I Passed the LA SHTF No Power for 12 Hours in 100 Degree Weather Test- I Rock!

It went up to 110 in LA on Saturday, and when it hit around 100 degrees, the power went out here for about 12 hours for 140,000 customers including me!

While it was pretty unbearable, I made it through with my Portable Battery Operated fan www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013BOC6VC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 which somehow lasted the full 12 hours and my electric lantern which also lasted the 12 hours www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YQB0CD4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Also filled up my 3 insulated Under Armour Thermoses separately with Aquafina and Diet Coke. Thank God I have about 2 months worth of Claritin D on hand as I have to run my air conditioner 24 hours a day for my breathing as it gets congested without.

Incredibly somehow my refrigerator was still cool and the ice cream in the freeze still hadn't melted.
I actually decided to eat all the ice cream just before the power suddenly came back on without notice. I actually thought the power might be off for a few days and was going to eat my Campfire Meal Packets

The sink, shower and toilets were no affected.

Only adjustments I made afterwards of this awful experience was to buy a second portable fan for even more cooling and an external battery pack for my laptop as I only had about 1 Hour of battery power to watch videos I had saved.

Anyone have, outside of moving out of LA, any additional recommendations to survive 100 degree temperature without power?

I rock!

 

How frequently does this happen in your area?

Here in Maine we routinely see power outages 1 to 3 days every month and week-long outages 2 or 4 times a year.

I am glad that you were able to learn from this outage.

 

Wow. The same time here it soared all the way to 65F.
Thank goodness it was just a power substation affected and not a switching station or worse, one of the main power lines from Utah or NV.

 

Seriously! Sorry! What do you do when that happens? Leave the area? In the 12 or so years I've lived in LA, the longest outage was only about 2 hours till now. I had a gut feeling something was going to happen this weekend but not this long! The worst of it was the LA DWP gave no indication when power was going to be restored. I wonder how many people tried to drive out of LA to say San Diego and if there was a gridlock.

 

Every experience such as you describe is how we make added tweaks to our preparations. Good going! You did well in analyzing the status, and using what you already had in your "tool kit" to fix your situation as best you could for the duration. Learning from your own small or large crisis experiences, as well as those of others is how we all "rock" just a little better with each problem issue.

 

Thank you. Honestly other than catch a plane out of here assuming there would be total gridlock driving out or getting on a train, I don't know what I would do if the outage lasted for more than a day! The air quality is so bad in LA! That with the high temperature makes life unbearable here without air conditioning. Maybe I should have "Speculated" before the weekend started and gotten out of town. I don't know why LA is portrayed in movies and TV as some kind of paradise. Maybe in the 50's & 6o's it was but not anymore.

 

I get anxiety just reading your posts. Glad you got along through it.

 

I lived in the mountains, power was lost regularly, lightening in the summer rain storms, and snow in the winter.
Warnings were called common sense.
Adverse conditions normally ushered outages.
Before fine electronics these outages did little damage, but since the solid state electronics, things got more sensitive.
That and over crowding created brown outs and spikes we never had before .
I had never heard of a UPS but I built my own, first for our very first computer = battery charger-battery- inverter- computer/monitor/printer/lights. the grid fed the battery charger and maintained the battery. later in life I added solar panels to contribute to the charging.
Now my house is primarily battery, and soar, and wind , and the grid power is only a supplement if I really need it.
One of the issues that made me alter my power was the fact DC lights live longer than AC lights, fact of the matter is Edison's home still has the DC lights he made still working .
With the advent of LED lighting ,it has made the greatest contribution in light efficiency ,you can thumb you nose at the grid. almost .
Battery technology is improving steadily, however I still use 6 volt deep cycle golf cart batteries . it provides me more options .
Some of my LEDs around the house are 6 volt.
Setting at my computer , I'd never know the power went out till I go to the refrigerator. Some day that will be changed as well, when I get a gas refrigerator.
my fans are 12 volt computer and automotive .
My chickens have a computer fan while it hot and there is no wind.
Computer fans are the most efficient .

 

You could escape the heat by going to underground parking, fallout shelters or other areas below street level. Only problem that first comes to mind is the type of people that probably already hang out there.

 

May have been a solar related event. A large cooling vat filled with mineral oil caught fire. There were solar events occurring about the same time according to SO.

 

Wouldn't have made it through another day, though!

Interesting. How does one find out about these solar events online? Is there a recommended site?

Fallout shelters are not not powered by electricity via LA DWP? Same with Underground Parking which I'm not sure exists in LA as they don't allow residences and buildings to have basements. I could see it being slightly cooler but not significantly. Will research this though as maybe you're onto something I wasn't aware of. Thanks.

 

Glad you made it through your 1st test of sorts. I'm not dissin' on ya but 12 hrs isn't all that long. Seemed like it no doubt because of the heat and it was your first time at bat I'm sure. I think I would first get another fan like you mentioned, but look into rechargeable batteries and a good SOLAR recharger. Your batts lasted 12hrs so figure a swap once a day times at least a couple days worth. Depending on your charger size it will take a while for the batteries to reach full charge.
You gotta do something about air filtration if your breathing is that affected. Some kind of home or room filter that you can set up to run through a inverter with deep cycle batteries maybe. As far as that goes you might be able to rig up a small one room evap or swamp cooler and run it the same way. My Grandparents lived near Visalia before they passed on and they cooled their house with a swamp cooler. It worked great in the low humidity of S Kali.
May sound silly but if the air affects you that badly you may want to set up a room like a safe room so you can filter/control the air and temps. Would be easier to run off of batteries that way.
Just some random brain storming...

 

Not far below the surface the ground is typically about 55 degrees Fahrenheit year round in most places. Some cooling systems move air or water underground instead of a heat pump or air conditioner.

Evaporation is your quickest and easiest friend if you have access to water. A cool shower works wonders and don't dry yourself off too much especially your hair. Hanging damp sheets in your windows is one way people got cooler before air conditioning. Hang them on the sunny/hot side of the house. When they dry wet them again.

Get your hair wet as above to cool down and run cool water over your wrists for near immediate relief. During an extended outage be active when it's the coolest and hole up during the heat of the day.

Loose fitting long sleeve shirts will also help to keep you cool when you need to be out in the sun especially to work. Wide brim .hats that allow for air circulation help as well.

Something else to think about - if the stores in your area are also without power they will have an abundance of frozen items in the frozen foods section that will be worthless to them. When I worked in grocery stores many years ago the store gave their ice cream away free during a summertime power outage because the customers loved it and there would be no nasty mess to clean up later.

Some gourds like cucumbers and watermelon (a close relative) are also a bit cooler on the inside than outside and can also help to cool down slightly.

Now that the experience is fresh, what could you do if the electricity was out for a week, or a month, or even longer?

 

Eddie, that was a pop quiz, not a test.

 

Good for you @ED GEiN. You learned some and you are thinking. I think it was great that you had a small test run because next time it could be longer. This was extreme temps and in the city the air does not move. I started a thread earlier re: heat waves because I currently do not have AC and it is really hard especially in the evenings.
Preparing for heatwaves | Survival Monkey Forums

 

Don't forget, wet a cotton cloth, and pop it a few times, and instant ice pack.

 

A few things we do after hurricanes, once for 10 days:
We have an icemaker that holds 50 lbs. and it almost lasts 5 days. Ice gets put in coolers and cold wet rags on the neck keep us cool. Sitting on the carport by the under-house vents give a bit of relief as the cooler air exits under the house. Water sprayed on the roof cools the house a good bit, especially when done in the morning and a few times throughout the day. Candles are the light source with battery lights used only when we need bright light for a task. Cooking is either on the grill or the Coleman dual-fuel stove. Running the shower with cold water only will cool the air in the bathroom and provide some relief. Not to be a butt here, but we wouldn't have even broken out the gear for 12 hours. Now that you have experienced a forced outage, now pick a weekend and go without for 24 hours.

 

12 hrs. That happens about every other month here.
Big thunderstorm with high winds .. boom, out goes the lights. You'd think that after all these years, the trees that would fall on the lines would be gone by now .. but no.

Summer can be bad w/o power as heat and humidity can make it uncomfortable. If it happens, we retreat to the basement where it is considerably cooler (typically like 65 degrees all the time) where the top floor could get into the 90s.

But winter .. that's when it gets real. Ice storm or heavy wet snow then followed by clearing and high winds. Yessir, where heat can seem pretty bad, cold will definitely let you know where the holes in your plan are. -10F outside and house is heading down fast too. Most of my neighbors bail after a day or so. If it's below zero for a week, they will be coming home to frozen pipes and a house that's probably in the single digits or low teens.

We typically get 1 week outage once a year, it's kind of like camping now, with some epic games of Uno and a champion that crows about it until the next outage.

Out here in farming country, when there isn't electricity, your furnace won't run (nor a/c in summer), no water. You either have to have some way of keeping warm and hydrated and hot food is a bonus.

Heating/Cooling:
winter = wood stoves ; summer = hang out in basement or open the windows or just hang outside on one of the decks out of the sun.

Water:
Not winter: Cases of water, jugs of water, rain barrels and buckets and troughs used for animals (for flushing toilets)
Winter .. above but can bring in frozen buckets or chunks of ice and melt them for flushing.

Food:
Winter, can keep it frozen by taking it outside. can cook it in or on the wood stove
Spring/Summer, maybe 3-4 days in the cooler with ice but by the time the 5th day hits we've pretty much ate everything in the cooler. Cooking on the charcoal / wood grill
mid summer/fall mostly just eat what's in the garden or growing along the fence row.
If it happens during butchering season .. well I guess I'm going to be smoking and canning a lot of meat. Probably have a pig roast to boot.

 

I just learned something that might help some people in the future, assuming they didn't know this which I didn't till now! Apparently Big Name Hotels/Motels have back-up generators which I just found out talking to someone here in LA and if you act fast enough you can still book a room when a Power Outage Occurs if you do it fast enough. Obviously most people would not book a room assuming that the outage would be fixed within a few hours but in this case people were smart enough, not me, to realize that if a Power Generator blew up causing a major fire, the power won't be fixed in a few hours. It doesn't help when the Power Company gives no information which in itself is information! Apparently all nearby places were booked within 2 hours! Some smaller places may also have back-up generators.