Six Days in the Dark

I’d be curious to hear what his wife’s daily blogs would look like - especially as he’s talking about ‘dad-mode, protector, provider’ - what roles did she feel compelled to occupy? If he felt like he had to step up to shield her from stress, what did she feel in turn for his sake?

(Honestly it’d be interesting to hear from the kids too)

Post wants to talk about money spent and smart ways to prepare... and then goes and links the portable battery system used and it is a 4kwh battery+inverter+solar charger combo with a few 200W solar panels that costs... get this..

$4399.

These stupid 'home battery' units are just stupidly, stupidly marked up for what they do.

You can buy a ~5.2 kwh 48v battery for People are getting fleeced by these cutely packaged battery inverter charger boxes with fancy displays and USB-C chargers, all being pushed by youtubers. If you are even mildly technically minded, you can build a more capable system for 30% the cost of these things. They are relying on people just not knowing how much LiFePO4 storage batteries and hybrid solar inverters have come down in price and how easy they are to setup.

A few years ago, I purchased a "solar backpack" because I thought the idea was really rad, and I live in Phoenix, so the thought of trekking through the urban jungle with a solar panel on my back and perpetual, unlimited sun power to my laptop and two phones, that was irresistible!

So the reality was like this: really awesome power bank included with decent backpack. The power bank has plenty of connectors and adapters to plug into virtually anything. Power bank is juicy enough to power a laptop for a couple of hours, or a smartphone for all day long. Rugged construction there.

The backpack is kind of unwieldy but has some nice pockets and it's totally electronics-aware. You don't want to stash a drink or food anywhere in this thing. There are plenty of grommets for threading the cables you'll need.

The solar panel is like the worst feature of this "solar backpack". Of course, imagine the low surface area you'll get on a backpack. Now imagine how long it takes to charge a quite beefy power bank with that. It took me 3 weeks of all day long, in the clear winter sunlight, with a zero load, to go from zero to about 90%! Three weeks!

So clearly this solar power source is inadequate to keep a device going without discharging completely by dawn. But I certainly do appreciate the power bank, and I do keep this around for emergencies, and I basically just plug it into the wall until it's full, then I stash it away and I don't worry about it for several months.

The cost was also not terrible. I think the entire backpack set cost $300 or less. Not bad for a good durable backpack plus power bank, really; nevermind the solar component.

I’ve spent multiple separate weeks without electricity in my life and never really had that hard of a time. You accept that you lose your frozen foods that you don’t eat in the first day, go to your friends that are on city water, I was always on a well when we lost power, for cold showers and to fill water bottles, and cook food on a grill. If no one has city water you get used to the smell and buy bottled water. Nowadays I have a 40W panel for charging phones.

Of course there are some for whom a power outage is life and death because their health is tied to power. Also tornados are terrifying. I don’t mean to trivialize extended power outages. But sometimes accepting the situation and just riding with it is the way to go.

This all seems like an insane overreaction. I question what gets someone into this level of panic.

Just chill out for a couple of days and enjoy reading some books and have an adventure.

Unless you’ve got a medical emergency and need to have power for some devices just relax and wait for the power to be reconnected.

I get that there are emergencies in the world but not having power at home is an inconvenience.