What is the one thing in your emergency kit you ACTUALLY used during a power outage?
With storm season ramping up — my sister in San Diego is watching Tropical Storm Rachel roll in this weekend and it has me rethinking my own prep — I am building a small emergency kit instead of panic-buying off an Amazon checklist. For anyone who has sat through a real multi-hour outage: what was the one item you kept reaching for that was NOT on any top-10 list?
1 answer
- A headlamp and a USB lantern
Our power was out for 9 hours last winter and the thing I grabbed constantly was a headlamp. Sounds silly, but candles freak me out and phone flashlights drain the battery you need for actual communication. The $40 lantern we bought afterward has a USB port that charged our phones twice. Checklists say water and batteries — nobody warns you how much you will miss having both hands free.