patchwork of homes across the region are having power outages. Crews are working to restore it
So on that note, what do you like to do?
- ways to prepare, what to buy, a favourite flashlight from !flashlight@lemmy.world?
- how you pass the time
- any stories that come to mind?
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I don’t remember when the last one happened. We have like 5 minutes of downtime per year in Germany on average
Also German here, that seems a high estimate. The only downtime I had this year was when the workers building our sidewalk grazed a cable bug I can’t remember any over the last few years…
I assume even stuff like ahrtaal is calculated in. So for the average person it’s a lot lower.
Longest I’ve had was 2 days. But that’s because I had work done on my electrical panel. 😁
The worst I had was when the heating for our building failed… on Christmas Eve. No hot water or heating until January 5th because they couldn’t find the part, it was more complex than they expected, another part needed replacing etc. etc. etc. Fuck me, was it cold, and I like my flat cold! Had to got the gym every morning for a shower. At least I got a rent reduction.
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We only have the big transmission lines above ground, so our grid is not that weather sensitive. A week would be insane here
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I remember we used to get power outages all the time in my countries. But that was the 1970s, modern infrastructure has moved on
Well, everywhere except AHEM 🤔
The area out here on Canada’s west coast is tricky to power, and expensive; and we’re as far from our nation’s capitol as Tehran is from Berlin, with I imagine similar feelings of disconnect. It’s a lot of overhead power-lines, nestled in among beautiful, thick, tall trees that really catch the wind during winter storms like the one now (go see on windy.com!). Those wires come down, maybe start a fire in the forest for the lulz, and teams of people in their trucks and cranes repair the breakage. It’s planned and operated as well as our flatlander conservative opposition will permit (the cruelty to plebes is the point).
It should be noted that one of the biggest projects for power in this metro is the remediation of overhead power lines to underground cabling running alongside water and sewer service, much as Germany has done. It’s trickier to fix, and thieves keep stealing it for the copper, but every time the ground was opened for any significant pipe work, our hydro-electricity supplier was there to use its access and string new cabling alongside whatever else was going in. Wiring that last-hectometer has been a challenge with the WWI-era homes, but even trenching up to a bungalow and running the cable up the side - so ghetto - gives us something unlikely to put people like Otter in the dark for so long.
But long-range power connection is still via strings of thick cabling up on the steel - or often wooden - poles, for long trunk-lines into the wilderness (so pretty!, and see how long that line runs), same as Germany will do. Then it’s just the cost of accessing the transmission line to safely get there and fix it. With the vast distances they’re traversing, breakage is both more likely and also more expensive to fix.
I’m in a new section of the metro, and the power infrastructure is solid aside from the blip and blinks caused by construction - for new buildings and for upgrades - in the area. It’s been solid, so far, and 30 min drive probably from Otter’s house could get her to mine. So the upgrades are happening, but it’s slow, costly, and stymied at every stage.
Trying to think of the last time I had a long outage here, it might have been 5-10 years ago.
Apparently a bunch of trees fell over power lines / infrastructure last night, and so there were outages all over the place
Read books. Go to bed early as soon as it’s dark. Empty the fridge if it’s going to be a while longer.
The longest I was without power was as a kid. A winter storm knocked out power lines all over. It was a week before we got power back on, the longest it took for some was 12 days. We had a wood burning fireplace so my parents invited all the elderly neighbors to stay with us. I wasn’t happy about sleeping on the floor while some weird-smelling old person slept in my bed, but looking back now I’m glad my parents modeled civic-minded behavior.
Us kids played a lot of cards and picked fights with each other. Dad had us scooping driveways in the neighborhood and eventually the streets by hand just to keep us active and out of the house. It was not a fun week.
Blizzard of '93?
Nope, no special name that I am aware of. Other than “that bad storm in October that one year”
The storm itself wasn’t abnormally bad, it was the timing and sequence. It was very early so some deciduous trees still had leaves. The storm started with rain, then slush, then it all froze. So tree branches were overloaded with weight and tore down. Oak trees that had survived for a century were downed. Older neighborhoods and towns with power lines on poles instead of buried lines like newer communities would have now had pretty much all lines and poles torn down. Lineworkers from all over the country were brought in to help. I was too young to really follow at the time, but I’m told some of the delay was simply supply chain; getting enough new wires and poles there quickly enough to keep the crews supplied.
I recently bough a new flashlight, a Wurkkos FC11C to be exact. It’s pretty good for the price, and it really can’t hurt to have a good flashlight around. I made a post about it in !flashlight@lemmy.world about it, and there are some other posts too.
In order. Turn off the main breaker Turn off the breakers for HVAC and hot water heater Unplugged my car charger Wheel out the generator Power on the generator Plug the generator into my house Put my security camera that can see the street light on one of my screens so I can see when power comes back on. Resume activities
If I can get all that done in less than 10ish minutes my WiFi and computer don’t even power down.
To resume I just unplug the generator and then flip the breakers back to the on position.
Go to bed early because it’s dark.
Worry about all the food in the refrigerator.
Be hot (or I guess in your case, cold.)
Read books in the daytime, go for walks.
Cook stuff using the grill, drink cold brew.
Take dreadful cold showers.
Count how many socks and underwear are left, do I need to resort to hand washing some?
Contemplate how close to total collapse we are every day
I am always amazed that power outages are such a common experience in north America. In more than 55 years here in Europe I have experienced exactly two power outages, one that was planned when they were working in the substation for this street, and one incident that took out a whole part of the city for 20 minutes. The latter one was so extraordinary that it made the national evening news.
Playing the piano to pass the time. There’s a certain eeriness that I find quite enjoyable of having the music flow while in nearly total darkness.
This is a cool one I’ll have to try sometime!
Hahaha you should see the outage map of Washington State.
What do I like to do? Nothing, I hate power outages.
What I typically do is I have a large stockpile of candles from an old MLM scheme. I light those and play on my phone if there’s Internet. We have multiple battery banks for these occasions.
If there’s no Internet I will read. Both ebooks and regular books because my attention will shift.
I also try to do something productive like study for something.
Most of all I pile like eleventy billion blankets on the bed because I’m so cold. The furry ones are poor space heaters.
When I was a kid we always played games. Like charades or something. My dad would light the camp stove and we’d entertain ourselves for the evening as a family. They were nice.
I think my last power outage was 30 years ago and i loved it. Lighting candles and playing boardgames. I never even considered that that’s a thing that still happens.
I live rurally and have spent the night without power 3 times in the last 2 months.
It gets old.
Remove enterprise UPS battery backup system from home lab and use it to charge my hand held gaming consoles and phones. This was in Texas when ice storm knocked our power out for over a week
Wait for the power to come back on.
Think about opening the fridge and pointlessly looking to boredom eat, then remember I shouldn’t open the fridge and let the cold escape because the power is off. Repeat.
Think about how much of our lives revolve around and are entirely dependent on electricity, and how bad loss of power would be even for just a couple days, and disastrous it would be for a week or more.
Wish I’d remembered to recharge my phone power banks.
Where are all the books? I used to have books to read. They’re all on my phone now. Shit. Need to save battery.
Guess I’ll see if I can find some candles. Maybe the fam will want to play a board game.
Think about opening the fridge and pointlessly looking to boredom eat, then remember I shouldn’t open the fridge and let the cold escape because the power is off. Repeat.
ADHD, power outages, and a fridge. That’s how that goes.
Read a book
In the dark. (if you’re unlucky enough)
If during the day, I’ll call someone on my mobile, do work out in the garden/yard, or read. If during the night, I’ll browse the internet on my phone, play on my Nintendo Switch, or go to sleep if it’s already late. I have many sources of backup lighting in the house including a couple dynamo powered torches that you wind up.
Let it go unnoticed as battery and solar handled things.
That’s actually something I think about quite often recently. People 150 years ago didn’t have electricity at all, what did they do?
First the things that would be really helpful if already built into your home: It helps if you have a gas or wooden stove to cook meals. Same with heating, a masonry stove for example could really make a difference.
Stuff that’s good to have is a small camping gas stove, some LED lanterns, tons of batteries and candles. Powerbanks to charge your mobile phones, maybe a few solar cells on the roof with some batteries connected to it. Maybe even a small emergency power generator. Don’t forget the fuel for it.
What you can do: Go for a hike. Read books, play boardgames and cards. Do puzzles. Write! Get a notebook and a pen ( I recommend actually fountain pens) and do some journaling. Write about your day, your dreams or your concerns. Make a list what parts of the world you want to visit before you die or anything else you can think about. Learn to draw or to paint. Maybe it’s time to put up the guitar that’s gathering dust in the corner.
Something like that. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
A solid list, thank you!
