Learnings Reinforced by Power Outage

So, Super Bowl Sunday, family is gathered together, watching The Big Game. I'm not really a football fan (blasphemy!), but it's the Super Bowl, so we watch it as a matter of tradition each year. Around 2 minutes after the Black Eyed Peas finished their halftime show, the power clunks off. 

It was well after sunset, so it was predictably pitch black. I luckily had my trusty Surefire E1B tucked IWB (it lives there most of the time), so I was able to navigate through the house to get flashlights for the rest of the family. We have plenty of flashlights to go around, stashed in various places around the house. Within about a minute, everyone was armed with a flashlight.

After a while, it became apparent that it would be a bit of a wait before the power came back on. We lit some candles, put a movie on my iPhone for my son and then put on headlamps and settled in for some reading. After about two or so hours, the power came back on and it was business as usual.

A few thoughts that come to mind in retrospect:

• EDCing a flashlight can be a HUGE help.
• Headlamps rock for utility purposes. I need to upgrade my wife's headlamp--she has a cheap Energizer model that is already falling apart; I have a Petzl TacTikka Adapt that has been nothing be awesomeness.
• Lower powered LED lights are perfectly adequate for navigating the house; you don't need a high-powered $100 SureFire to do so.
• I need to consolidate some of our gear. Candles, LED camping lantern, flashlights and headlamps were all in different places. Not a big deal, but just some added running around the house to gather it all up.
• Peace of mind is a great thing. Power was only out for a few hours, but it was good to know that we had plenty of lights and weeks worth of batteries and other backup power on hand.
• Having something to entertain kids is a huge boon. My son was a little freaked out that it was dark and the light switches weren't working. Putting a movie on for him and having some games to play helped calm him down and keep him happy. This effect would only be multiplied in a real emergency.

Yes, we DID miss the rest of the Super Bowl, but the Packers were ahead by 11 or so when the power went out, so the end was no huge surprise. At least for us, the power outage was more eventful and entertaining than the last two quarters would have been.