days without electricity - how do you cope?

I dont usually get bored when there is no electricty. It doesn't fail thatoften here, only when there are big storms or a car hits an electricity pole. Mind you, when it doe sfail, sometimes it takes them a long time to reconnect. My daughter and I turn it into a game. We light lots of candles to provide light. As all my cooking facilties are elctric, we would light a fire in our ourdoor fire place to make coffee or cook food. It was fun. The only time it wasn't fun, was when we had a big heatwave and the power failed, so we couldn't use our air conditioners. I ended up sleeping outside that night, as it wwas too hot inside.

Why can't you go out to walk or jog? As long as it is daylight, you can read, but surly you will be very busy just surviving? Getting food and water, maybe even shelter for you and your family would be very time consuming. Then if you had extra time there are always others to be helped. Once the storm is over I think you would be very busy, maybe not with the usual things, but certianly the necessities. Prayers and blessings to allwho are going through this right now.

So far nowadays, my area here don't have any blackouts. But, when i was still young and living with my parents in their old home, we experienced electricity blackout almost every month. Whenever there is a huge thunderstorm with heavy rain, surely our electricity is gone. Most of the time, i will spend my time playing monopoly, Chinese checkers snakes and ladder with my siblings. They are my long time favorite indoor games which i never feels bored playing with them. If lack of player, then i will spend my time into reading magazine or my favorite story books...

dear Ann, I can do some crocheting and paper arts when this happen. I can also update my kids albums and go with my scrapbook which I missed to update now (hehehe) or, fight with my kids that's the best thing to break boredom have a good day Ann

truly, it's such a hell with no electricity. but when this happens we just have some fun like talking anything along with my children. we do games, trivia and all that to ease our boredom.

hiii ann Really horrible situation is arise when no electricity and water is not in the tank..we have generators facility but moter is not start on generator...now everywhere electricity problems is more and people faces more problems due to less electricity...

Your discussion speaks of disasters, etc., but my response will be of happier tidings, of joy, and I have no intention of taking disasters or calamities lightly, and hence no offense is intended to anyone, which I'd like all readers to note. I am just sharing my bit of what we did when we had major breakdown once long ago. Though we have not come across any such major calamity in the cities in India where I have lived, we have had power failures, the longest one that I recall was one of about 16 hours during the 50 plus years that I have lived. I was about 22 and had just married - so we spent a lot of time as most young people in love who had married do - making love - and then a lot of the daylight hours were spent in reading books, magazines, newspapers. My wife tried out her hand at new food dishes to eat. We spent some time on the terrace of the house, it was at one of the highest points in the area we lived and we had a bird's eye view of the entire vicinity. It was also, we discovered, a great place for us to talk and know each other even better. My parents and brothers joined us later and we had a sort of a mini party on at the terrace, eating food and talking. We had some music on with a battery operated cassette player - we had a lot of spare batteries. During the dark hours, candle light was a pleasant change, we slept early and when we awoke, the power had returned and life was back to normal. This happened on a Saturday-We worked only half a day on that day in my factory- between 8 am and 12 noon - the breakdown had happened around 1pm just as I reached home. Sunday was even more fun, since we'd planned a picnic during the mini party and that was that. Again no offense intended and no intention of taking lightly the pain that victims of natural disasters and calamities must have undergone. My heart goes out to them.

We had a winter ice storm about two years back took our electric out for four days. First of all we have propane and wood cooking and heating. So cooking and keeping warm was no problem. Day time we did outdoor things, shoveled snow and cleared driveway. ( We live very rural and mountains) We had plenty of food for winter as I can and put things up. Being winter there was no problem with food spoiling due to freezer not running. Nights we played cards, board games and I or someone would read a book a story or tell stories. Some would also knit and listen. We would also read and the kids would play hide and seek in the dark parts of the house. We did okay and I have lived many times twice for over a year without electricity, or running water. It is not as hard as some make it out to be. But then like I said we live rural and I learned how to make do or do without long ago. We take the things like computers, cellphones, t.v and more for granted like they will always be there but there are times they are not and I think there will be longer times like it coming with economy bad and bible prophesies unfolding. Put your trust in God and he will see you through anything.

I've experienced power outages at different times,either through strike action,or weather dependent,but it's never been for as long as 24 hours (Touch wood!)..I like to think I'd be prepared..I have a gas stove,an open fireplace,plenty batteries for radio and flashlights,as well as a dynamo powered flashlight that will also charge a cellphone..I'm never bored if I have a book available!

Forget about boredom..all our needs are dependent on electricity these days. Washing machine, refrigerator, cooking, fan and A/C, MOBILE PHONES and so on..I just can't imagine what my state would be if I'm caught in such situations where i will have to spend days without electricity. It becomes so difficult whenever there is a power shut down here in India for half or one hour!

I once had to go a couple of weeks without power after a hurricane. Luckily, I was prepared and had a small generator that would run my refrigerator and a few lights. I couldn't run it all the time though. Only a few hours per day since I had a limited supply of gasoline to run it. I would power the fridge for a few hours to keep things from spoiling and then keep it closed to keep in the cold. We had to cook on a propane burner and gas grill. The worst thing was doing without the air conditioning. Luckily, it didn't get too unbearable hot although a few of those days were pretty warm. I also couldn't get on the internet, which was really frustrating. I did a lot of reading and found a few other things to keep busy with. I had a battery powered radio and we ran the TV off of the generator for a few hours per day. It was an adventure for sure. It made me realize how much we take it for granted that the power will always be there when we need it. It's sort of a rude awakening to lose it. It would have been a lot tougher if I hadn't had that generator.

Here where we live there is regular load shedding but we have a Home UPS which takes care of tv, lights, fans and the computer when there is no current.

Hi! that happened to us during the Ondoy calamity, there was no electricity for 3 days and water supply too. Every morning for three days we have to fetch water from the ground floor of the condominium where we stay and bring it up to the third floor. There was no elevator so we have to go up and down by stairs and it was so exshauting. I could not also prepare our meals because our's is an electric stove. What we do is go to a nearby food stand to buy cooked food. Our days were spent reading,story telling and sleeping. At night time we light candles and we have flashlights, rechargeable lamps are not useful during this time because once the battery is exhausted it cannot be charged anymore same with our cellphones. Those were the nights when we sleep early and wake up very early too. Our contacts with relatives and friends were cut since we dont have cell phones to use. It was quite an experience, i felt like i was in a remote province without electricity and no form of communication. It was not a big problem for me, we just have to learn to adjust to situations like this to be able to survive.

Several years ago, pre child, we were out of power for 5 days because of an ice storm. My area was hit harder with lines going down than other parts of my town. Luckily the library was up and running after a day or so. My husband and I spent a considerable amount of time there. A it was much warmer than my house because the furnance needs the electric fan to move the air through the house. We read a lot of books. We have these flashlights that you crank to get the power so we did not run out of batteries.

We sometimes have storms that knock out the electricity. I was without power for 4 days back in 2007. I prepare for everything, every contingency, and I was ready then. I have board games to play with neighbors or myself, cards, books, word and number puzzles. I have photos to sort through. I have battery powered fans to keep me cool and a gas fireplace to keep me warm. I have enough food and fresh water stored for a month if I need it, plus provisions for my dogs. I have a little stove and fuel to cook with--that's one thing I learned, I get tired of cold canned beans really fast!

hi tigeraunt I was born and raised in s outh Dakota and every winter we had fierce blizzards and school would be closed and roads would be closed. I as a kid loved it as we played board games, popped p opcorn and listened to silly stuff on the radio. My dad would read to my mom out of the Saturday evening post and I would go to bed content with the sound of my dad reading. later on my parents were always quarreling but as a child things seemed okay and I was a happy camper on the blizzard days.too we did not have all the stuff we have now so did not miss a lot of that.we had an oil furnace so if the rural lights went off we still had heat and we dug out the old kerosene lamps we all used before the power was put into all our rural farms. we coped because we had to.

Sweety I have said in my discussion about the flood in my city, as the main transformer was immersed in water, we had no power from 2pm of 8th of this month till 3pm today, it was awsome, price of canle went 5 fold, same with kerosene, charge on cell phone, emergency lights and flash lights were gone, water could not be raised to tank on the roof, but what can't be cured, has to be tolerared.. Thanks for sharing Best of luck. Professor

Hi tigeraunt! We've experienced this situation way back in 2008 during the typhoon Frank. The whole place was so devastated and so muddy that time. We had no electricity for almost a month and as what Professor said that the prices went 5 folds. There were no means of transportation because the roads are impassable because of the mud and fallen trees so we have to walk all the way to a nearby town to buy the things that we need. During that time, we usually would gather around at night and just play board games to cope up with boredom. We would also talk about our experiences during the typhoon while it was still hitting our area and laugh about our situations that time.

I've been in that situation before and I just kept myself busy I did some activities with my younger siblings, I listened to my portable Walkman, I also went outside and saw all my neighbors and talked with them and later everything came back on

I donot happen the thing here,But I will have days without electricity usually.That is annoying.