The Challenge: Unplugged
Ten weeks into the challenge to NOT go to the grocery store I still have food- although have run out of plenty of things and getting low on others. Since its been a mild winter around here haven’t had to deal with a power outage. Part of the point of this little experiment has been to think about those sorts of things, though. How well would you fair if there was no power? For how long? I want to share the e-mail I got from my sister Cindy this morning. She and her husband , Bob live in Northern Michigan. They recently had a bad storm and no power for 5 days.Here is her recounting of their adventure.
Last Friday, rain-changing-to-snow began to fall around 4PM. By 11PM the heavy, wet snow had knocked out the power in much of Northern Michigan. Our “adventure” went something like this:
Total amount of snow……16inches in the non-drifted areas
Time without power………116 hours; that’s 4 hours short of 5 full days
Firewood used…………….all of it, plus some donated by a friend who had some to spare
Warmest temp in the house during the day… 60 degrees in the family room
Coldest “ ……………………………………..47 “ in the bedroom
Temp in the freezer when the power came on…..22 degrees….the food was not ruined!
We were at an advantage in that we have a gas stove, so we could cook and heat water. I had also filled the bathtub so we had water for washing dishes and bathing. We had bottled water on hand and a cooking pot I had filled before we lost power. Those Girl Scout camping experiences sure came in handy.
We resorted to melting snow to flush the toilets, in addition to used dishwater.
Having light, heat, and warm water………………PRICELESS!
:-0)
Well done, Cindy and Bob. I don’t have a wood burner so I would have been a lot colder. Glad things are back to normal. Cindy commented in a second e-mail that the food in the freezer stayed frozen for a lot longer than a day. Good news for them. This, of course, would not have been the case in the summertime. Makes me want to get a generator.
