How to save electricity and life in hurricane?

[maketheone]

“Harvey” hurricane struck the southeast Texas few days ago and “Irma” just came on its heels. The desperate residents in the city are still struggling with food and water ahead of the severe flooding. How to help the city back to normal is the cardinal task for Houston Mayor and also the rest of the world. After flood, electricity system was paralyzed, so how to get electricity power may be the most important to keep everything continue to go at the moment.

The first thing I think of is power inverter. I have one 300W power inverter in my car. I remembered once upon the time when I went out for business in a remote area where the power failed suddenly. Then I think of my 300W power inverter and quick connect with car battery and charge my cellphone because I had to make an important call only to find my phone battery was drained. thanks to the power inverter, I finally made the phone call in time.

After that I learnt more about power inverter and know that power inverters are so functional. It can be used in many areas. Different watts ranging from 75W to 2000W or more can be found online. Different models are suitable for different applications. Come back to the Hayvey hurricane, how to use power inverter to save electronics and even life? I just concluded the following few points:
1. to charge appliances to help affected resident to fight against starvation.
2. to help recover communication like cellphones and other communication devices.
3. to provide lighting at night
4. to help recover shipping channel
5. to keep medical equipment on the go.

200W to 300W power inverters are suitable for small electronic devices like cellphones, tablets, LED bulbs. 1000W, 2000W and higher power inverters are perfect for shipping, cooking, transportation, etc.

Electricity failure happens after a natural disaster, but don't worry. The government and the rest of the world will help you out form the suffering as soon as possible. At the same time, we can help ourselves to bring life back to normal. The power inverter is perfect for emergency.

Best wishes to affected residents.

 

[maflynn]

Power inverters may help for the short term, but other actions have longer better options then running your car in your drive way for hours on end. As an example, Stocking up on non-perishable items, you then don't have to worry about your food going bad in the fridge.

1. to charge appliances to help affected resident to fight against starvation.
2. to help recover communication like cellphones and other communication devices.
3. to provide lighting at night
4. to help recover shipping channel
5. to keep medical equipment on the go.

I would say if you need to have your house powered or If you want to keep your fridge and/or other appliances, especially for more then a few hours, then an inverter won't cut the mustard, but rather a backup generator is the answer.

I'm not sure how a power inverter running from your car will help recover the shipping channel

 

[MacNut]

The only solution is a stand by generator. Properly installed.

 

[0388631]

I've got a large standby. It's great. However, as someone stated in another thread, in a flood it would die unless it's elevated above water. These things weigh a lot, so that isn't possible. Or maybe it is but I never saw such plans when we got ours. We live out west, where we don't experience flooding. Rain is rare. So rare that some people (see:insane people) dance like shamans during the initial winter rains. I ran the generator for three nights last week when the weather was very hot and humid outside at night. I could have used power, but I figured it was best to conserve power. Rolling blackouts are rarely used here by utility companies or private municipal ones, but it's happened in the past. Plus, there is that one dumbass that lets a foil balloon fly into power lines during the summer.

 

[AlliFlowers]

Make sure you have enough of your medications to last 2-3 weeks.
Fill bathtubs (for flushing toilets)
Keep non-perishables stored, bottled water, soft drinks, pop-tarts, breakfast bars, etc.
Get a grill, charcoal or propane. The grill was my coffee pot for days after Katrina.

It's too late to have a generator installed. Some places won't even have any gennys left in stock.

If you are fortunate enough to have a portable genny, make sure you have plenty of fuel. Remember that gas stations will be closed, possibly for days, and lines will be long. (Another reason that using a power inverter in your car is only a last term resort.)

Have a mop and a bottle of bleach on hand for cleanup.

 

[maflynn]

It's too late to have a generator installed. Some places won't even have any gennys left in stock.

They tend to run out several days (weeks?) before the storm. Once it looks like a major storm is on its ways, you only have hours to rush to a big box store and get a portable generator. I've seen it happen here in Mass.

 

[Tomorrow]

Maintaining power during and after a major storm is, for most people, a matter of convenience and not necessity. In your home, the average person doesn't need electricity from a life safety perspective. The more pressing needs are an intact building envelope for shelter, clean drinking water, non-perishable food, etc. - none of which need power.

I get that there are people who have medical equipment or whatever that requires electricity. And certainly there are commercial and medical facilities which would benefit from emergency power. But the typical household doesn't need it from a safety standpoint, only for convenience.

 

[Huntn]

“Harvey” hurricane struck the southeast Texas few days ago and “Irma” just came on its heels. The desperate residents in the city are still struggling with food and water ahead of the severe flooding. How to help the city back to normal is the cardinal task for Houston Mayor and also the rest of the world. After flood, electricity system was paralyzed, so how to get electricity power may be the most important to keep everything continue to go at the moment.

The first thing I think of is power inverter. I have one 300W power inverter in my car. I remembered once upon the time when I went out for business in a remote area where the power failed suddenly. Then I think of my 300W power inverter and quick connect with car battery and charge my cellphone because I had to make an important call only to find my phone battery was drained. thanks to the power inverter, I finally made the phone call in time.

After that I learnt more about power inverter and know that power inverters are so functional. It can be used in many areas. Different watts ranging from 75W to 2000W or more can be found online. Different models are suitable for different applications. Come back to the Hayvey hurricane, how to use power inverter to save electronics and even life? I just concluded the following few points:
1. to charge appliances to help affected resident to fight against starvation.
2. to help recover communication like cellphones and other communication devices.
3. to provide lighting at night
4. to help recover shipping channel
5. to keep medical equipment on the go.

200W to 300W power inverters are suitable for small electronic devices like cellphones, tablets, LED bulbs. 1000W, 2000W and higher power inverters are perfect for shipping, cooking, transportation, etc.

Electricity failure happens after a natural disaster, but don't worry. The government and the rest of the world will help you out form the suffering as soon as possible. At the same time, we can help ourselves to bring life back to normal. The power inverter is perfect for emergency.

Best wishes to affected residents.

Do inverters store electricity like a battery or require a power source?

My impression:

• With the caveat of your house not flooding, a permanent built in natural gas powered generator is the first, but most expensive choice- $5-10k depending.
• Second choice is a 700w portable generator that costs $6-800, but requires gasoline, lots of gas to run, 10-15 gallons per day. You might have to stock 50 gallons of water. Again, both of these options are based on having a house you can still live in and you desire to have a working fridge and possibly cool one room after the storm until power is restored
• Otherwise for survival, flashlights, a gun (yes I said gun ) and for worst case, enough canned food to last a week or two and several cases of water. Having a working phone may or may not be valuable depending on the State of the infastructure around you.

In the case of Harvey, most of people who left their homes, had varying amount of water in them, making the dwelling uninhabitable, so for those cases, having a generator is nonconsequential, most likely a waste of money. I believe metropolitan areas know every neighborhood likely to flood, and this places need to have procedures in place to evacuate based on anticipated weather.

 

[ActionableMango]

Do inverters store electricity like a battery or require a power source?

It sounds like OP is talking about an automotive inverter, which converts a 12VDC power source to 110AC and is usually connected to the car battery via a cigarette lighter adapter or battery clamps. Its purpose is to run equipment that requires AC from a DC source like a car battery.

OP doesn't really make any sense to me. Most people would just charge their phones from the 12VDC power source with a USB adapter. If you invert the DC to AC, you then have to use an AC to DC adapter to get back to DC to charge the phone. It's overly complicated and wastes the battery through inefficiencies.

I also don't understand how a power inverter helps shipping and transportation. Overall it was a strange post, although his/her heart is in the right place.

 

[maflynn]

In the case of Harvey, most of people who left their homes, had varying amount of water in them, making the dwelling uninhabitable, so for those cases, having a generator is nonconsequential

Hurricanes are such, that typically its the storm surge that causes issues, so while the power maybe disrupted due to the wind, the house as you mentioned is uninhabitable due to the storm surge.

I live on the coast (literally 1 mile from the beach) and while I can certainly invest in a generator, I think the odds of being evacuated then staying in my house.

I try to keep water stored for emergencies and I think ensuring you have a sufficient stock of non-perishable food items (and paper goods, like TP) then you can ride out the lack of power.

 

[StarShot]

I bought an 8KW generator a while back and had the circuit breaker panel adjusted to pick up some of the load to run the basic items in my house. The REAL way to go is to have a standby generator powered by natural gas that kicks in immediately. The big negative about gas generators is they burn a lot of gas. Mine burns 6 gallons for 8 hour at full load. Since gas stations requrie electricity to pump gas, if they lose power, you're out of business. One time I had to drive about 40 miles R/T to find a gas station that was open. At one time I had ten 6 gallon gas cans. Not a nice way to have to live.

In the famous Clinton Wind Storm back in Jan '93 (Seattle area), just as Clinton was about to be sworn in, we lost power for a week.

 

[D.T.]

Make sure you have enough of your medications to last 2-3 weeks.
Fill bathtubs (for flushing toilets)
Keep non-perishables stored, bottled water, soft drinks, pop-tarts, breakfast bars, etc.
Get a grill, charcoal or propane. The grill was my coffee pot for days after Katrina.

It's too late to have a generator installed. Some places won't even have any gennys left in stock.

If you are fortunate enough to have a portable genny, make sure you have plenty of fuel. Remember that gas stations will be closed, possibly for days, and lines will be long. (Another reason that using a power inverter in your car is only a last term resort.)

Have a mop and a bottle of bleach on hand for cleanup.

Great post, right on!

But the typical household doesn't need it from a safety standpoint, only for convenience.

The heat, the terrible heat!

Second choice is a 700w portable generator that costs $6-800, but requires gasoline, lots of gas to run, 10-15 gallons per day. You might have to stock 50 gallons of water. Again, both of these options are based on .

We've got a 5550 watt (~8500w starting) portable, runs about 10 hours per 5 gal, full, plus an extra 12+ gal available - uses an outlet octopus providing 4 plugs, we run extensions into the house, provide some power for portable AC, fans, fridge, keep devices charged for communication.

Overall it was a strange post, although the heart is in the right place.

I think a little "language/culture" difference, but agree that any positive sentiments are appreciated

 

[Huntn]

I bought an 8KW generator a while back and had the circuit breaker panel adjusted to pick up some of the load to run the basic items in my house. The REAL way to go is to have a standby generator powered by natural gas that kicks in immediately. The big negative about gas generators is they burn a lot of gas. Mine burns 6 gallons for 8 hour at full load. Since gas stations requrie electricity to pump gas, if they lose power, you're out of business. One time I had to drive about 40 miles R/T to find a gas station that was open. At one time I had ten 6 gallon gas cans. Not a nice way to have to live.

In the famous Clinton Wind Storm back in Jan '93 (Seattle area), just as Clinton was about to be sworn in, we lost power for a week.

That's the deal with a portable generator, you have to prestock a lot of gasoline.

 

[ActionableMango]

The REAL way to go is to have a standby generator powered by natural gas that kicks in immediately.

I think a natural gas generator is perfect for mundane electrical outages caused by winter wind storms, and auto-starting is nice if you frequently need it. But this thread is about cataclysmic natural disasters.

The big threat in your area is the overdue mega-quake from the Cascadia Fault. Almost certainly natural gas lines will be broken. Not to mention that all the earthquake valves will purposely trip closed in order to prevent gas leak fires. So even if gas lines aren't broken, you won't have natural gas service until lines are checked and the earthquake valves are manually reopened. Of course this may never happen in our lifetime.

 

[Huntn]

Great post, right on!




The heat, the terrible heat!




We've got a 5550 watt (~8500w starting) portable, runs about 10 hours per 5 gal, full, plus an extra 12+ gal available - uses an outlet octopus providing 4 plugs, we run extensions into the house, provide some power for portable AC, fans, fridge, keep devices charged for communication.




I think a little "language/culture" difference, but agree that any positive sentiments are appreciated

1/2 gallon per hour sounds terrific compared to what I've read. Is it a Honda generator? That's exactly why I'd want one, power the fridge and a small window ac unit to cool the bedroom.

 

[D.T.]

1/2 gallon per hour sounds terrific compared to what I've read. Is it a Honda generator? That's exactly why I'd want one, power the fridge and a small window ac unit to cool the bedroom.

Briggs and Stratton.

It was flooded with ~1-1/2 feet of water back in Oct '16, emptied out the water, fired up, still running almost a year later, can't say enough good things about it.

Has big, inflatable tires so it's also pretty easy to get it anywhere.

 

[Huntn]

Briggs and Stratton.

It was flooded with ~1-1/2 feet of water back in Oct '16, emptied out the water, fired up, still running almost a year later, can't say enough good things about it.

Has big, inflatable tires so it's also pretty easy to get it anywhere.

Got a pic or a link?

 

[D.T.]

Got a pic or a link?

Several years old, it's not even made anymore, I'm assuming any modern B&S generator would be just as solid. There's a model up from this, 6250 watts, electric start, about $800 from various sources.

I mean, I can post a REAL pic if you want

 

[AlliFlowers]

Great post, right on!

I speak from experience. I managed PODs after Katrina and Ivan. I know exactly what people need before, during, and after.

Of course, my own Generac has been broken for a while. Someone is coming next week to take a look. The last three guys couldn't fix it. I think we're going to spend as much getting it fixed as if we'd purchased a new one.

 

[Huntn]

Several years old, it's not even made anymore, I'm assuming any modern B&S generator would be just as solid. There's a model up from this, 6250 watts, electric start, about $800 from various sources.

I mean, I can post a REAL pic if you want

I looked at generators a year or two ago and I don't remember big fat tires. That's what piqued my interest.

 

[0388631]

non-perishable food items

Do you guys still rely on hardtack biscuits to ride out harsh weather?

 

[jeyf]

try something like a Kipor ig2000
will do 10-15 amps at 120vac,
its a a gas generator with an inverter output, great for sensitive electronic gear
real super duper quiet and portable, weight <50lbs, rated for long run times
looks like an over sized lunch box, enclosed in plastic for quiet operation
you can link two together

toxic; must run in a totally ventilated situation

There is a Honda++ equivalent, better expensive

i used to track a sportbike, the generator was for tire warmers
sorry scouts; for an average homeowner a generator is overkill

bigger better uses diesel