Also, the authot mention sharing power from his newly purchased generator but doesn't seem to take account of mutualization of resources and solidarity.

Peopke can talk in a neighbprhiod and plan accordingly. Not everyone need a power generator, more than one family can cook from the same gas stove, etc etc

Even when total devastation happen, the radius tend to be limited and unless you live in a small island you can always find food/water and medical supply within a day of walking/cycling from the epicenter if no one is injured. When the DANA brought devastation in an area around Valencia in Spain, people would tak their bike from the main city to bring essential medical supplies to people living in places that weren't drivable too. So sure I always keep several liters of water and a few days worth of non perishable food at home, as well as a portable gas stove and a water filter I bought for hiking trips, but I would have no issue relocating me and my family for a while if needed. Adults and teenagers can easily carry 50kg worth of stuff with something as simple as a bicycle they push by hand, like people in congo do with much more capable chukudus. Electricity would be the least of my concerns.

Am I alone in thinking it's a bit silly to be concerned about breathing in 6 extra days of naturally occuring radon, of all things?

It's cool that we can get these air sensors things, but they sure give people who worry about numbers some additional ones to worry about.

I really wonder if there is something else at play here. None of this is normal behavior and it's very strange for it to be normalized.

Day 4 no more deliveries but we still have takeout! For real, you can still order food from your local restaurants and you are in a panic about things. Instead of spending $4,500 on a generator you'll never use again maybe just pack the kids in a car an go to the beach for the weekend. Seriously.

When I was a kid I enjoyed the days we lost power. Grab a candle and have a laugh in the dark. It was fun.

That said, I don't want to be mean. I do think there is a generalized anxiety that is very much enabled on the internet. Like this kind of behavior - basically prepping - is encouraged.

I read analysis that suggested that prepping behavior is a way of coping with feelings of inadequacy by imagining a future world where all the person's capabilities will be fully appreciated. "All my guns and dried rice and my underground bunker will make me the most relevant person in the future". Most prepper's visions of the future are unique to them and focus on their skills. E.g. one of us tech types might think we could create a connected network and support wifi for a region and be a source of knowledge or something. Obviously if something did happen all of this would go to shit in seconds but that isn't the point..

Maybe it's all just a fantasy of feeling relevant.

I think this is fairly recently normalized (although not the norm) in the US, the trajectory being facilitated by big box Costco stores where people buy their food in bulk for 'cost-savings' and then have an extra fridge or freezer, the next step being to buy a generator.

Many of my aunts and uncles grew up in Appalachia without indoor plumbing or electricity for most of their childhood. A cellar is more important than a generator, as the cellar doesn't require refueling and it also doubles as a shelter when there is a tornado warning.

And $600 to rent a pickup (!!) to haul a generator that looks like it would fit in the back seat of a Civic.

OP had two cars, but they were both trapped under downed power lines.

$600 is still ridiculous though.

If I wanted to come out balls-swinging like half the comments in this thread, I'd point out that those are likely just 170 volt power lines, and you could just take a length of dry plastic pipe and maybe some improvised arc flash protection and just move them. But there are damn good reasons why we repeat the mantra to not go near any downed power lines, especially in emergency situations where ad-hoc solutions tend to compound problems.

I'm thankful for OP writing up his experience. Did he do some ridiculous things due to stress? Yes! The whole point of writing it up is so that others can learn from it with cool heads, to avoid repeating those mistakes.

Ah, thanks. I saw the photo of the car with lines on it and naively assumed it was part of the restoration, not the initial problem. Of course it's not surprising that "price gouging" (or, supply and demand, whatever you want to call it) is going on when lots of people need vehicles. and there aren't many available.

You don't even need a car to transport a small generator. A hand trolley bought at the same place is enough. I saw some people carrying generators to their shop that way when we had the global electricity outage in Spain nearly 2 weeks ago.

This absolutely reeks of privilege

I was thinking the same. I was on a week-long biking trip with no power. No big deal.

When in college, no one bothered to pay the electric bill and we were without power for a week or so. Candles and the acoustic guitar came out.

A radio with batteries is always going to be a good idea to have in case of an emergency. A camp stove and lots of dried ramen will keep you from starving.

Puerto Rican here in the states when hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.

I spent $600 for a box to be delivered to family which only had batteries and battery fans.

It took my family 6 MONTHS to get power.

My sister would alternate what she did every day.

Some days, she would leave in the morning to go get gas. The line was ALL DAY. Only thing she was filling was the car up. If the temp was too high, because of my grandparents (90’s), they’d just sit in the car to cool off. They’d take the time to charge the phones.

The next day, she’d hit a supermarket. Again, a line all day, to be hopefully let in, and buy whatever is left. I mean, WHATEVER is left (if anything) because the ports weren’t open and nothing was no food being delivered. She would buy expired food, food that clearly had been too warm, then cooled down again, etc.

That and then she’d hit the more rural areas to see if anyone had fruits or anything they were giving out.

The currency at one point was ice. Cause it can keep your food safe and getting it wasn’t easy.

Cellphones were down most of the time. When they came up, they were overloaded. Then antennas would run out of gas and they’d go down again.

At 3 months, I was finally able to get my mom, my sister, and my grandparents out. Before, we’d buy tickets and flights would get cancelled. Every single day we’d go in.

When they made it to us, I took my sister to help buy groceries for my mom and grandparents.

Seeing her walk in, and when we reached the back of the first aisle, she just couldn’t hold it back and fell down crying because of the food. ‘The food’.

Seeing a woman in her mid 20’s crashing into the floor and crying just cause there’s food after being 3 months without it is sad. That being my sister was, heart breaking. Other people came, my wife explained a bit. A few stayed and talked, tried to calm her down.

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I applaud the author for taking action. For preparing. But let’s also understand, this is 6 days, and he could have drove his family anywhere else with that money. Find the cheapest rental or hotel and put everyone in a room there. That’s it.

From the reading, the hard part is keeping the kids entertained and food. He lost some. He could have used bags of ice.. but a cooler, drive 2, 5? hours and fill it with bags of ice. The fill your fridge and gift the rest. Repeat in one or two days. Only open to fill a smaller cooler for the day.

But he needs a jackery, solar panels, a generator, and $350 worth of groceries. Would $100 have sufficed for a bit and left stuff for others?

For me, while rainy funds are good, after disasters back home the most important part is community. They’re the ones helping each other. But I see nothing about it.

I would guess the biggest stressor is having kids. Also wanting light to be able to see at night, which we've become accustomed to. And wanting communication to the larger world which we've become very accustomed to (and we can bemoan this as much as we want, but still can't deny it's a thing).

Then not wanting to waste the various stocked up food in the fridge/freezer. You could forgo this and consider it lost, but since you're already trying to tackle the general problem, it adds to the motive.

Other possible stressors that don't seem to be in play here are needing heat in the winter or needing cooling in the summer. Personally I'd rather not freeze to death, or even have to huddle under blankets hoping for someone else to rescue me. And an outage not in the winter is a great time to practice.

In general, problems compound so when faced with such a situation that lops off a huge amount of normalcy, the understandable instinct is to try to right the situation lest you fall even further. Camping is great and all, but you're still relying on the option to come back to full amenities and pay off the accumulated debt.

100%

I lost power for a few days because of a downed power line in my backyard. The stress comes because all the "automatic" decisions that were made by organizing a system for your life fall apart. And you are overwhelmed by needing to continuously make new, suboptimal decisions and balancing trade-offs multiplied by the size of your family. And all your neighbors are trying to make the same decisions with the same lack of infrastructure.

Check into a hotel so the kids can have internet to do homework? Nope, hotels are already booked or also in the dark. Find somewhere farther from school and work and on top of that also puts more pressure on EV charging times? Ugh.

We were fortunate to have so many resources to help us and thankfully no one was injured, but even then, it was the most stressful week of my life in a long, long time.

> Then not wanting to waste the various stocked up food in the fridge/freezer

As someone who has been through the long blackouts after hurricanes, a packed chest freezer will make it about 3 days before the bottom layer defrosts, so you fucking cook the lot, and feed your friends and neighbours. Hurricane block parties are a thing.

Main risk during winter is not to freeze to death, but the fire and smoke hazards that comes with people making fires where they shouldn't be.

Yes. Which is why it can be important to get electricity back on if your usual heating solution requires electricity to operate, rather than perhaps entertaining rustic visions like finally getting to use that fireplace.

I'm not saying that's the case here (I don't know! When OP has a spare minute they should think about what would have been different in a snowstorm!). It's just that this edgy contrarian "what's the big deal just read a book man" is laughable for most situations.