We are ever increasingly depend on electrical power in today's world. What would you do if you were without power for a day? a week? a month? a year or more? We mostly take electricity for granted. Its always there when we flip the switch or plug in an appliance. But what if it weren't? Camping is a good time to explore our options for living "off the grid". Unless you always go to a campground with full hookups you'll be without commercial power in most camping situations.
Power outages are mostly of concern at home but you might experience a power outage while camping. If you are staying in a full hook-up campground the campground may lose power like you sometimes do at home. If you are boondocking, you might lose power if your generator conks out or you run out of fuel.
2013 brought a forecast for some the most powerful solar activity ever recorded. Fortunately, we seem to have made it through that one, but solar storms can occur anytime. A solar storm in 1859 pretty much knocked out the US telegraph system. The electromagentism was so strong some stations were able to still communicate after disconnecting their batteries and using only the ambient energy on the lines created by the electromagnetic storm. A similar size event today would disable the electric grid world wide. Transformers everywhere would be overloaded and burn up. It would take months or even years before replacements could be installed. The largest transformers aren't even made in the U.S. anymore and the places they are made only build about 7-8 per year. With 1200 in use, it would take years to get replacements if a significant number were damaged by a solar storm. There are increasing warnings that a terrorist organization might set off one or more EMP devices to disable the electrical grid and computer networks.
The ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP) associated with a major solar flare or Corona Mass Ejection on the sun could knock out anything with a computer or circuit board: cars and trucks with electronic ignition, phones, radios, TVs, the Internet. Some nuclear devices also generate significant EMPs, so a terrorist attack or a nuclear accident might disable the electric grid. The good news is that some testing indicates that "only" about 1/3 of cars with electronic ignition will be disabled. To be on the safe side, have a pre-1980 vehicle with a carbureted engine available. They should not be affected by an EMP. It makes sense that many electronically controlled cars wouldn't be affected by an EMP. One protection for an EMP is called a Faraday cage. It is a metal box or wire cage that surrounds sensitive electronic equipment to shield it from an EMP. Since most cars are made primarily of sheet metal, it seems to me that the body of the car should be a fairly effective Faraday cage, but those with significant plastic or fiberglass body components (Corvettes, Saturns, and RVs for example) would be more vulnerable.
There are rumors of threats of an EMP attack by both ISIS and Russia. A single device detonated 20 miles over the middle of the United States would pretty much wipe out all electronics in North America. That wold mean no Internet, no cell phones, no land lines, no TV, no radio, no electricity, and would probably affect many of the cars made since 1980, although the metal sheeting of most cars may act as a Farraday Cage to protect the electronics inside. Sorry, fiberglass cars like Saturns and Corvettes may not fare as well.
How would you live for an extended time without electricity? Food in refrigerators and freezers would go bad in a day or two. Entertainment and information systems would be useless. The fan for your furnace wouldn't work nor would there be power for its ignition system. This is where having an RV would come in very handy. Not only could you move into your RV with its self-contained systems temporarily, you may be able to power critical appliances in your home from your RV generator. That's assuming your RV systems aren't disrupted by the EMP. You may be able to connect your RV dump hose to a sewer cleanout at your home to avoid frequent trips to the dump station. In order for this to be a practical solution you first need to know where such a cleanout is located and then make sure you can get close enough to it with your RV to use it -- and how to open it. An alternative might be to purchase a macerator system to pump sewage through a 1" hose into your toilet or some other accessible drain opening. Keeping your RV ready for use (full fuel (propane and motor fuel), empty holding tanks, full fresh water tank) gives you an immediate buffer against just about any emergency at home. You may have to find an auxiliary source of fresh water if your residential water supply isn't working. Some electronically controlled appliances(refrigerators, water heaters and furnaces) may be disabled by an EMP, so you may have to fall back to more primitive options. We have experience extended power outages twice since moving to McKenzie Bridge -- one due to a severe winter storm and another due to a forest fire. We used a portable generator to run the refrigerators several hours everyday and to operate a small room heater and the microwave on occasion. We had an electrician hook up a large generator to my Mom's house during an extended power outage. It ran the well pump so we had water and we could selectively optionally run things like the hot water heater, the heat pump, and the clothes dryer.
By the way, if you're going to be without power long enough for refrigerators and freezers to warm up, use the food from the refrigerator first, then the food from your freezer and save your canned goods for last. Food in a fridge will be safe for about 4 hours before temperatures being to rise above a safe level. A fully packed freezer might last 4 days. Dry ice can be used to keep fridges and freezers cooler longer if you can get some. Minimize opening refrigerated containers as much as possible to reduce warming
If you don't have an RV or your RV is disabled or unavailable your tent camping skills may still be useful in an emergency situation. You may have to use your tent for an emergency shelter. You can use your camp stove for cooking. If you've developed good "off-the grid" camping skills you should be able to survive camped in your own back yard for some time. Even in cold weather you may be more comfortable in your tent than in your house because the volume of air you need to warm will be far less. Camp cooking on a camp stove, BBQ, or campfire in your back yard may be your only way to fix hot meals. NEVER try to use a camp stove or a BBQ indoors, not even in your garage. We lost power one winter night just as we were fixing dinner. We moved the partially cooked meal out to the BBQ on the deck (after sweeping the snow away!) and finished our meal.
Power outages can be caused by lots of other things besides EMPs. Local power outages are often the result of a vehicle hitting a power pole or of a local transformer going bad or being hit by lightning. These usually only last a few hours. Wider-spread problems are created by strong winds, wildfires, floods, or ice storms that damage major power lines or by failures at power substations or even sometimes by planned maintenance. Shorted out lines can cause transformers to overload and fail. Regional failures are often attributed to mechanical problems within the electrical grid, such as a damaged generation station or substation or downed "feeder" lines from other power companies. Power failures can even be caused by over-use during peak hours. These most frequently occur in summer months when air conditioner use puts extreme loads on the grid. Sometimes the result is a "brown-out" when voltage drops and lights dim but in other cases the overloads can burn up transformers or other equipment. When there is a major power outage, urban areas will probably be restored first because of the higher population and the concentration of emergency services facilities such as hospitals, fire and police stations, and municipal utilities. The further you live from a large city, the longer it will probably be before your power is restored in a major outage. You could be on your own for weeks or even months in some rural locations. We were without power for two weeks following the Holiday Farm fire on the McKenzie River -- and without phone and Internet for months!
One hedge against a power outage is a home or portable generator. If you choose this option, make sure you know how to use it safely. You can't just wire it into your power panel. You can run individual appliances off of it using adequate extension cords as long as you don't exceed the maximum rating of the generator or the extension cord. Some sophisticated generator systems are designed to start automatically if commercial power goes out. These have to be properly wired through an automatic transfer switch, which should only be done by a licensed electrician. They are the most convenient -- and the most expensive. Portable generators like those used on construction sites can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. They tend to be somewhat noisy so you may not be able to use them 24 hours a day in a suburban environment. An old-fashioned, pull-start generator with a carbureted engine might be handy to have around in case of an EMP that could disable some newer models with electronic ignition. If you plan to use a portable generator to power part of your home during an emergency, be sure to check with a qualified electrician about how to hook it up correctly unless you just run extension cords to power critical appliances. If you hook it up to your house it must be connected so it doesn't feed back onto the electric grid. Not only would you be wasting your power, you would create a dangerous, even life-threatening situation for power company workers attempting to restore power. Most likely you would have to disconnect your panel entirely from the power company feed and then connect your generator. If you want to be able to do t that you will need a generator big enough to supply the same level of service you get from the power company -- or at least enough to run all the appliances you will need during a power outage. A typical residence has a 100 or 200 amp service. That would mean a 12,000 or 24,000 watt generator and they are large, expensive, and use a lot of fuel. We got by at my Mom's house during the Holiday Farm fire using a 9,000 watt generator by using appliances selectively.
Uninterruptable Power Sources (UPS) are useful for protecting your computers and other sensitive electronic equipment. They have a battery that provides power for a few minutes, usually enough for you to safely shut down your computers instead of having them crash when the power fails. If the size of the UPS is sufficient for the equipment attached to it you should have time to reconnect to your portable generator if necessary before you run out of back up power. In addition to providing back up power, UPS units also 'filter' the power to prevent spikes and short outages from affecting your equipment.
Wind and solar power is another option. Permanently installed wind or solar electrical generation systems are highly technical and quite expensive. Solar panels are sometimes a good option for maintaining RV batteries. Anytime you generate your own power at home, special care and connections to the electric grid are needed to you don't feed power back onto the grid and possible kill someone when the power company is working on it. I had a 10KW wind turbine in my back yard for several years in a previous residence. In a major power outage it could have provided all the power I needed for my well and basic residential needs. However, it had an interconnect switch that prevented it from powering my home or feeding back to the power company when the power company feed wasn't active. To use it in an emergency I would have had to disconnect the feed from the power company and temporarily substitute power from a portable generator to power the switch. If you choose to install backup electrical generating systems for your home or vacation cabin be sure you understand how it is connected and how to use it safely.
What about power outages in camp? If you're staying in a developed campground you might lose power due to a local problem, such as a car accident that takes out a power pole or a failed transformer or just a malfunction of the parks power distribution grid. An all too common cause of loss of power in a campground is getting unplugged from the campground receptacle. Sometimes, if the plug wasn't seated properly, it may work loose and fall out. Or someone might trip over the power cable and yank it out. Occasionally they are disconnected by person with mischevious or malicious intent. Always check to make sure your power cord is correctly connected before assuming the power is out. If the power is out you should be able to fall back on your on board generator, at least during daylight hours. "Quiet time" generator restrictions might be lifted or modified during a power outage. A power outage when boonbocking is likely to be one of your own making. The most common problems are associated with either running out of fuel or poor generator maintenance. Most generators are designed to shut down when the oil gets low instead of ruining the engine. A clogged air filter or dirty or badly adjusted carburetor could also shut you down. In that case you can probably survive on battery power for a day or so, hopefully giving you time to correct the mechanical problem. Having solar panels to get power from the sun will give you an added buffer against generator problems in camp.
Power up!
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