[emperorcezar]

Years ago when I was growing up in the woods of West Virginia we had a particularly bad blizzard. During this time the power went out.

We were use to this happening and most of the time it was for half a day or so. So we pulled out the kerosene heaters and the oil lamps for light. Bundled up and waiting.

We ended up being snowed in without power for two weeks. My mom and dad would take turns bundling up and walking a mile or so every few days to get to the roads to get more fuel.

One thing I remember clearly was cooking on out outside wood fire grill, which was essentially cinder blocks and a grate. No worry about running out of wood since there was always plenty around.

I remember the whole ordeal pretty fondly. As a kid it was a good change of pace and like camping.

[ericmcer]

I did something similar as a kid, but not on accident. Parents would take us for 1-2 weeks to a cabin with kerosene lamps no electricity, no running water. It was usually ok, but there was one trip where it rained nonstop for the week. I cannot forget that boredom, you can only play cards and read for so long before you start to lose it.

I suppose our pre-electricity ancestors had deeper social lives with the people around them, and a stronger connection with the outdoors, but for those who lived in climates that required frequent shelter holy cow they must have been bored out of their skulls.

[pbhjpbhj]

Did your parents do everything for you?

Foraging and collecting water, making fires (chopping the wood with hand tools), cleaning, preparing and cooking food, ... you've used most of the day; couple of hours of reading. Rinse and repeat.

Even camping when you have gas and water on tap, it's surprising how much of the day is meal-prep, and cleaning (pots, tools, self).

When you needed to hunt, make clothing, maintain tools just with basic tech then I Can't see there being so much time to be bored.

[singularity2001]

They were knitting, carving and painting.

[elihu]

I find it really amazing how complicated a modern piano is, and how they were mass produced in such high volume in the early 1900s. Apparently that's one of the things a large percentage of the population did before they had TV or reddit.

[soperj]

Or they went outside in the rain.

[bobthepanda]

They also probably farmed and were able to busy themselves with heavy farm work.

[jbob2000]

What did you eat while stuck in the cabin? My arm chair theory is that pre-electricity societies didn’t have food as dense/rich as we have it today, so they didn’t have the energy to feel bored.

[cydonian_monk]

Not so much the West Virginia woods (just Charleston), but we had a similar experience with a WV blizzard. At the time we still had a stone fire pit in the back yard to cook in. It was an experience digging that out from under two (or three) feet of snow, but it worked for what we needed.

That's all fine provided you can keep the house warm to begin with. Our house was built in the 30s, and had always used natural gas heat. Big floor model in the central-most part of the house with a couple radiators at the peripheries. Gas only, needs no electric. Physical levers on the thing to turn the heat up or down. Pretty standard. That would've been great for this storm had we not put in central air/heat in the mid-late 80s, which needed electric. Oops.

We ended up evacuating to one of our relative's houses after a couple days, along with a few others in our family. Made for an interesting hike in that much snow. We stayed there until things thawed and life returned back to normal-ish (a week or two later). We had to replace most of the hot water pipes in our house, which had burst before we could bleed them out. Otherwise the only damage was to our ego.

(Incidentally, kerosene heaters were verboten in our family, many of whom were firefighters who had seen one too many families burned up by them.)

That experience shaped how I prepare for disasters. And it's helped me through a couple particularly nasty hurricanes. (Ike, where we were without electric for a couple months, and Harvey, which was a whole different kind of fun.)

[ecpottinger]

When we upgrade the house to use a heat pump, we left the old heating system for just that reason.

[theandrewbailey]

That reminds me of an ice storm around Christmas 2005 (maybe 06?). I don't think power at the house went out, but people outside of the small town where I lived didn't get power back on for a week or so. The temperature went well below zero (F) at night. I was a teen working at a fast food restaurant at the time, and I kept wondering why people would only order milkshakes after about 8 PM every night for about a week during that time. (theory: people went into town because lights are out at home, blast the heater and don't take off their jackets in the car, get warm and drink milkshakes to cool down)

[rogerkirkness]

I had a very similar experience. Snowed in for six days and no power for two weeks. A constant grind of trying to get a vehicle out for supplies by clearing downed trees all day, then huddling by the fire as a family at night for warmth. It was remarkable how differently and calmly we all acted, it felt more normal than day to day life does.

[flukus]

It's curious how that extra few percent improvement (if that) in reliability of electricity has made us so much more dependent on it.

When I grew up blackouts were quite common due to tropical storms in summer, at the worst times you could lose power multiple nights a week and like you I loved them because they became wood fired BBQ nights. But because they happened frequently enough everyone was prepared, candles and torches were kept handy and put out out the first flicker of the lights, BBQ meats were kept in the freezer, there was always a wood stockpile, etc. Now that the electricity supply is more reliable we're far less prepared.

[trhway]

> up in the woods of West Virginia

interesting that survival in the woods without infrastructure is much easy than in the city when the infrastructure, like the power, is off. In the woods you still have water, fuel (woods) for heating and cooking and lighting, sewer (the woods as the worst case scenario). In the dense city all those basics become pretty much unavailable either immediately or very soon once the outage is started. If you ever had sewer blockage in your apartment/house imagine that across whole the city with plumber not coming nor today, nor tomorrow ... that's Katrina for example mentioned by the other poster.

[komali2]

If this happens, btw, you can always line your toilet bowl with a trash bag, shit in it, tie up the trash bag and try to put it somewhere out of the way until services are restored.

[elihu]

We had power failures pretty often when I was a kid, but not usually for more than a day or two. That was one of the reasons we got a wood stove.

In our case, we were on a well so a power outage meant having to haul buckets of water into the house to flush the toilet.

[kgwxd]

What did you do for fun?

[emperorcezar]

I remember reading books a lot. I have two brothers, so playing with them and with toys. We also went out to play in the snow a lot.