Last night we had a line of thunderstorms move through the area. You’ll get no complaint from me because we needed the rain. One hitch was that we lost electrical power just before sunset. Fortunately, I am a disaster preparation geek and my wife has caught the bug so we were ready.

The emergency lighting came on, the weather radio alerted us dutifully. We got out emergency kits out, along with some weather appropriate gear just in case then sat down to watch a movie on my laptop.

The big item was my uninterruptible power supply. It worked great with one small problem. It kept our telephones, computers, some LED lights and internet hardware running as it  should, but the device that shifts the load from the electrical grid to the batteries has an audible alarm to let everyone know that the unit is working when the power goes out. That alarm can’t be silenced. Annoying. Yes, I will be replacing that bit when time and budget allows.

Dinner was cooked on the grill before the storm to avoid heating up the house. I’m doubly happy because when the power went out the AC was off. Although the sun was down when things got interesting the outside temperature was 85F. The temp inside was 72F. We couldn’t open the windows because of the driving rain, so at bedtime the house had heated up to 78F. Some of you may know what a delicate flower I am, what with that pesky inability to tolerate heat, so sleep was looking unlikely. I could always have fled to the relative cool of my parents’ house, but that would be sacrificing another kind of cool. Instead, I connected a small electric fan to the battery array and pointed it at myself. It was a decent solution.

The power came back on a few hours later thank to the tireless efforts of our local utility company, peace be upon them. If that had not been the case, I’d have looked at using the generator to fire up some AC, a plan that I need to hammer out with an electrician.

All-in-all, it was a good shake out of the power loss plan.