Hurricane Ida’s Grim Reminder: Everybody Needs a Power Bank, Solar Panels, and a Water Filter

I’m known as the “battery guy” in my friend group because I frequently harp on about the fundamental importance of being able to store energy. It’s not an eccentricity to me, but plain common sense. When people imagine the sort of disasters it would take to interrupt our access to utilities like water and electricity, I suspect they’re picturing very rare, extreme events.

It doesn’t take rare, extreme events to interrupt utility access, sometimes for days or weeks at a time. Also, what constitutes rare and extreme, in the way of weather events, is shifting along with our changing climate. The other assumption I feel people commonly make that accounts for the average citizen’s lack of preparedness is that it’s “all or nothing”.

As if you need a fully stocked bunker beneath your home, and no level of preparation short of that extreme will be of any use. This is emphatically not the case. There are very simple, cheap precautions each of us can take that are of tremendous utility during disasters. Preparedness is like exercise. Even a little bit yields dramatically improved outcomes down the road. More is better, but only to a point beyond which it’s all diminishing returns (the prepper bunker).

If you interested in learning more from Alex Bayman on how to prepare for emergencies, head here.