Your Survival Blog
Cache or charge?
Among the things you’ll most frequently see on lists of emergency-preparedness items to have in your family disaster kit — either a to-go kit or one for sheltering in place — are flashlights, camping lanterns, and similar lighting items. Sometimes those lists include weather radios, standard transistor radios, walkie-talkies, or handheld TVs — all generally battery-operated. If you have an amateur radio enthusiast in the family, you know that using handheld ham equipment during a power outage requires batteries.
Yet how many of us, outside the areas most frequently hit by hurricanes, stock up on batteries and then check to see if our supplies (a) match the items we intend them for and (b) still work? (Yes, batteries do expire eventually.)
And who on earth thought it was a good idea to have five major types of consumer batteries (AA, AAA, C, D and 9-volt) for flashlights and lanterns alone, each of which need to be stocked separately? And that’s not even counting book lights and penlights and the like, which often use button-cell batteries, which come in a bewildering array of types!
This year I packed for a camping trip and discovered that some of the flashlights in the house no longer worked (not because of batteries — they had bad connections or bulbs), and the ones that did didn’t necessarily match our batteries on hand (we were low on some types, overflowing with others). So I wound up making a fast run to a local pharmacy — more expensive, but there was no time to hit a big-box store and stock up at a discount — for the right batteries for each lighting tool. Next time we’ll know better.
Lesson one: check every battery-operated item in your house (at least the ones you hope to use in an emergency; unless you have kids, you can probably skip the GameBoys and PSPs) and write down how many batteries of each type each one uses. Use this list to construct your supply checklist.
Lesson two: find an inexpensive source, whether it’s a big-box store or an online supplier, and buy a whole lot of batteries at once.
Let’s also talk about items which don’t have standard consumer batteries but you might want to use when the power’s out, after a windstorm or similar event. These you’ll need to think about how to power when you don’t have working outlets (via the electric company or a generator), or at least how to live without:
- Cordless landline phones with base stations: substitute at least one old-style Ma Bell plug-into-the-phone-jack landline. If you don’t have one, they’re cheap; try buying one online or at a local electronics shack. (You don’t have to actually use it if you hate corded phones; just have it on a handy shelf somewhere for when you do need it.)
- Cordless drills for making repairs: these might run for only half an hour if fully charged (do this before the storm!), but since you only use them briefly, that might account for a fair bit of drilling before the battery runs out of juice.
- Cell phones, PDAs, and combinations (like the iPhone or Palm Pre): these can run off backup power supplies. Do you have one for your cell phone / PDA — solar, hand-crank, backup battery? If not, which would be the best type for you to purchase?
- Motorized wheelchairs or other mobility devices: have an extra battery on hand if you can afford it. (Apparently a car battery can be used in a pinch, but it won’t last as long.) If not, there are converters for some batteries that plug into a car’s lighter socket; see whether those are available for your model. Also, if possible, learn how to charge your chair or scooter battery using a jumper cable.
- Laptops: you might be able to run a laptop off a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for half an hour or more in a pinch, but if your laptop battery usually lasts only two or three hours, do you have a backup to swap in? If you might need to use your laptop during an extended outage, do you have a power pack capable of running it? Several vendors sell portable solar chargers, so that’s an option you may want to investigate.
If I’ve left out your particular battery concern, let me know, and we’ll discuss it in a future piece!
Good thoughts, Schelly 642-062. You have to wonder what The Generations Network thinks about the concept of consultation with the genealogy community 642-145. Apparently not much. Even if legal (an issue I’ll be exploring next week) 642-373, Ancestry’s actions represent a breach of trust with the rest of the community.
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