While some parts of the country might be accustomed to rolling blackouts, others have never experienced them. The powers-that-be have told us to expect them this summer, especially in certain parts of the country (see These States are Most Likely to Get Blackouts This Summer. Here’s How to Prepare). Whether you think the need is legitimate or simply a desire to further demoralize and terrorize American citizens, I think the best course of action is to assume they are coming and prepare accordingly.
We live in a place normally without rolling blackouts (Michigan). We are, however, in the target zone for them this summer. Since we are self-employed at home and homeschool, we are home almost all the time. Potentially losing power for hours at a time throughout the summer will disrupt our daily life. The loss of the air conditioner is most concerning to me.
(Did you ever think we would be discussing having our power deliberately cut across the United States? Yet here we are.)
For the past week I’ve been trying to think through what we need to do around our house to prepare for no power for several hours at a time during the heat of summer. (Given a choice, I would rather experience rolling blackouts in the winter, but it’s not up to me.)
For example, we have an unfinished basement that stays quite cool. That is probably where we will spend the time if it is hot when it happens. However, it is not currently set up for the three of us to spend many hours down there being productive and/or passing the time. So my goal this week is to make sure we can get through a blackout as pleasantly as possible.
Helpful Rolling Blackout Resources
I did a few searches to see if there were articles that might think of things I missed. Here are a few. Each one offers something helpful including a few insights I had not thought of. Each link is worth at least a skim to see what applies to your particular situation.
- An overview with suggestions: Rolling Blackouts, Explained
- A thorough guide: A Guide to Rolling Blackouts & How to Stop Them Disrupting Your Life
- Focused on winter, but still good tips: 10 Tips to Survive a Blackout
- Tips for those who live a rural lifestyle: How To Prepare For Rolling Blackouts and Power Outages
- An old but helpful PDF offered by the city of Hillsboro: Power Outages and Rolling Blackouts.
- A power company in Texas provides a few basic tips in this post: Preparing For Rolling Blackouts: Texas Tips For Your Home Without Electricity.
One area not really covered in those articles is how to prepare your children for this. Changes in routine can be very difficult for some children. While making your plans, think specifically about how to keep your toddler, spirited child, and/or anxious child on an even keel.
I’d like to also ask readers who are accustomed to rolling blackouts to share what you’ve learned through your experience. Please leave a comment because you can definitely help others by sharing your hard-earned experience.
Hi Sallie,
We don’t suffer rolling black outs in Quebec but the humidity in the south of the Province can be very uncomfortable. We have a basement in our house as well. The early morning tends to be the coolest part of our day so we close the window and turn on a couple of large fans. When the heat of the day hits the basement is the answer. However, the longer you stay the more your body heat will warm the area. Best to stay long enough to cool off then leave. Try to keep the cool for sleeping. This is what we did in May during a freak heat wave and it worked. We closed all the windows in the house in the morning and it stayed reasonable for most of the day….Tom
It looks like Ohio might be okay. Probably because we had a major grid failure in 2003 that affected a tri state area. We were told at the time that our power grid had been in dire need of an update.
What you said about blackouts in the Winter being preferable for you made me wonder because you never hear about them in the Winter at all. I would think that places like the Dakotas would be in danger of them because of the extreme cold temps there in the Winter. Why does extra air conditioner use cause rolling blackouts, but extra furnace use not cause them? Oh well, I guess you’re right, better to prepare for them no matter what the reason behind them.
The idea of rolling blackouts in summer terrifies me we’ve had a week of over 100 degrees, I can’t imagine what that would be like with no power and AC.