No Power – How do we Manage – Luckily, it’s just a Power Cut

Well yesterday there was a power cut, not just a local power cut that affects your home but a total power cut that took everything off in town and the surrounding area.

Luckily it was only off for an hour and the weather was quite mild, because we haven’t had a power cut for quite a while and I can’t remember when everything was down.

So how did I manage, well to be honest okay, but it suddenly made me wonder how those that can’t live without social media and the internet would cope, plus the implications of no power in a wider context.

I had been clearing away the Christmas decorations, I know it was a day or so early, I’ll just have to live with any bad luck of taking them down before Twelfth Night, any how I went to get a shower, oh no, no power, no shower. We no longer have a bath so, I just had to stink, until the power came back on, that won’t be long, will it.

I know I’ll go and have a coffee, oh no you won’t. Okay lets get an update on why the powers off, hang on, the broadband router is off, no internet, that’s all right I’ll check on the mobile, but no.

No internet at all, power down to mobile antennas.

This suddenly made me think about, how long the power would be off and what was the repercussions:-

• No Heating
• No cooking
• No Shower
• No Washing
• No TV
• No computer. Laptop for an hour or so at most. (The battery is now crap and needs power most of the time)
• No Mobile Phone.  A day at most, before it needs charging, realistically though 12 hours
• No Banking
• No Amazon !!!
• No Shopping, how do you check out when the tills are down, and card readers don’t work.
• The list when you start thing about it is endless, well nearly….maybe I exaggerate.

Luckily this is the UK, realistically Northern PowerGrid are usually pretty effective at dealing with power issues, so no need to panic, which proved the case and therefore no big issues. But what if power was off for a while, a day, a few days, a week, a month.

What if what we rely on for almost everything in life, wasn’t there what would I do.

Well, I would have got in the car, plugged in the mobile and driven to one of the kids who had power and got on with life, for me relatively easy because of my circumstances.

Not so for most people, those with Jobs, kids, schooling, it suddenly is potentially far more of an issue.

What it did make me think though, was, what if Russians were deliberately targeting your power supply what if you were under attack what if it was deadly cold in the middle of winter.

We take for granted the things we have in life and its only when our own little world is affected do we even think of the consequences and then only about how it affects us.

We are so very selfish and live in a NIMBY world, but yesterday, I did for a short while, think of others, albeit only because it affected me……..