Marmanold.com

The last several days have been quite the event for the Arnold family and Nashville in general. Saturday¹ a winter storm rolled into Nashville. Saturday brought snow, sledding, and a lot of fun. Sunday, however, I awoke to the sound of crashing limbs and reports of power going out all over town.

I awoke the family and began preparing. Based off our experience in December of ’22, we expected 24 to 48 hours without power. We quickly showered, filled the bathtub with water, made thermoses of coffee², and pulled perishables for the next few meals out of the fridge and into a cooler to be left on the (below freezing) back patio.

As expected, at 6:50a on Sunday³ our power went out.

Now, I’m a Scout/Trailman⁴, so I took everything that failed with my preparations in ’22 and got better. In the three years since the last power outage, I purchased a kerosene heater able to heat the downstairs and enough kerosene to last two days. I purchased a surplus of green propane canisters for our bedroom propane heater. In the week before the storm, we had moved all of our frozen food out of our refrigerator into our chest freezers. (Chest freezers keep food frozen for up to 48 hours without power.) I even had temperature sensors in all the freezers so I could monitor the internal temp (and food safety) without opening the door.

I had a 260wH battery ready to power our phones and other electronics. I had a decent-sized power bank ready, too. For Christmas, I had gotten 50w solar panel so that I could (in theory) recharge my battery. We had flash lights, oil lamps, and so many candles.

Within an hour of the power going out, we had lighting standing-by around the house for sunset, a heater going in the living room, and our bedroom setup for a family sleepover with the propane heater. Doors were closed, blankets, pajamas, stuffies, and toys were collected, double layers were on, and the kids were playing. Other than the anxiety of the branches falling all around us, life was more or less normal at the Arnold house.

Now, if the power had come back on sometime Sunday or Monday, I’d be telling you how prepared we were for this. I’ve lived in the city all my life and never once in my life have I lost power for more than a day. I thought I was over preparing by being ready for two days. I live in downtown Nashville. We’re very dense. Zero chance we’d be without power for more than two days. Right? Wrong.

Sunday was (other than the falling tress and limbs scaring the crap out of us) pretty smooth. We started dinner early so we could cook by daylight and had learned from ’22 that our gas stove would still work without power. We kept our Arnold standards and had a dinner of pan-fried tofu, egg drop soup, a red cabbage salad, and ice cream for dessert. It was Oliver’s birthday, so we opened presents, sang, and had a fun evening.

With the residual heat from that morning (I kicked the thermostat up to 74 in the hours before the power went out) I was able to keep the house at above 60 for the entire day. Our outdoor “fridge” cooler was working great. We had eggs, milk, cheese, sour cream, and all the ingredients we needed. We even had a jar of frozen chili thawing for an easy meal should we need it.

Sunday we listened to music on the radio, read in the living room, and had a fun evening. My faithful propane heater that saved our bacon in ’22, dutifully got our bed room up to 65 degrees for bed time. I stayed up as late as I could make it while the family slept, but turned the heater off at 10p so I could sleep⁵. At 5:30a the next morning, the room was holding at 56. Not bad!

Monday started well, we had yoghurt (from our “fridge”) and muesli for breakfast, and I made coffee with the Aeropress. When the kids first woke up, I had a thermos of hot water and they had in-bed tea service. The limbs had stopped falling and based on past experience we expected power to be back up by lunchtime or dinner at the latest.

As Monday went on, the mood quickly changed. We started checking on friends and the news. No one was getting power restored. The numbers on the NES app kept climbing. It became more and more obvious that power was a ways off. I went into conservation mode on our batteries and fuel.

By Monday afternoon, I had enough kerosene to run the heater for another 10 hours. I could give us a warm evening and heat the house the next morning, but that’s it. Because I was living wild and free Sunday, I’d been charging anything and everything. By Monday evening, we had one solid phone charge left in our batteries. When I went to bed, our freezers were at nearly 20 degrees. We were running out of time.

Now, to be fair, there were some bright spots on Monday. I realized that I had stock piled enough propane to heat our room for at least another week. We’d be warm, even if we did have to consolidate to living in a single room. Our patio fridge worked all the way through. It meant we were able to eat soup leftovers for lunch and a nice chili with green onions, and sour cream for dinner.

I was also able to move the car out and drive around the block to check things out. It didn’t look great for the power lines, but I did see that our gas station sold K1 kerosene at the pump. When they were able to open, I’d have “unlimited” heat.

Sadly, Monday is when I learned that the battery I bought sucked. It needs to have a significant amount of wattage coming from a solar panel to charge. And, with the temp in the teens and clouds, my 50w panel wasn’t doing it. I didn’t even know to look for a minimum solar charging amount in the specs, so I was really frustrated. Thankfully, both cars were completely full of gas, so we could charge things there if we really needed to.

Tuesday morning, I woke up at 4:30a to a house that was 45 degrees. I started the kerosene heater to get the house warm and prayed that the gas station would be open later so I could restock. The freezers were at 22 degrees. If the power didn’t come on by lunch (which was incredibly unlikely) we’d loose $1,500 of beef and food. I don’t like impulse shopping and prefer to research big purchases. But, when I saw our Home Depot had an $800 generator available to purchase, I did it.

On the way to get the generator, I saw our gas station was open. So, when I returned to the house at 9a on Tuesday, I was feeling pretty great. I had a generator, 6 gallons of gasoline, and 3 gallons of kerosene. The food was saved and I could splurge and attempt to get the house back to the 60s.

Tuesday allowed us to pause and reassess our situation without the anxiety of the falling tress and the stress of loosing our freezers. If we worked on unfreezing the doors to the shed, we could reach our water heater with an extension cord and take showers. We could also better wash our dishes. (At a certain temperature soap basically does nothing. Especially with greasy stuff.) I was able to get the house to 62 before we went to bed and we played cards in the dinning room as our generator hummed away and the freezer temp continued to drop.

Wednesday I got up at 3:30a. The house was 45 again, so I started the heater. The freezers had crawled back up to 14, so I kicked up the generator. Only 2000 “customers” had gotten their power back on over the night. It looked more and more likely that it’d be the weekend before things were back to normal. Multiple sources confirmed that most side roads were now fine.

When Jennifer woke up we discussed things. While our situation had stabilized — I’d be able to work from my cold office, and we could shower, etc. — things were still rough. And, if side roads were safe, her parents were a 25-minute drive away. They had power. As much as we hated it, we decided to abandon the house.

By 8a I had the freezers down below 8 degrees (basically a 24-hour reset on the countdown timer) and the house up to 58. If I came back each day after dinner, I could run the generator and heat for a few hours and the house could limp along above freezing (so pipes don’t freeze) and the freezers would be fine. We packed up the kids & the dog and left.

That evening I arrived at the house at around 5p. I saw the neighbor’s porch light was on. Based on the temperature of the house, sometime during my 30-minute drive, the power had come back on.

I have to say, I’m incredibly proud of our family. We made it 74 hours without power. We cooked normal food, we lived normal(ish) lives, and we got things done. Moods were high and the kids were troopers. We abandoned the house not because we had to, but because we easily could.

This week we learned a lot of things about living in a modern house for extended periods of time without power. I’ll post again soon with what I’ll be adding and changing for our preparations going foward. (The reality that I need to be prepared for a week or two without power, has completely changed how I think about preparing.) But, the good news is that as long as you don’t have freezers to worry with, you can live pretty comfortably during an extended power outage with some candles, oil lamps, a single cooler, a kerosene heater, and a propane heater.