Jan 07 2008
In Case Of Emergency…Think
A winter storm knocked out power in my area and I was out of power for over 24 hours.
The outage was extensive due to power lines being downed by trees felled by high winds. I admit I don’t have a 72-hour emergency kit. Or an emergency coordination plan.
As ill-prepared as I am for a major emergency (water, food, cash on hand, flashlights, etc.) I can put 2 and 2 together and come up with 4.
A friend called me up – on my cell phone – to ask me if I was OK. The power had gone out in his area in the morning and more outages were predicted.
He had heard that the outage in my area was more extensive. Once I learned how extensive (I need a battery-operated radio, that is for sure) I plugged in my emergency land phone. Like most people my phone is a cordless and when the power goes out, so does the phone.
I didn’t even bother calling my complex’s rental office because I figured the phones weren’t working – not many people have old-fashioned corded phones these days and I knew that the office phone wasn’t a cell.
I took a quick and very cool shower. That wasn’t fun. The early morning commuters had drained the hot water and the power had gone out just after 8am. I was getting the dregs.
I ended up staying with friends for the night. That was fun. We had pizza and wine and I was scrunched up on a couch. At four-foot-ten-and-three-quarter-inches, I can sleep pretty comfortably on a loveseat.
I called a neighbor for updates and the power didn’t come on until 10am the next morning. I return home and figure it’d take 3-5 hours for the water to heat up. Around 3pm the water was still frigid. I called up the rental office thinking I’d hear a “in case of emergency call” message and the call was answered by the property manager. I was surprised. She said she was in because of the situation.
She said that she had to wade through all sorts of messages from tenants wondering why she wasn’t answering the phone or in the office. There were messages wondering why the power was out and if it was only out in our complex.
I said, “I didn’t bother calling you because I figured your phones weren’t working.”
She said, “Exactly.”
I asked about the hot water and she confirmed my suspicion that the boilers had to be restarted and it was taking a while. She said that it was amazing how people did not have any idea of what to do in an emergency or even being aware of what was going on. I guess they didn’t look out the window and notice the storm outside. Or they hadn’t heard that several heavy storms were passing through the area and that outages were predicted.
I live in a big complex and the few people I bumped into were shrugging their shoulders at the inconvenience and laughing about having bad hair due to being unable to take a shower.
My mom called me on my cell via her cell. She said, “My TV has ’snow’ and my phone has nothing. Do you think I should call the utility company?”
I said, “Do you have electricity?”
She said, “Yeah. And gas as well.”
I said, “So it’s only the cable that is out. The cable may be affected by the storm.”
She said, “Huh. So I don’t have to call the utility company.”
I said, “Nope. Plus, since you switched to cable on your phone, you also lost your phone.”
She said, “Rats! Anudder thing to think about since I switched to all-cable.”
Anyway, you all might want to hold on to your corded phones in case of emergency. In addition to your emergency kit.
For information on emergency preparedness, check out the FEMA website.
Do your part in taking care of yourself in an emergency! When the power goes out, don’t expect the pizza delivery place to answer the phone.
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Oh that’s a wakeup call of sorts! I definitely have some “old-fashioned” corded telephones around still that would be quite useful if the electricity were to go out. And that gets me to thinking that I still want to know how those telephone work without using electricity. I’m off to check that as soon as I finish this comment!
I’m glad that everything is still alright. Also it’s probably a good thing that you have remote hosting because if the same thing happened to me, down my site would go!
Sorry to hear about the dilemma.
It’s the worst when it hits this time of year, too cold to deal with. No heat can lead to a lot of unfortunate loss of life.
I’ve just switched one of my phone lines to cable so I can get the cheaper deal. The free phone the telephone companies used to give out back in the day is still in my closet. It still works. It was a hand-me-down from my mother.
A lot of us aren’t prepared these days. After 9/11 Homeland Security started putting up all these ads asking people “Are you prepared?” or something of that nature. I know to keep bottles of water, batteries and other stuff in the home ‘just in case.’
Always love hearing about your mother.
Oh… Forgot to mention about the Pizza.
During the power outage that hit NYC some years ago the Pizza Shops were the only eateries available. The lines were extremely long. The price of a slice was $5. Lets not talk about the amount they wanted for a whole pie.
Derek: Your corded phone should work. There is something to be said for the old fashioned just jack in the handset phone! I am not quite sure how the phone works – I figure the telephone wire holds the signal and while there is electricity involved (there must be some way to repeat the signal) it’s not provided by your home electrical system.
Yes, I do remote hosting for my blog. Even if I did my own hosting, unless my site was some major part of my income, I can’t see how my site being down would be anything more than inconvenient. I have seen your site down a few times though!
UT: Not quite sure what dilemma you’re referring to? Temps have been pretty cold for my area but I don’t live where it snows. Yipppee! The cold water was really cold though. I could not see showering in it. If I had to I would have done the ole bucket shower but really, I would have gone to mom’s or dad’s or SOMEWHERE to get clean.
I do have bottled water but not 3 days’ worth. My mom had to upgrade her cable system – her old box wouldn’t be able to receive the new signal or something. As you know, I don’t have a TV which has saved me money as well as brain storage as I haven’t had to learn the latest TV technology. I may write about my mom’s “TV addiction” as well as the trials and tribulations of upgrading her cable. Pain for mom = Pain for her daughter. I thought to switch to the cable package (phone, Internet, cable) would be a cost savings as well. But YOW, much nail-in-the-eye fun has been had by all.
Can you say 4 visits by cable and maybe 10 calls to tech support?
I’m glad you enjoy the mom stories. She IS a hoot! I need to stop worrying about people accepting her INTERESTING behaviour. People seem to find her charming and one friend said that my mom is charming because she has the innocence of a child.
Pizza and NYC – boy, there is always someone making money during times of trouble, huh?
The power outage was the dilemma but you have a great spirit about the whole think so it may not be seen as such.
There is some sort of Federal mandate/law that is cut all analog signals from broadcasting. Everything is going digital by 2009 or something like that. Anyone with a regular TV antenna will be out of luck if they don’t have some sort of digital cable.
Making money during times of trouble has always been big business. Lawyers, doctors, loan sharks are some of the professions that reap the benefits of the ill fate that some face on the regular.
As a Telephone Man I’ll make it real simple.
The Telephone Company (not Cable) has to insure your phone works even when the power goes out. If your line is tied directly to the central office you get your 48v over the twisted pair. This is powered by batteries that are fed by a generator.
If you live further out there will be a remote station with battery backup that can last as long as eight hours.
You should always keep one “plug-in” phone around for emergencies. Don’t forget that cell sites also work on comercial power and batteries. Yeah, no generator there unless they truck one out!
Being out East a lot of the big telephone offices used to be used as bomb shelters and most of them have full shower facilities. There is nothing better than being at my job when a big storm hits. We never lose power, heat or Internet
It’s funny, I don’t keep a lot of sentimental stuff because too much stuff overwhelms me. But I DO have the old fashioned corded phone my family first bought in 1980 or 1981. And I always rationalize keeping for emergencies. Plus, that phone is good and tough – a friend threw it out a second story window once onto pavement and it STILL works just fine.
Glad it was fun at your friends house! I love storms when no one is getting hurt or killed or drowned or anything.
UT: Thanks for the clarification on my dilemma! Yes, it seemed more of an inconvenience to me.
Someone is always able to profit from hardships and tragedies.
HMTKSteve: Thanks for the technical explanation on how phones work! I am happy to learn that I wasn’t way out there in my very basic understanding of them.
I’ve recommended that others keep a “plug-in” phone handy and usually when they learn why, they say, “Oh…yeah…” as they realize why their cordless phones won’t work.
Jill: Those old plug-in phones were pretty heavy duty!
Yes, power outages and minor “acts of God” type of events can be fun when all that happens is you’re inconvenienced.