The Bay Area has been pummeled with storm after storm after storm since late last week. We were among the thousands who lost power on Friday. For eight hours. Luckily, we still managed to be productive — thanks in large part to one of those headlamps that's usually reserved for camping trips. But we're curious:
- Did the storm do any damage at your house?
- How did you cope with the blackouts (if you were affected)?
- Any lessons learned from this series of storms?
Image: Photo by Noah Berger, special to the SF Chronicle
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Comments (4)
No power outages for me, although it was excrutiating at times on Friday to watch the electric pole outside my 2nd story window sway and screetch in the direction of my apt.
No power outage for me either (splitting time between SJ and Burlingame). Just heard of crazy winds in SF.
Having been through several outages in the past, however, I cope with power outages through the use of battery powered devices (laptop). If I didn't have a gas stove, I would consider buying a small camping stove for the extended outages.
For the next storm though, I would recommend people take an overnight bag with them to work because landslides and rough traffic conditions can/will strand people away from home.
I spent a week without power thanks to an ice storm in December, and learned a few tricks.
-Large glass candle holders cast the most light--the taller the glass, the brighter the light, even with a tealight candle.
-Cluster a few candle holders (even small ones) with lit tealights in front of a mirror, and not only will it get pretty warm, it'll be just about bright enough to read by.
-LED flashlights really are brighter. Lots.
-If it's cold and you have a gas stove, be VERY careful about using the oven to warm the house. I've heard you can seriously shorten the life of the oven by doing that. We kept the oven off unless we were cooking, but we found that several pots of boiling water can bring the temp up considerably. Just be careful not to do that too much, as you can end up with some water damage to the walls or furnishings in a small space.
-Old-fashioned hot-water bottles rock!
LED flashlights are definitely NOT brighter by definition. The innovation and advantage of LED is that they are substantially more efficient, that is they use less energy to produce the same amount of light.