What I learned from the San Diego power outage

If you don’t live in San Diego County (and south Orange County, Baja or Yuma) you probably heard about the major power outage we experienced for 12 hours. I was working in the office when the power went out around 3:30pm yesterday. I thought it was only our building that lost power, but the local radio stations were just static, the street lights were out, and people were tweeting that power was out in their neighborhoods. I headed straight home expecting that the freeway and streets would become a parking lot.

Princess D was already home from school and it was warm out so I let her jump in the pool until the sun started to set. Dinner was peanut butter and honey sandwiches since we have an electric stove. The temperature started to cool off outside so we opened up all of the windows. SDG&E warned that because the outage was so widespread that power would not come back until the next day. We were prepared with the basic flashlights, batteries, bottled water and non-perishable foods. I also learned that there are some other things to help you through a power outage:

You can never have too many back up mobile phone batteries. If you have a smart phone you know that they burn through batteries. I always carry two fully charged standard manufacturer batteries with me where ever I go. I did this with my Blackberry, then my Motorola Droid, and now my HTC Thunderbolt. You can purchase them on Amazon. I also have an extended battery I call “The Beast” (it is like 2 batteries in one).

Flashlight smart phone apps come in handy. My HTC Thunderbolt has a built in mag light app, but you can easily download flashlight apps for iPhone or Androids. These apps will use up your battery, so make sure you have the back up batteries I first recommend.

LED book lights are a great option to flashlights. We have all kinds of book lights in the house, but after last night I found that the My Light FlexiClip Light is the best. It gave off the most amount of light. The clamp is strong and big enough to attach to towel rails, but has soft pads so you can attach it to e-readers or laptops. The light itself is a ball that can be rotated 360 degrees with two settings including a night vision mode. You can buy a 2 pack at Costco for $11. It comes with extra batteries and a micro screw driver.

Kids battery free pump (or crank) flashlights make kids feel safe and work great. On our last trip to LEGOLAND SeaLife Aquarium Princess D chose a small flashlight from the gift shop. She loved the squeezing feature that recharges the flashlight and I loved the $5 price tag. She used it last night to see her beads and dinner, then used it as her night light.

So, if you live here in San Diego I would love to hear what innovative things you learned during the power outage.

Tagged as: emergency kit ideas, power outage, power outage san diego, preparing for emergency, san diego power outage