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What I have learned is that in a catastrophe, no one way come to save you..
During Sandy in 2012 in NJ, people ran out of gas and they gas stations didn’t have electricity to pump, ran out, or the supply was commandeered by the government. Also gas cans were completely sold out all the way up to Poughkeepsie, NY and into Pennsylvania.
During Isais in 2020 in NJ, we lost power for about a week. Not as bad as Sandy. But this was when everyone was afraid of germs. So the governments were especially governmenty.
Even now, when there is a windstorm, we can loose power for a day or more as the power company assesses the damage and restores upstream areas of the grid before out service is restored.
Here are a few things to add to the plan:
1) have at least a weeks supply of food, source of potable water, TP, and essential medications and first aid supplies.
2) have a source of backup power and enough fuel on hand to last a week. Portable gas generators used to be the main play but battery backup is becoming very affordable. In the last power outage I was able to power my entire house off of the Cybertruck 📐. And portable battery packs large enough to power an entire house are becoming very affordable. I have 2 3kwh Anker battery packs and 2 3kwh expansion packs for a total of 12kwh that I can use to power my house if the cybertruck runs low or I need to go forage/scavenge in it while leaving the family home. Always have an electrician install your hard wired setup. And I don’t recommend bothering with solar panels.
3) have backup communication. I recommend having about a half dozen Baofeng UV-5R radios. Program them with CHIRP to all of the emergency and weather channels in your area. Also program them for GMRS/FRS channels for two way communication. Also a starlink mini, with a USB-C power cable, and probably another smaller battery pack such as a 300 Wh by Anker.
4) have a weapon. Here in the States having a firearm or two is the way to go. A pistol for personal defense and a shotgun for home defense. In Europe, I guess get have a fixed blade knife or sword or something.
When an emergency strikes 99.7% of the time, people are polite and generous. Governments normally function to protect their constituents. However after about 3 days of catastrophe things stop working: fuel isn’t available, store shelves are empty, cell towers are overloaded or begin to shut down when their battery backup runs low. Also civilians begin to act strange when desperation sets in and governments, especially local ones and their police forces, can become unreasonable and authoritarian. It can be shocking how fast it happens.
Mechanical Watches Still Worked During San Francisco December 2025 Blackout
In an unprecedented electrical blackout that started on Saturday, 20-December-2025; about a quarter of the San Francisco City and County lost power. Nearly the entire Northwest quadrant of the entire city lost power. Approximately 130,000 utility accounts...
Excellent write-up on one of the most prominent issues of our lifetime!
The increasing demand for electricity on a global scale is epochal, especially related to AI data centers etc.... A delicate balance is paramount, but wether we are capable of achieving that remains to be witnessed........
Indeed!
Hopefully we will figure out the right balance! And design our robot cars to operate in a responsible manner. A lot of systems are designed to simply "STOP" when there is a mass failure event. If Waymos are following this STOP protocol, someone needs to r...
Electricity dependence isn't necessarily a bad thing!
We're overly dependent on electricity in the same way we're overly dependent on hospitals and modern medicine. Sure, if those things went away we'd be in for a bad time, but the "dependence" isn't a bad thing because it improves our QoL, survivability, ad...
So true. Thanks for posting and nice to read you!
But my point above was about contrasting 2003 vs 2025. Two very similar instances; in 2003 the Mayor still partied the night away, but in 2025, it was such a major problem (mostly exacerbated by Waymo robot cars blocking the roads) and the Mayor was in fu...
What I have learned is that in a catastrophe, no one way come to save you..
During Sandy in 2012 in NJ, people ran out of gas and they gas stations didn’t have electricity to pump, ran out, or the supply was commandeered by the government. Also gas cans were completely sold out all the way up to Poughkeepsie, NY and into Pennsylv...
You've probably watched the film Red Dawn! You can only rely on yourself!
I concur. In a mass catastrophe, the government may be overwhelmed and many small failures will cascade into several large failures. We've seen that in many cases. New Orleans is probably the biggest example in recent history. The Boy Scout motto is Be Pr...
Power outages are not something most societies are fully prepared for 🤷🏻♂️
First of all hope that Lp members are safe and sound 🤞🏻 Apart from societies, where electricity is generally patchy, there is not that much of a back up architecture for power outages 🤷🏻♂️ It often tends to be expensive and less efficient than main grid ...
I desperately want solar power and battery storage...
And I have said to Tesla (the car company also does solar and batteries in my region) to please build me a solar panel system and battery system and take a lot of money from me... But Tesla just won't do it - citing that they don't work on metal roofs nor...
Really was quite a mess.
Then again, in Paris, the taxi-cab drivers go on strike and just block the roads too. So Parisians may look at San Francisco Waymos and say, "oui, we've seen that before with our human taxi-cab drivers."
Good grief...
We heard about this event on the news from afar but did not know the extent of troubles imposed on people during this holiday period. Given the extent and the duration of the outage, the financial toll must have been substantial. I used to live in Lafayet...
We are indeed overly predicated on the digital.
In 2003, a large scale blackout occurred in the same city and life continued on. No robot cars blocking the streets. And today, 22 years later, our life is indeed more "convenient" but at the same time just so much more complex that a similar blackout cau...
Be Safe my Friend 👍
We're used to blackouts in this part of the world so people have work arounds now like solar power, uninterrupted power supply battery packs and diesel generators. The falling price of solar panels has been a game changer. Have a Great 2026 😊
I want to install solar and batteries too!
Unfortunately my home's roof doesn't qualify for solar from the largest solar provider in the region. The solar installer prefers to install on "asphalt" roofs. And typically refuses metal and tile roofs.
A generator is theoretically possible.
Already have UPS on most critical systems in the house. But it definitely wouldn't last days.
Well, smart watches could not sync and be recharged...
But the other quartz watches will do just fine.