r/preppers • u/archos1gnis • 3d ago
Situation Report Tuesday Came on Thursday
(Edited to remove brand names, since mods thought it sounded like an advertisement. I just happen to have several items all of the same brand.) I was going to write this down for myself anyway, but I figured I'd post my after action review in case it helps someone. A couple weeks ago, we had some widespread severe thunderstorms that knocked out power in the neighborhood for what ended up being 12 hours. This is the first power outage we've had (more than like 30-60 mins) since I've gotten some preps in place, so it was a good beginner's test for me. The power went out at 11pm, and I knew it would be out a while since there were almost 100 outages all over the county, and my outage was from a branch that shorted out the power lines that I could see out my window.
What went well:
- I have several lead acid UPS's on my entertainment center (modem, wifi, cradlepoint cellular backup, and home security) and around the house. A few of them just have a lamp plugged in to them, and it was nice to be able to just turn on a couple of lamps in the house and garage. I do have plenty of battery operated lights and such, but the normalcy of lamp light was nice.
- Once I saw the power would be out for a bit, I plugged my 2 entertainment center UPS's into my 1800 watt power station with expansion battery. It ran like a champ!
- Sleep was comfortable as I had a battery operated fan, sound machine, and smaller power station for my CPAP. I didn't worry about the fridge and upright freezer and just went to bed.
- On waking up at 6am, the garage freezer had gone from 2 degrees to 17, and the inside fridge had went from 40 to 50. I have bluetooth thermometers in each, so it was nice to track the temperature without having to guess. I then plugged in the fridge to the power station.
- I had an appointment at 7am, and got back about 830. The fridge had cooled back off. The expansion battery was empty, but the main power station still had about 80%. I fired up my inverter generator (outside, away from windows and doors) and ran an extension cord to the power station to charge both devices back to 100%, and ran a cord to the garage freezer as well.
- The power came back on about 11am. I had the power station plugged into the wall, so when power came back it switched to line voltage and recharged itself, while running everything that was plugged in to it.
What to improve:
- For my entertainment UPS's, I had previously put critical components on the "battery and surge side" and non-critical on the "surge only side for each UPS". The only issue with that is when I plug the UPS's in to the power station, I'm now powering everything, critical and non-critical (Switch, clock, cable box, etc) and was pulling 100w. Not a big deal, but I'd be better off putting the non critical items on their own surge protector that doesn't get plugged into the power station.
- The power station and expansion battery were in the garage, and it wasn't exactly easy to get to, though it was fully charged. It is now stored in the house. Also, the various power cords and such were scattered. I'll find bin to put them all in together.
- I got complacent with the weather. I always keep up with the Storm Prediction Center's Weather Outlooks and daily forecast, but since there was not talk of tornados I was lax. Preceding known storms I normally would have turned the fridge and freezer colder while stocking with bottled water for mass, and would have turned the AC down several degrees to have a comfort buffer. Thankfully I happened to have run the dishwasher and took a shower earlier in the evening.
- The generator worked great, and having the power station going so I don't have to run the generator all the time is really nice, but fooling with extension cords is a pain. I have a manual transfer switch and inlet, I've just put off installing them. So the lesson here is to stop procrastinating, lol. Running one cord to the side of the house would have been so much easier that running them through windows, doors, and across floors. Another thing is that my extension cord is only 14 gauge and got warmish with the 1200 watts on it when recharging the power station, so I'm going to get a 12 AWG instead.
- My battery operated fan moves air fine, but it obnoxiously loud and rattles. It never bothered me when I'd use it during the day, but I'm going to purchase a quieter one for sleeping.
- I'm going to think about shelf stable foods that are ready to eat and don't require any cooking or prep. This is harder, as while I have a good pantry built up, it's mostly just ingredients. It's not a huge deal because I have a gas stove, and with the power station and generator I can run the microwave, but a few ready to eat options would be good.
- I have 600 watts of solar panels I've only used once, and forgot I had them until after the power came on. The entertainment center and fridge were pulling about 200 watts, so I could have powered them and then some, just on solar to the power station. This is a good reminder for me to make an "In case of...." guide to be printed out, that lists my assets and what I can do in various scenarios.
Anyway, thankfully this was just a 12 hour excursion, but I learned a lot! I'd be interested to hear your stories and lessons learned as well. Thanks for reading!
12
u/Never_Really_Right 3d ago
#2 - we store everything in one spot including all the cables/cords/etc. in one bag (we used a spare Eagle Creek pack it bag). That bag hangs on a hook in the closet where the batteries and portable solar panels are stored. Included are simplistic wiring diagrams for the solar panels. No worries about remembering how, reading manuals, etc.
Also, we have a battery operated lantern that we hang on one specific hook in the laundry room that is near our master bedroom. In a power outage, we can make it by feels only to the laundry room lantern, and as long as we avoid stepping on a cat, we can then easily walk around and grab anything else we need.
My husband sometimes teases me about my militant organization, but he sure appreciates me when groping for just one specific lantern in the dark to start the whole chain in motion...as has happened a few times.
5
u/gadget767 3d ago
You probably want to keep a flashlight on your nightstand.
2
u/myself248 2d ago
I wrapped a band of glow-in-the-dark tape around every flashlight that wasn't already made of glow material.
Then I leave one in every room, and rotate the batteries through the charger every year or so.
2
u/premar16 2d ago
mine is in the window seal because it is a solar lantern. So it charges through out the day. It has dual power so I can add batteries if needed.
3
u/archos1gnis 3d ago
Those are great ideas! I definitely learned a lesson this go round on keeping things together. I'm fairly organized and generally know where everything is, but turns out I don't want to have to get things from 6 different locations, all while trying to avoid stepping on that darn cat!
1
u/Parking_Salamander67 2d ago
There's a movie or short story idea in there: guy preps perfectly for apocalypse but is hindered in dumb ways by the damn house cat.
10
u/PrisonerV Prepping for Tuesday 3d ago
This is why I have my solar panels permanently installed. They make me no power sitting in storage. Today it was overcast and still I got enough power for the window AC to run a couple of hours.
I'm also slowly getting rid of all my UPSes and replacing them with smaller power stations. More power in an outage and the batteries last much longer.
4
u/archos1gnis 3d ago
Permanent solar is the long term dream! I found made some PVC kick stands for mine, so I can prop them up at the optimum angle in the yard when I need them. I may eventually replace my UPS's with power stations, but the UPS's were free, so I'm going to hang on to them as long as possible!
3
u/davidm2232 Prepared for 6 months 3d ago
Agreed. If you have them, hook them up and use them. That being said, I have 6 300w panels in my shed that I could easily hook up which have been sitting there for 3 years.
4
u/RoyTheBoy21 3d ago
I got a little 350W power station that I put two dewalt batteries into and I can play on a 40” TV and Nintendo 64 for almost 2 hours on two 4Ah batteries.
3
2
u/Wild_Locksmith_326 3d ago
All of my electrical devices use a different brand 24 volt battery but everything uses the same batteries I also have a small inverter box that takes 1 24 volt battery and will power my son's feed pump for a two day period. Because it's a fairly small draw I have several work lights positioned throughout the house on for amp hour batteries a small Bluetooth which allows me to a charge the phone and be have at least music going, and I keep a standalone looks like a laptop DVD player with a little 17 inch screen to keep my grandchildren amused during blackouts. I also have wireless indoor outdoor thermometers with the outdoor probes in my kitchen freezer and my basement freezer that way I can monitor the temperatures remotely allowing me to plug them in when they hit 10° on the freezer and leave them unplugged which reduces the overall power requirement and allows me to monitor without opening the doors. I just changed out my stove this year I'm not sure how it will work in a power down situation whether it's one of those that has to have electricity for the valve to open but I have a couple of propane camp stoves so if that one doesn't work I can always revert to the propane. Even if Tuesday happens on a Thursday it's still nice to be able to make it less than a bad day.
3
u/postcardeditor 3d ago
Curious how long it took the generator to charge the power station from 80% to full. I have a 2000w power station with solar panels but have been thinking of getting a small generator as a backup way to charge it or as a redundancy should the power station go bad on me.
4
u/archos1gnis 3d ago
It took about an hour, at about 1300 watts input, to fill the power station to 100 and also the attached expansion battery (both 1056Wh). This is the first time I've used the generator in this manner, and I think it'd definitely be worth looking into for you. I really like the redundancy of both the battery and the generator.
8
u/HellUCH17 3d ago
This is a well-written post, much better than those AI slop.
Since you have already moved the batteries indoors for storage, charging is much more convenient. So there is no need to keep them fully charged while stored, you can simply charge them up fully when you receive a storm/hurricane warning. LFP batteries are best stored at a SOC of 60%~80%, as keeping them fully charged for extended periods tends to accelerate battery aging and degradation.
4
u/archos1gnis 3d ago
That's a good point! I had meant to drain them some before I put them away. Thanks for the reminder!
2
u/CranberrySoftServe 3d ago
Very nice. Sounds like you can sleep while the wind blows.
For #6 on the improvements, if it comes down to it you could always stash some hardtack or pemmican, teeth be damned 😂
1
u/TheLawnGuppy 2d ago
Great write-up, and the printed "In case of..." guide is a really good idea. Once you start one it keeps growing.
One thing I'd add for #3 since the storm caught you off guard: a NOAA weather radio with SAME alerts. Program your county code and it only goes off for warnings where you actually are, so you can leave it on overnight without it chirping for every county around you. Most run on the wall with AA backup and they cost alot less than anything else on your list. An 11 pm storm is exactly when nobody's checking the SPC outlook.
The other gap I'd look at is comms if the next one is bigger. Your Cradlepoint covers internet as long as the cell site stays up, but if that goes down too, a couple of cheap MeshCore or Meshtastic LoRa nodes (roughly $25 to $40 each) let your household or a few neighbors text each other with no cell or internet at all. They sip power, so the small power station would keep them going for days. It's a local tool, not a way to reach family across the state, but for "is everyone ok on the street" it works. This write-up is pretty honest about what mesh can and can't do: https://brazosvalleymesh.com/blog/local-mesh-comms-after-cell-fails/
1
u/pure_croix 3d ago
what power station do you use for your cpap?
2
u/archos1gnis 3d ago
I have an Anker C300 DC, and use the 12v adapter cord for the CPAP. With no heated tube or humidifier I could go days between charges.
2
u/premar16 2d ago
Thanks for sharing I am trying figure out which one I want to possibly charge my power wheelchair
26
u/Extension-Snow-265 3d ago
Love the honest lessons-learned format. I went through a 3-day outage two winters ago and my biggest takeaway was almost the opposite of what I expected: the "boring" stuff beat me, not the big stuff.
The thing that got me was nobody else in the house knowing the routine. I had gear, batteries, a lantern for every room, but every time someone wanted something they came asking me. This year I taped a one-page cheat sheet inside a kitchen cabinet: which power station runs what, what stays OFF, how long the fridge can stay closed before we switch to ice, and the order to flip breakers. Tested it with the family twice. Sounds silly, but when the grid goes down at 1am, a sleepy person following written instructions beats verbal memory every time.
Also +1 on forgetting gear you own. I ran a "no grid" drill one Saturday just to see, and discovered my extension cords were too short to reach the fridge from where the generator sits. 20 minutes of fumbling with a headlamp in the rain. A drill reveals stuff a spreadsheet never will.