Tech Tales November | SWE-NESS Newsletter Interactive

Redundant Systems

Peg Goter - Editor

I began writing this article before I received Sue Anderson?s.? I thought it was interesting how our approach to storm planning was in many ways similar, but also quite different.? I hope you enjoy comparing our different perspectives.

Two years in a row now, we have lost power for an extended period of time.??During Irene, our entire island lost power due to damage to?a single source?which carried all of?our electricity.? With Sandy, we anticipated extremely high winds, and to be truthful, I think my neighborhood was extremely lucky. We had our power restored in about 20 hours.

We felt comfortable about our advance planning for Irene.???In preparation for the storm, besides all of the outdoor cleanup, filling cars with gas and taking out cash from the ATM, we made a point of charging two T-Mobile cell phones, an iPod, an iPad and a laptop. Our internet, television?and phone are all through Cox Communications.? Without power, we would lose television, land-line cordless?phones, and the wall phones would only work until the backup battery died on our cable modem; and if Cox?s signal failed, I wouldn?t have these things even?with power.???I knew that my Cox?WiFi internet signal would cease,? but I own a Virgin Mobile MiFi device, which provides 3G WiFi through Sprint. We gained additional confidence because of a converter we use in the car to power devices using a car lighter adapter.

I can?t honestly remember how long we were without power after Irene, but?I recall having to throw away some questionable food which wouldn?t fit in our coolers.??At various times?during the outage,?almost all of my communications options failed. T-Mobile cell service was out, Cox Cable went down, Sprint MiFi was intermittent, but reliable enough to allow me to communicate using my iPad.?I learned the limitations of the car converter when I blew a fuse in my?Subaru trying to grind coffee.

In the post-storm assessment, hearing news of others in the state who were without electricity for several days, I was?stressed-out enough that I was able to convince my husband that we should buy a moderately-sized generator.? We hoped that this would allow us to run our refrigerator, small appliances, lights and electronic communications.

We lost power during Sandy at about 3:00 in the afternoon on Monday.? Though we have wood-burning fireplace inserts, it was in the mid-to-high sixties outside, so it never occurred to us to light a fire.? I had cooked a beef roast early in the day, and for dinner we ate sandwiches, carrot sticks and potato chips.? My husband and I had tested our new generator in mid-summer, so we knew all it would need was gasoline? but we also?felt it unwise?to run out in the middle of a storm in order to get it started.? Ever-hopeful, my husband did not want to gas-up the machine unless it was truly necessary.

I awoke early Tuesday morning, and started my car to charge my MiFi, which had been totally depleted over 8 hours of periodic use Monday evening. I listened to NBC 10 news broadcast over AM radio (WHJJ), then found our camping gear to make a pot of coffee on a propane burner. I had first tried to use the side burner on my gas grill, but it wouldn?t light.? My husband awoke later, and got the generator running by about 8 AM, in time to salvage the refrigerator, except for one opened carton of milk which seemed a little sketchy. I was just getting ready to switch power to our chest-freezer when the lights came on at 10:30 AM.

So, we were lucky.? 5 days later, a handful of Rhode Islanders are still without power, and?large parts of?New Jersey and New York are still in dire straits. I am relieved to have a generator, and we plan to pay close attention to maintenance.? I?d also like to show you a nifty item I found online after Irene? It is a battery-operated shower.? You can heat water on a propane stove, then use this to pump from a large bucket.? I also bought an adapter which will let me use the large propane tank from my grill to fuel a small, 2-burner stove should we deplete those small propane tanks conventionally used.

To my thinking, the best way to plan for electricity outages is redundancy.? My sources for communications are Cox, T-Mobile, Sprint and if nothing else, battery-operated radio for incoming news.

The generator gives us great flexibility, but we have the car-convertor as an alternative for the laptops and small electronics.? If the gas grill fails, we have propane camping gear.? My husband thinks I am nuts to have all of this stuff sitting around the house, but for me, these are small investments of money and storage space which allow me to operate at a lower stress-level when disaster hits.

Source: http://www.sweness.org/wp/2012/11/03/tech-tales-november-2/

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