As I'm writing this, we're recovering from quite a long blackout. It started quite early- when we woke up for fajr (morning) prayer today at 04:00 AM, we found that our bedroom fan wasn't working so we figured it must be a blackout. That happens quite regularly, as in a few times a week, especially during the summer. But we didn't anticipate that it would be the longest blackout yet to experience. Assuming the blackout didn't start at 04:00 but, say, half an hour before that, and the electricity came back at 11:45, we were roughly 8 hours without electricity- possibly even a bit more. Since we experience blackouts every so often, I honestly don't really panick. Yes, it's annoying especially if you can't use a fan, or air conditioner when it's warm.
I'm actually more concerned with the fridge. Even though the fridge is quite full and the two top shelves are nearly a freezer temperature during the summer, still, 8 hours is a long time for a fridge to be without electricity, especially in this heat. The same goes for the freezer. I've learned to be prepared for a blackout by storing a lot of bottles in the freezer. Usually it's broth, but if there's room left the gaps are just filled with bottles of water. Those bottles can go straight into the fridge in case there's a blackout. I put a few bottles in the fridge, just in case, and it probably did help, as those 8 hours powerless didn't seem to affect the temperature a lot. We did try not to open the fridge unless strictly necessary, so that helped too. Fortunately, I wasn't planning on using the washer or oven today, so that wasn't an issue. Another way we prepare ourselves for these kind of small calamities is to have an alternative source of light. Even during daytime, our house doesn't have that much sunlight, as our house was built to be insulated against the heat- not so much against the cold or to let sunlight come in, just like pretty much all houses here. We usually need to use lamps, especially in the kitchen. Today it happened to be a cloudy day so that definitely meant we needed more light. Apart from our phones, we bought a lamp that can be charged either by electricity or by solar power (there's a tiny solar "panel" on the lamp). It's a very strong light so that comes in very handy. Much easier than candles. So even during daytime blackouts, we need to think about light, but obviously during nighttime blackouts that's even more of an issue.
Water being cut off is more rare than electricity blackouts here, but still it does happen, especially since there is water scarcity. In our city it doesn't happen as much as in oather areas, but we've still found ourselves in situations with the water being cut off. Usually that happens a bit gradually, with the tap stream becoming weaker and weaker until no single drop of water comes out of the tap. There have been instances when neighbours had to ask us for water since they didn't have any. Honestly I don't really like asking others unnecessarily, even though I know my neighbours wouldn't mind at all.
This is why I think it's important to be prepared. And I've noticed that a lot of people, even more so frugal minded people, talk about preparedness. But this preparedness is usually about greater calamities such as possible war or terrorism, wildfires, floods or earthquakes. To be honest, even if there is a chance that would happen, I think it's also good to look at the smaller calamities and it's much more likely we'll have to deal with them at some point. Now I understand that where we live blackouts are more common, but not so long ago, there was a blackout in a huge area in Spain, Portugal and even some areas in Morocco. I bet those people weren't really anticipating that either. It's not a major crisis (in most circumstances, anyway), but it's always good to be prepared. And yes, we should be prepared for bigger calamities, in my opinion, but also for the smaller ones. I would be quite annoyed if there's a blackout and my phone's battery is almost empty. Or our spare lamp wasn't charged. Or we didn't have enough cold water in the fridge. Not insurmountable problems, but still problems I'd rather be prepared for.
Our nifty rechargeable lamp, in the kitchen
