# 8815
Five days after former hurricane Arthur (downgraded to a post-tropical storm) struck Nova Scotia, tens of thousands of customers are still without power, according to a report this morning by CBC News (see Storm Arthur leaves 45,000 still without power). And based on a phone call I received this morning from a friend in Quebec, there are substantial additional – unrelated – power outages overnight being reported by Quebec Hydro.
Perhaps the most likely emergency situation that North Americans are likely to face is an extended (lasting days, or even weeks) power outage – usually connected to a natural disaster like a hurricane, ice storm, or an earthquake - although increasingly a cyber attack (see GridEx 2013 Preparedness Drill) is also considered a possibility.
It’s not just a matter of not having electrical lights for a few days.
Without electrical power, water and gasoline doesn’t pump, elevators and air conditioners don’t run, frozen and refrigerated food begins to spoil, ATM machines fail and banks close, grocery stores can’t take debit or credit cards, and everything from cooking, to flushing toilets, becomes a major challenge.
Which pretty much described the scene I found in New Orleans when I helped my brother retrieve his belongings from the French Quarter six weeks after Hurricane Katrina inundated the city.
More recent, if not quite as dramatic, many residents of New York and New Jersey went a week or longer without power after `super storm’ Sandy struck two years ago. And in Florida, tens of thousands were left without power in Miami for two weeks after Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
If a disaster struck your region today, and the power went out, stores closed their doors, and water stopped flowing from your kitchen tap for the next 7 days . . . do you have:
- A battery operated NWS Emergency Radio to find out what was going on, and to get vital instructions from emergency officials?
- A decent first-aid kit, so that you can treat injuries?
- Enough non-perishable food and water on hand to feed and hydrate your family (including pets) for the duration?
- A way to provide light (and in cold climates, heat) for your family without electricity? And a way to cook? And to do this safely?
- An emergency plan, including meeting places, emergency out-of-state contact numbers, and in case you must evacuate, a bug-out bag?
- Spare supply of essential prescription medicines that you or your family may need?
- Enough emergency cash to get you through a week or more without access to an ATM or the use of a credit/debit card?
If your answer is `no’, you have some work to do. A good place to get started is by visiting either Ready.gov or the FEMA.gov websites.
Unfortunately, a lot of people make the wrong choices when they do prepare.
They buy candles instead of battery operated lights, they use generators inside their house or garage, or resort to dangerous methods to cook or to heat their homes. As a result, when the power goes out, house fires and carbon monoxide poisonings go up (see Carbon Monoxide: A Stealthy Killer).
Having lived with hot, smelly kerosene lanterns aboard a small sailboat in the tropics 30 years ago, I am particularly enamored with the new generation of LED lights.
LEDs are cheap, run cool, don’t generate fumes, produce a lot of light, and draw remarkably little juice from their batteries, making them an ideal addition to every bug-out bag, and emergency supply stash.
Food safety after a power outage is another concern, and is something I covered a couple of years ago in USDA: Food Safety When The Power Goes Out. The USDA maintains a Food Safety and Inspection website with a great deal of consumer information about how to protect your food supplies during an emergency, and how to tell when to discard food that may no longer be safe to consume.
A Consumer's Guide to Food Safety: Severe Storms and Hurricanes
This illustrated PDF version (2.1MB) is recommended for printing.
The key to dealing with an extended power outage – as it is with any emergency – is knowing what to do, and already having the resources you need in place. For more information on emergency preparedness, I would invite you to visit:
FEMA http://www.fema.gov/index.shtm
READY.GOV http://www.ready.gov/
AMERICAN RED CROSS http://www.redcross.org/
And some of my preparedness blogs, including:
