This might be a post that is a little bit more boring...no pictures to follow but totally blog worthy! I wanted to remember this so I don't make this mistake when something worse happens here in wonderful San Diego!
What do you do when the power in goes out? I mean BLACK OUT from southern OC to parts in Mexico. Well you don't want to do what I did...lock yourself out of the house during the HOTTEST day of the summer in SD. Haha a laughing matter now but not to funny then. It was such a crazy day but I had wished I was more prepared because it would have been much easier. Now I have a goal to make a 72 hour kit for Dave and I, and get a spare key!
The power went our around 3:30 and I was in the middle of a phone call when my cell phone shut off and the lights went out. I called Dave with little reception and he was out in Vista at one of the salons and said the power went out there also. Sheesh, that is 30 mins away and I had no Internet, no cell phone, or TV and no idea if it was just our area or a bigger area. At that point it knew it was pretty big for how far away he was. I saw my neighbors coming outside and walked out my front door on to my porch to talk to one of them. Well dumb idea...because at that point I went to go open my door to go back inside and guess what...LOCKED. Nice...real nice! I was lucky I had my phone on me...right, well cell phones didn't have a lot of service cause I guess the lines were all backed up from everyone making calls. I had no way of getting a hold of Dave to let him know I was locked out and to SAVE me because the Internet didn't work either. GREAT... I ended up sitting outside in the hottest day of the year for 1 & 1/2 hrs until I received a text message from Dave that he was coming home. Hallelujah! Then he proceeds to tell me that its going to take him longer to get home because since the power was out all the traffic lights were out and it was CHAOS! What normally would have taken 30 mins took him 1hr 30mins to get home. If you count that I was out there for almost 3 hours haha just sitting on the chair waiting with a dead cell phone! On any other day Dave would have been at his office 15 mins away, I probably could have called him on a cell phone that had service and maybe waited 20 mins outside. I WILL now have a spare key for my house outside!
When I got in the house I was kind of scrambling to find the flashlights candles, and the lantern because it was getting dark and still had no power. At this time it was 6ish. For dinner we had a delicious meal of PB & J. Our stove is also electric so that was a no go on cooking anything! I keep thinking what if...the power does not come on for a few days? I was seriously SO not prepared. We also have no land line and never really thought about getting one cause why do we need one? Well my cell phone was all ready dead. Dave's had a lil charge but thank heavens the laptops had a full battery charge because we plugged our phones in there and sucked the battery dry to charge our cell phones. I didn't realize how much I need electricity for everything we do. Dave and I had no idea what to do that night haha. We ended up camping in the bedroom and watched a movie on the other laptop that had a charge hoping for the power to come on. It did eventually come on at 3:30 that next morning luckily, but I really am going to be prepared and get my emergency kit together ASAP. We learned our lesson real quick. We did end up having to throw away some food in the fridge but not as bad as I thought. The freezer stayed cold so nothing was ruined in there. Luckily!
Sidenote: The stake president asked our stake a couple weeks to make sure we have 72 hour kits by October. So weird that the black out happened cause now I think everyone is not taking that lightly. I was asked to make a reminder poster about the 72 hour kits. This helped me also learn what needs to be in the kits and get a lil more motivated to get going on them. Now I got called to be apart of the Emergency preparedness committee...so funny how things work out. :)
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