Seven Things I Plan to Buy Before the Next Hurricane

I live in North Carolina which means that for me, Hurricane Irene is already history. My husband and I spent a somewhat anxious week listening to the hype surrounding this storm, which didn't end up affecting our area as much as we feared it would. Having grown up in Virginia, I am used to hurricanes and as storms go, this one wasn't all that bad. But as the power flickered on and off all day yesterday, I did find myself thinking about the next storm and how we could weather it with more comfort and convenience. Here's a list of seven things I want to buy before the next hurricane strikes.

7. A solar or battery operated cell phone charger

Back in April, the area my husband and I live in was hit with a tornado and we endured a fairly long power outage. Consequently, our cell phones eventually ran out of battery power. My husband had a cell phone charger for the car that we tried to use, but we found that method fairly ineffective and wasteful, since we had to run our cars and burn gas. That makes me think that I'd like to have a cleaner and more convenient method for charging our phones. Although Amazon.com has several solar powered cell phone chargers for sale, quite a few of them get poor reviews. But I still want one. I figure it can't be less effective than the car charger was.

6. Data plan for our tablets

When the power goes out, so does our WiFi. We can access the Internet using our cell phones, but that eats up a lot of the battery. My husband and I both have tablets that, if we only paid a monthly subscription fee, would access 3G and allow us to use our cell phones for phone calls.

5. Camping stove

As I watched my husband trying to cook sausage and eggs on our gas grill yesterday, I couldn't help but think the process would have been simpler if we had invested in a small camping stove that can be operated indoors using propane. I used one of these stoves for two years when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Armenia. At that time, many people in Armenia got electricity for only a couple of hours a day; so the Peace Corps kindly supplied us volunteers with a two burner Coleman stove. I sure was missing that stove yesterday as my husband was cooking outside in the wind and rain!

4. A surge protector with battery backup

Although I was expecting Hurricane Irene to knock out our power all day, we only lost power for short stints in the morning and the late afternoon. However, we also had to deal with "one second" outages, meaning the power would go out just long enough to knock out our satellite television service and turn off my iMac. I have always preferred to use desktop computers, which don't typically have batteries in them. Consequently, when the power goes out-- even for a second-- I have to reboot. Most of the time, I have also lost whatever I was working on. Someone on Facebook recommended that I look into getting a surge protector with a battery backup function. I would still have to reboot, but I'd have the chance to finish or save my work on the computer before doing so.

3. A battery operated book light

Back in the early 1990s, I was a college student. My mom gave me an " Itty Bitty Book Light " for Christmas one year, thinking it would help me study or read in my dorm room without annoying my roommate who might want to sleep. Yesterday, as I was trying to read by flashlight, I wished I still had that little battery operated lamp that I could clip to the back of a book.

2. A large ice chest

My husband and I don't have kids, so it's never occurred to us to buy a large ice chest . We've just never needed one for the two of us. Though we were lucky enough not to have had to deal with a lengthy power outage yesterday, we have had to endure power outages in the past. We had several days warning before Hurricane Irene hit, which would have allowed us to prepare an ice chest with ice to help keep perishables cold in the event of a power outage. Granted, it's probable that we would not have been able to get or keep ice if disaster had really struck us hard, but a cooler full of ice could have bought us some time before our perishables were ruined.

1. A generator!

In advance of Irene, I actually considered buying a generator for our house. My husband balked at the price, which can run from a few hundred dollars for a modestly powered generator to a couple thousand dollars for a generator that can power a whole house. Generators can be noisy and require fuel to run, but they sure can make life more pleasant during a power outage.

I know I'm a wimp!

Power outages can be fun, right? I always thought they were when I was a little kid. But then I lived in Armenia for two years. At the time I lived in Armenia, people only got power for two or three hours a day. I remember reading books by kerosene lamp every night and having no refrigeration to speak of! That experience has pretty much obliterated any tolerance I used to have for power outages! Anyway, I don't know if I'll get all of these items before the next storm comes around, but I'm sure going to try.

Source

www.amazon.com