How to Stay Comfortable When the Power Goes Out
Visiting a remote destination? The supply of electricity and other utilities becomes less reliable and more prone to outage the farther away from civilization you travel. Treating blackouts and other utility shortages as inevitabilities—and planning for them—will boost your comfort in the likely event that one occurs.
My wife, Virginia, and I were lucky enough to spend a month at our cabin in northern Montana over the holidays. Five days before we planned to head home, a windstorm knocked out the power. Rather than end our trip early, we made do, but we could have been more comfortable if we had packed a few more essentials. Based on what we learned that week, here are some tools and approaches that could have made our experience easier—and will ensure comfort when electricity fails.
Pack Your Own Power
Portable power supplies (generators) used to be huge, expensive, heavy, noisy, and dirty. No longer. Simple, affordable batteries-in-boxes are now capable of handling most normal power needs with much more convenience. The Jackery Explorer 500 ($600) is a good example. Fitted with USB ports, a three-prong 110-volt outlet, and a 12-volt car adapter, it can charge your phone, power some lights, and run a TV. And with a maximum output of 500 watts, it can probably do all three jobs simultaneously.
I’ve been using an Explorer 500 for the past nine months to charge gadgets and run lights around camp, as well as to power my pellet grill at home. (It’s more convenient than an extension cord in some circumstances.) I didn’t remember to bring it to the cabin this time, but I wish I had. We had downloaded a bunch of movies onto an iPad ahead of time, since the satellite internet connection is slow and unreliable at the best of times, let alone during extreme weather. That was a good plan, until we could no longer keep the device charged.
Batteries-in-boxes like this are great for light-duty gadgets but typically don’t have the capacity to power high-draw devices like space heaters or power tools. When you shop, compare battery’s specs to the power requirements of the appliances you’ll want power. If you might be off-grid for an extended period of time, consider pairing your battery with solar power. Adding Jackery’s SolarSaga 100 folding panels ($300) to the Explorer 500 gives us the ability to meet most of our power requirements indefinitely.
Let There Be Light
I always have a flashlight on my keychain, and we keep headlamps in our travel bags. While those are great for responding to immediate lighting needs, they’re less capable of providing long-term area lighting.
We keep candle lanterns at the cabin, and I remembered there was a battery-powered LED work light in the truck’s tool kit. But we both agreed that a few battery-powered lanterns would have made nighttime tasks like preparing food and navigating the cabin’s tight confines a lot easier.
To better prepare for next time, I ordered a dozen of those $3.25 lightbulb lanterns I recommended last year. We’ll store them along with a big pack of lithium batteries (which have a ten-year shelf life) in one of the cabin’s closets and never find ourselves without adequate interior and exterior light again.
Cook Like You’re Camping
When my wife’s family remodeled the cabin a few years ago, they paired a propane stove with an enormous outdoor tank, so we were able to light the stove with a lighter. Had we been relying on an electric range or run out of fuel, we wouldn’t have been able to to cook or boil water.
Simply throwing a small camp stove, with your fuel of choice, into your car is easy insurance. I only ever use Mountain Safety Research stoves for backcountry adventures, because they’re made in Seattle and the company takes the time to validate the function of each unit before shipping them. At just 2.6 ounces, the Pocket Rocket 2 ($45) is my go-to burner. It takes one minute to bring a liter of water to boil at sea level, but the stove also provides fine heat adjustment so you won’t burn your bacon. Carry a 16-ounce bottle of the brand’s isobutane fuel (from $5), and you’ll be cooking for a week or more, no matter the temperature or altitude.
Whenever you cook with gas, make sure you’re doing so in a well-ventilated area, and take care to ensure the fuel flow is completely turned off when you’re done. I always disconnect the stove from the fuel once everything’s cooled down.