We had a snow/ice event here in Portland area this past week. Many are still without power. It was beautiful and scary at the same time. I didn’t expect it be so damaging. We finally ventured out for a drive and saw so many trees/branches down, and a couple precarious power lines. One a live wire by New Seasons, and another leaning, cracked pole over a road.

At one point, I believe 330,000 people were without electricity and that it is the worst power outage in Oregon history.

But I think it’s worse in Texas right now. I read 3 million are without power there.

It makes me think about global warming and how we need to be more prepared for the extreme weather events like this. In September we had some bad fires that came within a few miles of us, and we lost power for 4 days from the windstorm that preceded it.

We need to know how to be okay without electricity for extended periods of time. And how is the next question. I think it depends on what the event is and what resources we already have. In our home, we do not have a fireplace or a gas stove, so finding a way to stay warm would be hard in our house, but my father now lives a few blocks away and he has both of those things, so that helps. We can go there. That is one problem solved, but he needs to have enough wood to keep the fireplace going for a few days. (he doesn’t, currently) so now I think we need to make sure he has enough wood there for this reason. That is just one part of this– staying warm.

I started making a spreadsheet today about different scenarios and what we have and what we need to figure out. I think we should all do this. I think it’s important to do this now.

What kinds of things have you done to make sure you will be okay?

I think the idea about a tent indoors with blankets draped over it to insulate it is a fantastic idea. Tea light and the ceramic pot idea too.

Compiling these ideas/hacks so there is an ongoing list of ideas —