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Wow! That is awful. What on Earth you people do for heat? We always had gas heat up north so no issue without power. Here we have electric. Do you just freeze?
Many people here have gas heat. We do. Of course, the furnace will not work due to no blower, but the gas fireplace, water heater and stove worked fine when we lost power yesterday morning. Luckily it was back in 3-4 hours.
Wow! That is awful. What on Earth you people do for heat? We always had gas heat up north so no issue without power. Here we have electric. Do you just freeze?
Our gas heat up north (as well as here) didn't work with no power as it had an electronic ignition. What sort of system did you have?
Our gas heat up north (as well as here) didn't work with no power as it had an electronic ignition. What sort of system did you have?
I was able to manually light the gas stovetop.
I dunno? 100 year old house, furnace wasn't THAT old, but certainly not a newer model!
I do know that when we got a newer stove we had to light it because of the electric ignition, same with the water heater, but in all my life up there we were never with out power for anywhere near that long.
Here we have a fireplace, but we have never ordered whatever you need to make it run-there is a tank out back. Never used the real wood fireplace up there so never bothered to figure this one out, but maybe we should in case we do lose power one day. We can't normally light a fire because of DS w/ special needs but might have to some day if there is no power.
So no power means not only can we not heat the house,but no hot water OR cooking in this all electric house! I need to move!
I can't imagine the house dipping to 45 degrees! That is awful.
Yeah, we have gas heat but it won't work w/o electricity. We've got an electric stove, but could cook anything on the propane grill (its a pretty decent one w/ a burner to the side). It was really just the heat and the lights we missed.
During Hurricane Fran we lost power for a week and while you don't lose the frozen and refrigerated food in a winter power outage like you can in a summer one if it lasts very long, I'd much rather be w/o A/C than w/o heat. Summer hot doesn't bother me as much as winter cold.
We were actually not too cold in the house, though. I picked up some Yankee transplant snow pants for cheap at the thrift store a couple of years ago so I just wore those in the house.
About 12 yrs ago we had a REALLY bad ice storm in Dec and lost power for a week. We had an 18mo old baby then and we bailed on the dogs and went to a hotel.
Headlights are great for power loss when the lights don't work. We added several of them to our emergency kit a few years back. I like them far better than flashlights or lanterns. Just keep plenty of AAA's around which are easier to find when the rush is on.
Oh yeah we had plenty of headlamps. We broke out all the camping supplies, lanterns, light up frisbee, plus leftover Halloween glow sticks -- enough of them can really light up a bathroom.
I have a backup generator, so don't need any of these things in general but I do appreciate head lights - I use them in the shop and in the dark around the house too.
2) iPad with T-Mobile service: I don't want to be paying for a monthly subscription, but I like having a tablet with cellular access "just in case." I made sure my iPad has cellular and a SIM slot. T-Mobile will sell you a SIM card that gives you 200 megs of free data every 30 days. I don't routinely go beyond that, but in the event of a long-term power or Internet loss, I can buy additional "day passes" for Internet. (Like many of us, my job sometimes requires access from home in emergencies so it's a good lifeline; also good to get weather, news reports, etc.)
Hi BCR, good advice! BUT, it looks like T-mo no longer offers "free data for life" except for some low-end tablets sold at Walmart and HP tablet and Chromebooks. I considered getting the SIM when they announced this a while back but their Android tab selection was very limited... They used to have a webpage for this service but I can't find it anymore. Darn it! (let me know anyone if I'm wrong on this).
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snow pants for cheap at the thrift store a couple of years ago so I just wore those in the house. 
