Ask Lemmy

I can probably survive as long as water is available. I assume, heating (gas) will fail, but then the house temperature will only drop slowly and a sleeping bag with some blankets should keep us alive. Food? Tough, I don't keep much food and most of what i have is refrigerated. But then things don't spoil instantly. I would first eat what's in the fridge, then from the freezer, then whatever is kept at room temperature.

I guess two weeks. The real problem is all the other people and no functioning police, fire brigade, ambulance. I don't grow my own food or hunt, so this will be practical problem, but I'm more afraid of all the other people who are also desperate.

I will eat my neighbors raw if I have to.

I'm literally dead in about a week. All of my heating, cooking, and refrigeration are electric, and I have no backup supply or the means to safely add a backup. So I'd have no food, very little water, and I'd freeze to death.

I have a fireplace, a spring, and laying hens. I'd be fine, just incredibly bored.

We live in a large straw bale house in the country. We have a generator (and a dozen large gas cans which we rotate by filling our van then refilling the gas cans) which runs all the lighting circuits, the fridge and freeer, our propane in-floor radiant heat, water well, and our propane tanlkess DHW. We also have a wood stove in the center of the house that we can use to heat the house very effectively and more than a winter's worth of good, dry hardwood in an enclosed wood shed. We have ample supplies of food and other necessities.

Durign major weather events we leave our front door unlocked and our friends and neighbors know that they can come, bringing bedding and just find an open couch or floor space.

We'll be fine for a good long while

My family probably wouldn't make it past 3 weeks. We are dependent on rechargeable electronic insulin pumps. Pumps last 3-5 days. Can be recharged on a laptop, maybe 2-3 times. Can recharge in the car a few times. Our real problem is no food.

As Hurricane Helene recently reminded me, pretty much nobody is prepared. Even the people/my family members who like to think they're prepared. Nope. Didn't really help.

Got an old wood stove that's not really in use, but could be used for heat and cooking. Not entirely sure if could get dry wood quickly, but it probably get it to burn. I've done many a campfire with freshly collected wood.

I'm also vegan, so most of my protein sources are legumes, which are either canned or dried, ie shelf stable. I buy those as well as rice and other shelf stable things in bulk because there's only the tiniest little shop nearby and i try to stock up whenever I get to borrow a car. What I currently have would probably last me a month of normal eating, so i guess like two if i ration.

If I can shop for things, I could go on indefinitely. Thinking about it, it sounds kind of nice to literally not be able to work on my thesis and get to read and draw a bunch.

Did two weeks after Helene. Generators, UPSs, and self-hosted services kept us entertained and the security cams powered up. There was some rationing for three or four days until the gas stations got power but we were ready. By the second day we were running the air conditioner at night to sleep and didn't miss any football games on tv.

I've got 5000w worth of generators, two wood stoves, water heater and stove are gas, and we have about three months worth of food in feezers/pantry (we stocked up right before covid lockdowns and have kept up with it since). We would probably be good for a while, but we have a lot of family in the area that would shorten that by a bunch.

Been there, done that. I am currently in the home I inherited from my grandfather, and so I have a lot of old-fashioned things like a gas stove and a non-electric refrigerator. Only communication would be any issue.

Used to love losing power during ice storms as a kid. Sure, I couldn't play Bassin's Black Bass on SNES, but my dad would stoke the fireplace and light up the extremely dangerous kerosine heater that smelled fucking awesome. Then we would chill with my mom on the couch and read Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

That kerosine heater never did blow the family up..

Solar power on the roof, powerwall battery backup, and 3100 gallons of rainwater. All electric appliances here. We could go weeks without power.

Probably indefinitely, as long as there was food and a source of unfrozen water that can be purified. I've gone camping in temperatures down past -20f for days on end. The cold sucks, but will not kill you as long as you're dressed for it, have a sleep system/shelter to keep you warm, and have enough food to fuel your body. Fuel/fire is downright luxurious in the cold, but not strictly necessary unless you have inadequate insulation from the cold and your body can't keep up with the heat loss.

No problem, happens all the time here. We have had "loadshedding" and random outages for years, so we are well prepared. All the lights in the house is solar, and I have two solar charged power banks (2kw units) for the computers and fridge (if required, the fridge can last two days or so without power, but this is only a problem on overcast days, which is not too often here (South Africa, near Hammanskraal)) recently we have been without water for days at a time, but for that I have 5000 liters of water and solar pressure pump, gas geyser in one of the bathrooms.

Former communist country, business as usual even though it's been a while since.

I have a wood burning stove with peltier device powered fans to distribute the heat.

It gets hot enough to boil water so I can cook on it.

And I have about 4 days worth of continuous fire firewood.

So assuming that I couldn't just hop in the car and drive somewhere else I guess I would be okay for about 4 days.

You'd hear me shout, "again?! Damn it".

I got a bunch of antique lamps and a wood fired stove. I also got a generator for the fridge and freezer. So I'll be fine until the cannibals come knocking. If the town runs out of gas I'll just cook everything and invite everyone.

Our generator will kick in within 30 seconds automatically, and has enough fuel to run the entire house for about 2 weeks.

I live in a pretty dense urban center (São Paulo), so I just guess the emergency departments on the city are going to take care of us while the energy come back. I have the privilege to live in one of the nicest neighborhoods here, so our infrastructures is well maintained.

About a month. We have a supply of water and since it’s winter stuff will stay frozen because I can put it outside in the shed. Plenty of wood to cook over. But after a month I’m screwed on that end. I do have a natural gas tank for a grill but the grill doesn’t work. So if I can find a grill to use that will extend my time.

The only problem: toilet. Not sure if water can keep going if there is no power at the water plant and water treatment plant. Maybe they run by solar.

Heating the house. There is a way to use the wood to heat the house. But it won’t be pretty. I don’t need to heat the whole house. Just a part of it.

I'm living in an apartment on the 8th floor. Heating is geothermal heating (from a big geothermal plant owned by the city I live in). So no heating in winter. My second worry would be the food spoiling in the freezer. I'd probably move everything down into the car to drive to my family's place (that's a bit of work, 8th floor, no elevator) and then notice that my car is trapped inside the garage below our apartment block due to the electric garage doors not opening. I'd probably get some help from other people in the house opening them by hand (might involve dismounting of the electronics box).

In other words, in case of a longer city-wide outage I'm screwed.

In case it's a shorter one and my electric window blinds in the bedroom are still closed, I wouldn't worry and find someone to screw.

Depends if we can shop. We've got a couple weeks of canned food longer in rice and pasta and a gas hob so cooking isn't a problem. Could work through the fridge and freezer in a week before it all went off. Got plenty of books, boardgames and camping gear so we'd be able to keep warm and entertained. I need to get some more solar options ideally some big panels for the roof. Our heating is gas but I suspect that it wouldn't work without electricity. Luckily our living room has a gas fire.

Probably pretty long. There’s plenty of wood and propane, dry food, and salt to preserve things.

Got a gas stove, gas water heating and hybrid car. Could probably survive indefinitely assuming I can still shop, if I can't then I would die even with electricity. Hell, i would be forced to finally revive my reading habits and work on my book backlog, maybe it would be a little good.

The longest power outage I've ever done was 2 weeks. The town kept the water and sewer going, we kept warm with a kerosene heater. My current house has a natural gas heater. I don't keep like gallons of water stored up but I have a camp stove and a gas grill, I can cook if I need to, and we have three vehicles fueled and ready.

I'm prepared for basically any natural disaster that leaves the state government in power. If it's so bad that the governor isn't around to give a press conference than I'm either also already dead or I'm going to be the guy that flies an F/A-18 into the alien's superlaser.

Long enough to where if power hasn't come back by then, it's not coming back at all. And at that point, power isn't going to be the biggest problem.

Water heater holds ~40 gallons and that's easily drainable. Worse comes to worst, there's a creek at the back of my property.

It is less than a day until my home becomes unusable. I need the heating every day because it is winter. The heating runs on gas, but it also needs electricity.

This cannot kill me because the car is still working and the next town is only 10 minutes away.

Power outages around here are very rare, and usually shorter than 6 hours.

I’ll be ok for a bit. My chest freezer will be good for several days, and my family room has a gas heater that doesn’t need electrical. Also gas stove top doesn’t need electrical, and I have a propane grill so cooking is set. For entertainment, I have books on kindle that should be good a couple weeks

Fridge, car, phone good for a day or so until batteries are used up - do we still have cell service? I’d try digging out my camping gear but hopefully didn’t leave fuel with that.

We have excellent power reliability here. I don’t think it’s gone more than 2 hours in the last 20 years