Be Prepared for an Electrical Outage

For Oklahomans dealing with winter weather and severe storms can be a pretty regular occurrence. Some aren't always ready when the electricity goes out. But there are some ways to make sure you're prepared and out of the dark.

Thursday, December 31st 2009, 5:23 pm

By: News 9

By Joel Craig, NEWS 9 Contributor

OKLAHOMA CITY -- For Oklahomans dealing with winter weather and severe storms can be a pretty regular occurrence. Some aren't always ready when the electricity goes out. But there are some ways to make sure you're prepared and out of the dark.

Have fluorescent lanterns on hand. Lanterns run for hours on batteries and throw more area light than a plain flashlight. There are newer lanterns that use LEDs but their light output just isn't the same. This also goes for LED flashlights.

LED lights are neat technology but may not be quite ready for prime time emergency use. Use Alkaline batteries, they last longer than heavy duty ones and don't cost that much more. Plus today's Alkalines have an eight to 10 year shelf life. Most store branded batteries are made by one of the biggies in the batteries business.

A battery powered radio is a must and it needs to use regular batteries you can replace when they die. Since the switch to digital TV the only small battery operated TVs I've seen use built-in rechargeable batteries and if the power is out you can't recharge to continue watching TV. For your cell phone get an extra battery and keep it charged.

For your home phone be sure you have at least one phone that is a regular old wired telephone. Cordless phones are very convenient but when the power goes out cordless phones stop working. The battery in the phone may be charged but the base runs on AC. Wired phones get their power from the phone line.

And if your power does go out unplug your electronics. Most of today's electronics like TVs and computers are always on. Even when you think you've turned them off they are really in a standby mode. When the power comes back on that jolt of electricity can damage the electronics either immediately or in the future by weakening the components inside.

Even if you have them connected to a surge protector the protector can only handle a limited number of hits before it fails. It's a lot less trouble to unplug your products then to replace them.