My Week Without Power

Way back in 2006 a huge storm blew through St. Louis.  I was attending a PartyLite conference at the dome downtown and remember walking onto the concourse, hearing the tornado sirens and seeing the green sky through the window.  And the WIND.  We were three stories up and the debris was blowing past at eye level.

What I was witnessing, I found out later, was "straight line winds" not a tornado.  Trees and branches had dropped all over town and power was out.

There was little surprise driving home with so many of the street lights and signals out that my own power wouldn't be working.  And as with any power outage I pulled out the candles and hunkered down for the night.  My kids were with their dad that Thursday night and his power was also out.  In fact everyone's power was out.  When I arrived to work the next morning my office was up and running and the conversation centered on that weird storm the night before and how wide spread the outages were.  I returned home with my power still out.  That had officially been the longest I have ever gone without electricity.

This was at the end of July and the heat was increasing.  The kids returned home so we sought refuge at my mom's house for the evening - this wasn't a full scale blackout, merely large pockets of outages.  We went home the next day with promises to return if the heat was too much.

My power did not come back on until the following Friday.  EIGHT DAYS.

We never went back to my mom's house, but we did have to change our routine and we survived (obviously).

Let's be clear, I am not a prepared person.  I do not, and did not, have huge stores of supplies for doomsday circumstances.  Well, today I have what equates to a miniature grocery store in my basement, but it wouldn't have been helpful in this situation.

The first thing that came out were my candles.  Having been a PartyLite representative for five years I have plenty of wax on hand, even today.  After my traumatic experience of no power for EIGHT DAYS I will forever have candles at my disposal.  My tale of woe was woven into my candle demonstrations from then on out.  I had enough candlelight to be the most illuminated  house on the street - you could see us blocks away!  I rigged a three wick monstrosity next to the couch so I could comfortably read - seriously, it was bright enough.

I knew not to muck with the refrigerator.  Leave it closed, it would be fine for a day.  And it was.  As it became clear I was exceeding the 12 hour limit of safety I bought a bag of ice to cram into the freezer.  That saved me more time.  On my way home Saturday morning I bought two more bags of ice figuring I would continue tossing them into the fridge and freezer.  When I got home it was clear I would need a ton of ice for that procedure to work properly and knew I had to move everything into a smaller device.   I had two coolers that had served me well the previous year when I toted my spawn across the country for a ten day journey of travel, camping and sightseeing.  Milk and all of the perishables were carefully packed into the coolers covered with plenty of ice.

Every morning I would drive to the grocery store and buy two bags of ice.  The store almost walking distance from my house was impacted by the power outage so I had to drive a few miles away and back.  I would drain the excess water from the coolers and cram as much ice as would fit.  It was funny how this became my new routine, me the non-morning person running to the store.

Just about everything was stashed in Ziplock bags before hitting the cooler.  I rarely make specific brand recommendations but I've learned that nobody makes a zipper bag like Ziplock.  They seal completely and are not prone to pin holes along the seams.  Even items that don't look like they will take on water should still be put in plastic bags.  There's nothing worse that hotdog flavored butter.  And in this instance I wanted to keep the melted ice water as pristine as possible in case we had issues with water purity, rumors were already circulating.  In that burst of brilliance I made sure to clean out my coolers with bleach water before storing food in them.

My house was not completely electric.  We had gas to our stove and hot water heater.  While the electric spark on the stove was inoperable I could still use a match to light it.  I opted not to heat up the house any further by cooking on the stovetop other than to boil water or small food preparation.  Instead I lit up the grill in the backyard.  The kids gathered small branches since there were plenty after that storm and I didn't exhaust my charcoal supply.  We didn't have much to be rescued from the freezer and what was there was promptly cooked and eaten.

It's been a few years and my memory is crap, but I think maybe my kids spent time with other family members.  I don't remember incessant whining about boredom.  Detoxing from the TV was refreshing and I caught up on my reading.  I spent a lot of time sitting outdoors in the shade because the house was pretty freaking hot.  At night I slept with a wet towel to keep cool.  I now pay attention to window placement in houses.  This particular house was not built with airflow in mind.

Overall, it was not a completely negative experience.  I felt proud for being resourceful enough to rise to the challenge.  Little did I know that in six months I would have to repeat my resourcefulness for another extended power outage, this time during an ice storm.

My husband hates the potential harm from gas lines and fireplaces, but my experience has made both very necessary.  The fireplace was the only way to keep warm during the ice storm.  I had pet birds at the time so I crammed their cages as close to the fireplace as possible and draped heavy blankets over them.  This time I do remember the kids were not home as I recall sleeping on the couch in front of the fire.  Fortunately my power was back on in 48 hours.  I had already kicked into my previous routine of running to the grocery store for ice (kind of ironic with an ice storm, huh?) and cooking the contents of the freezer.

I think of these experiences as I hear of others facing long term outages.  It is possible for an unprepared person to survive.

If ever you were to give something valuable to a young adult moving out on their own let it be an emergency kit:
   • Candles
   • Lighters (more than one!)
   • Manual can opener
   • Ziplock bags
   • Cooler
   • Gallon of water
And if you were really generous, pack it with non-perishable food.

Meal Planning

For years I've wanted to try cooking a ton of food on Sunday to last through the week.  What's been holding me back is a general slackass procrastination that I've perfected.

To do all of that cooking, one needs to plan.  What's on the menu?  When will you go grocery shopping?  What ingredients do you need?  How will you store the cooked food?  WHERE will you store it?

That's waaaaayyy too much planning for my head, too much commitment for my moody appetite.

But then my spousal unit suggested something that made preplanned meals a reality.  I was grilling something for dinner (yes I am the grillmaster at our house - I love playing with fire) when he thought I should go ahead and grab the pork roast and toss it on the fire too.  He asked that I not cook it all the way through so he could finish it off the next day in the oven.

No longer do I feel guilty about having a perfectly good fire in my grill, wasting away because I only made hot dogs.  Now I grab all sorts of meat and cook it.  Not all of the cooked food has to be eaten immediately.  We decide what we'll have in the next day or two, the rest divvied into meal sized portions and frozen.  This is more awesome because of the vacuum seal bags allowing to store food in the freezer even longer.


It still allows me to not be in the mood for any given meal on a particular night, so no guilt when I break the schedule.  With all of the pre-cooked food waiting in the freezer we have quick answers on those nights when we're both exhausted and staring at each other wondering what the hell to make.  Seriously, how can that not sing to a slackass procrastinator's heart???

Best of all, I get the yummy grilled taste with lots of my meals and that's just... well, fabulous.