“Mommy, help! The lights went out!”
What do you do when this happens? Grab a flashlight.
Wait, where’s the flashlight?
“MOMMY!”
Living in a rural area where strong storms are the norm for spring and early summer, the power goes out often. For those with a generator, they are wonderful and I am so glad that we are ready to finally purchase one. But, not everyone has a generator to get the lights back on and keep the kids from panicking.
So, the next best thing is to be prepared for the inevitable night where the room suddenly goes dark and the kids are screaming for help.
First and foremost: Make a specific spot in the house for an emergency flashlight and a pack of batteries. This flashlight is not to be touched for any type of playtime or randomly searching for something that fell down/under/or whatever. Get other flashlights for those instances. Having more than one flashlight isn’t a bad idea either.
The big reason to make sure you have that special flashlight rather than just relying on your phone to act as a flashlight is because using your phone’s flashlight will drain your phone’s power and we don’t know when the electricity will be back on for that phone to be charged.
I use an old fanny pack to store our emergency flashlights. We have:
- A lantern – they’re great for lighting up a room
- A high beam flashlight
- A windup, battery free flashlight
- A pack of batteries
The windup flashlight is great in case all of the batteries are, for whatever reason, no longer working. The windup is, also, great because it entertains the kids and adds a fun factor to the power going out.
This is just a basic list. Other great options to have on hand in case the power goes out include:
- a blanket
- non perishable food
- your electric company’s power outage report number
- a medical emergency kit
- etc
Keeping extra flashlights in other places around the house (like one for upstairs and one for downstairs) isn’t a bad idea either. We have one hanging from an extra key hook by the back door for that reason.
According to my daughter, it is of the utmost importance to include toys in the power outage emergency bag also.
