Note: September is National Preparedness month. Every year I interrupt our regular infectious disease content with new or updated essays on preparing for emergencies.
Living in hurricane country as I do, frequent - often prolonged - power outages are not unusual And when they occur, they can affect millions of people for days, or sometimes even weeks.
Following last year's one-two punch from Hurricanes Helene & Milton, I got my power back after only 4 days (although internet took a week). Before that, I went nearly a week without power following Irma in 2017.
Neither were pleasant experiences - but having lived aboard sailboats for many years - I've crafted some emergency power hacks which have made life a little more tolerable when the grid goes down (see How Not To Swelter In Place).
Not quite five years ago, in February of 2021, 3 successive winter storms swept across Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, causing the worst collapse of the Texas energy grid on record (see Texas: The Latest - But Not The Last - Grid Down Crisis).It isn't just Florida at risk, or landfalling hurricanes.
At least 4.5 million homes were without power - some for as long as a week - during bitter winter temperatures, resulting in hundreds of deaths and tens of billions of dollars of damage (see City of Austin & Travis County 2021 WINTER STORM URI AFTER-ACTION REVIEW).Every four years the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) releases a report card on America’s infrastructure, and their most recent report (2025) warns that our cumulative GPA for infrastructure sits at only a C, and one of our most vulnerable infrastructures is the electrical grid (D+).
Last fall a preprint (see Establishing Nationwide Power System Vulnerability Index across US Counties Using Interpretable Machine Learning) - recently published in Applied Energy - warned on the increasing vulnerability of of the U.S. power grid over the past decade.
They identified `. . . 318 counties across 45 states as hotspots for high power system vulnerability, particularly in the West Coast (California and Washington), the East Coast (Florida and the Northeast area), the Great Lakes megalopolis (Chicago-Detroit metropolitan areas), and the Gulf of Mexico (Texas)'
And last July, the U.S. Department of Energy published a 73-page report that warns that if current schedules for retirement of reliable power generation (especially baseload) continue, without enough firm replacement, the risk of blackouts in 2030 could increase by 100× over current levels.
Number one on their Key Takeaways is:
Status Quo is Unsustainable. The status quo of more generation retirements and less dependable replacement generation is neither consistent with winning the AI race and ensuring affordable energy for all Americans, nor with continued grid reliability (ensuring “resource adequacy”). Absent intervention, it is impossible for the nation’s bulk power system to meet the AI growth requirements while maintaining a reliable power grid and keeping energy costs low for our citizens.
Their words, not mine.
In December of 2018, in NIAC: Surviving A Catastrophic Power Outage, we looked at a NIAC (National Infrastructure Advisory Council) 94-page report that examined the United State's current ability to respond to and recover from a widespread catastrophic power outage.How likely this scenario might be is beyond my pay grade, but the government has been increasingly worried over the possibility of a a large, prolonged grid failure for more than 2 decades.
Without electricity, water and gasoline doesn’t pump, elevators and air conditioners don’t run, ATM machines and banks close, grocery stores can’t take debit or credit cards, perishable food rots, communications and supply chains collapse, and everything from cooking, to flushing toilets, becomes a major challenge.
Most disasters boil down to unscheduled camping - for days, or sometimes weeks - in your home, in a community shelter, or possibly even in your backyard. Preparedness can not only make that process possible, it can make it less miserable as well.
While those with tens of thousands of dollars to spend can have a whole-house solar system or generator - one capable of running freezers, refrigerators, and air conditioners - even a small system can make life a little more bearable.
My primary goal is to have enough sustainable power for lights, radio, phone charging, and fans. Trying to run appliances, HVAC, or other high-draw devices is simply beyond my budget (but if you have enough money . . . . it can be done ).
For those on a budget, there are two easy ways to go. 1) Prebuilt off-the-shelf USB powered devices (radios, lights, fans, etc.) along with one (or more) solar panels or 2) a do-it-yourself 12 volt system with a larger solar panel.
All you really need is a way to generate power (a solar panel), a way to store that power (a USB battery bank), and efficient ways to use that stored power (a USB rechargeable Lantern, Fan, and (your existing) phone).
Everything connects via USB cables, just like you charge your phone. In a pinch, the solar panel can even be hung facing out of an apartment window (although it won't be nearly as efficient).
What I came up with costs less than $100 (based average prices on Amazon last summer), weighs less than 5lbs, and will almost fit in a shoe box.
The solar panel (which I have purchased x3 now) folds to 8"x11", but unfolds to 32"x11". There are several similar brands out there that you may wish to consider, and you could opt for a slightly larger 40 watt model for $15-$20 more.
For a considerably more power, you could opt for a Jackery, Bluetti, EcoFlow, or similar `Solar Battery' setup, but it would set you back $400 -$1000+ (including solar panel) and if it breaks, you don't have many options beyond sending it back for repair.The only real maintenance required is to take the usb battery, fans, and lanterns out every 6 months or so and top off their charge.
However, if you build your own - and have a few spare parts - you should be able to repair it yourself.
My system featured dual 12V Car Cigarette Lighter Sockets (for CPAP, or Inverter), 2 USB outlets, and I added a small 110v inverter.
The plastic carrying case was $12 at Harbor Freight, the 50 amp/hr battery was $109 on Amazon, and the rest of the build (solar charge controller, cables, lighted output panel, inverter) added about $60.
All in, including taxes, this can be assembled in a couple of hours for less than $200. I built a second, lighter weight and smaller version using a 20 amp/hr LiFePo4 battery (240 watt/hours) for less than $140. Something to keep on the bedside table.
And as always, the advantage during any emergency goes to those who prepare in advance.While these projects won't make life `normal' during a prolonged grid-down situation, a little bit of power beats no power at all.
