Light. When the power goes out, there is nothing quite as comforting or useful as having a source of light. But when the power goes out, do you know where your light is? Keeping a flashlight in a pre-determined spot (or two spots or five or more) can help you get the light on faster when it is suddenly dark.
There should always be a light source near you that you know you could find in the dark. Choose a place and keep your light there. In our home, we have a flashlight on top of the refrigerator, in the bathroom cupboard, by each side of our bed, and the kids are supposed to have lights by their beds. There are
emergency flashlights that plug into your wall power outlet and are ready to use when the power goes out.
If you share your house with other people (especially if some of those people are children), it’s pretty much guaranteed that some of these lights will migrate and not return, or if they are where they are supposed to be they’ll have dead batteries. That’s why I have lots of light locations. One of them is going to be there and work! Do some periodic checks to make sure your lights are charged and in the right location.
Another place you want a flashlight handy is in your vehicle. I’ve tried a few of the dynamo self charging type flashlights in my car and not had very good luck with them being able to hold a charge after a couple of years in the car. Sweet husband has a Streamlight flashlight that hooks to a charger in his truck. It works much better and gives a huge amount of light, but is much more expensive as well. Find something that works for you and your budget and get a light source in your vehicle.
I also like to keep a keychain light on my key ring. This has saved me more than once when I entered a dark building, walked with the kids from the car to the house at night, needed to find the key hole to unlock the front door, and needed to jump start a friend’s car at night. Make sure you get one that you don’t have to be squeezing it constantly for the light to stay on–it’s worth spending the extra couple of dollars to get one that will stay on by itself.
When you need a light, you need one. Keeping a flashlight in a specific location can make seeing the light a much easier process when you’re caught in a dark situation.
Keep preparing! Angela
***************************************************************
Subscribe to my email newsletter for updates and special deals.
Please be sure to follow Food Storage and Survival on Facebook which is updated every time there is a new article. You can also find me on Pinterest, and purchase my book, Food Storage for Self Sufficiency and Survival on Amazon.
***************************************************************
Shop the Thrive Monthly Specials or my favorites, the freeze dried vegetables and yogurt bites!
***************************************************************
Excellent post! I’ve kind of lost count of the number of flashlights that I have around :) A couple of things to add:
Flashlight technology has really improved over the last couple of years. You can get more light from a small flashlight than from one of the giant maglights these days. Lots of flashlights now give the power, in lumens, right on the package. Also pay attention to what type of batteries the flashlight uses. CR123 batteries are kind of expensive, so I try to avoid them. There are some good, small, tactical type lights that run on AAA or AA batteries and still produce 90 lumens or better. Having the light use cheaper batteries helps take the sting out of keep fresh batteries always available.
Keychain lights are great, especially since I keep my keys in my pocket all the time – even at home.
Great points! Even the keychain lights can have replaceable batteries, but I just replaced some in mine and it probably would have been cheaper to just buy a new light! We have an old LED light (back when they were first coming out) and it hardly puts out any light compared to some of our newer, smaller lights that take fewer batteries. Checking the lumens and battery type before purchasing a flashlight is really important.
Yeah, I discovered that point about keychain light batteries just recently myself. Our local Cabela’s sells great little keychain lights for less than $5 a piece. The button batteries in mine died last week and when I went to replace them I learned its much cheaper to just buy another light… which I’m doing tonight :)
We have nightlights in our bathrooms that turn into flashlights when unpluged, or the power goes out. They charge themselves and you always know where they are. Three for $20 at sams several years ago. Not the best flashlights, but good enough to find things.
I use velcro to stick a flashlight on the fuse box. Great location for it. I also keep one in the trunk of my car in case I get a flat out in the middle of nowhere.
I have flashlights in every room we use daily and every car accessible and in sight. Magnets AND hooks on them was ingenious TSC supplier!!
AND….those solar lights for $2/3 are better than nothing. I use the solar for my bathroom when nice and sunny. I just use a $1 flower vase to hold; works great.
No sun?? Then I use the Plug-in night light.