What our weekend looked like.

On this past sweltering Saturday, Kelly and I holed up in our bedroom, the only room of the house graced with any kind of air-conditioning. Around 4 pm the power sputtered and went out. Sprawled across the bed with the cats, we opened the window hoping to cool the room down. Instead, the unrelenting bright sunshine, palm trees, the police helicopter hovering over an adjacent street and our lack of electricity lent a Baghdad-like vibe to what remained of the afternoon. But Armageddon is not without its charms. It turns out that when the power goes out you learn a lot about yourself and the things you depend on.

The good things about losing power

• I felt a sudden feeling of peace. Why? We had no internet. Since we don’t have a smart phone we had no way of checking email, Twitter, Facebook etc. All we had was our always reliable land line. If you wanted to reach us you had to call us. It’s funny how all this connectivity that’s supposed to improve our lives ends up being a burden. I made a mental note to consider pulling the plug on the wi-fi more often.
• I was also thankful to have friendly neighbors. I walked over and chatted. We joked about pulling out the candles and banjos. They told me what was going on, that the power company would not be able to restore power until 1 a.m. the following day. Our friends on an adjoining street that we don’t see enough, came over with their dogs and we chatted.

The bad things about losing power

• I discovered that when the power goes out we have a transportation problem. This is due to our quirky garage, a concrete bunker in the side of the hill our house sits on. When the power goes out the only way to open the garage doors is with a key. The problem is that you can’t close and lock them unless there is electricity. So I could access our car and bikes, but I had no way of securing the garage which is right on the street. I didn’t want to leave it open, so if we wanted to go anywhere we’d have to take the bus. Clearly, I need to fix this.
• While I enjoyed our break from the interwebs, I also realized that a lot of information I depend on is now stored in the cloud. If the power had been out for longer I would have had problems. It was a reminder that I might need to print out and store a few vital documents and phone numbers.
• I also realized that we should keep a few convenient dry goods in addition to the rice and beans in the pantry. I didn’t want to open the refrigerator and freezer. It would have been nice to have some trashy and easily prepared items such as mac and cheese.
• One of the first things I did when the power went out was to pull out my 2 meter ham radio to see if I could figure out if something serious was going on. From the lack of chatter I could tell that the power outage was likely small. But I also realized that I need to periodically use the radio if I plan on using it in a real emergency.

I suppose the final lesson is the realization of just how privileged we are in the US. Most of the world’s people have to get by with unreliable power.

What have you learned when the power goes out?

Just in case you need to do your own dental extractions, Survivor Library has you covered.

A recent episode of WNYC’s On the Media took a look at what would happen if a solar flare or electomagnetic pulse zapped our access to the Interwebs. What will we do when we can’t Instagram our taco platters?

One of the segments of the show profiles Rocky Rawlins, who runs a fantastic website, survivorlibrary.com. The library is a trove of pre-electricity how-to books, everything from building your own steam engine to beekeeping, navigation, parlor games and much more. Most of the books in the library date to the 19th century.

Since Survivor Library is in an electronic format, you’ll need to either print it out or build your own Faraday cage if you want to use these books after the next Carrington event.

I was particuarly excited to find, in the Survivor Library, a digitized version of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Good riddance Wikipedia!

The BaoFeng UV-5RE.

Last year I got my general and technician amateur radio licences thanks to an easy to learn memory trick. But when it comes to actually using a radio I don’t have a clue. To learn more I joined my local club and took part this last Friday in a contest, using the club’s equipment, to talk to Hams worldwide. The contest involved the quick exchange of call signs. One moment I’d be talking to Japan the next Slovenia, the Azores, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, New Zealand–the list of countries went on and on.

I spent three hours in the club’s radio room, located in the emergency communications center at the offices of a local hospital. It was fun, but the utility of the exercise was not immediately apparent. The cell phone system is a lot more robust than it used to be and you don’t need a licence to use a phone in an emergency.

I got home from the contest around 9 pm and as I began to make dinner the windows started rattling and the house began to roll. It was an earthquake. The cats panicked and ran under the couch. Since Ham radio was on my mind I instinctively grabbed my handheld radio and immediately heard the voices of other Hams discussing the earthquake. It was then that I realized how useful amateur radio could be. Not only did I get instant information about the earthquake, but I also had access to a network of people who could help me and my neighbors in a real emergency.

The cats? Not so useful. It took about a half hour for them to emerge from their hiding spaces.

In an emergency it’s a good idea to have a radio and know how to use it. And you don’t have to be a Ham to listen to Ham frequencies. Thanks to cheap imported electronics you can now get a radio that receives and transmits on Ham bands, works as a scanner and even transmits on FRS (family radio service) frequencies–all for $40–the BaoFeng UV-5RE. The Survival Podcast did a whole episode on radios you should have in an emergency and the BaoFeng features prominently in the pantheon of zombie apocalypse communications equipment discussed on that show. I can’t speak from experience about the BaoFeng as I have a Yaesu FT-60. But, combined with a battery operated AM/FM radio, the BaoFeng would make a nice addition to your emergency supplies.

Now if only I could teach the cats to tap out Morse code.