Preparedness guide - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

Each year, the county and area fire departments would pool their resources and put together an emergency preparedness guide in The Citizen. There would be all kinds of information in there about what you should have in the case of an emergency, where it should be, what you should do, etc. That was all very helpful information, but, if this summer - really just the last two months - has taught me anything, it’s that the Loughlin family needs to be better prepared for power outages as they come more frequently and for longer periods than they have in the past.

 

The first thing we learned around the time of the Canada Day power outage that lasted nearly 24 hours is that we don’t nearly have the flashlight inventory that we should. We had two big ones - the Maglites that double as a self-defence tool for police officers, allegedly - and quickly found out that only one of them works. After that power outage, the batteries in the other had died, leaving us with no functioning flashlights. Surely I would have purchased a new complement of batteries by the time the next power outages would roll around. If you think that, you’re mistaken.

 

Luckily, we had bought the kids each a small flashlight for Christmas as stocking stuffers, so, we were able to repurpose those for their original, intended use, rather than for them to agitate one another by shining a beam of light into the other’s face. So, we at least had those.

 

Our candle inventory was also lacking, to be honest, with just a handful of big, aromatic candles at various levels of used-up-ed-ness in a drawer somewhere. We also found out that we don’t really have a lighter. I have hundreds of books of matches, of course, as a food supplier I used to order from a lot would throw a case in every order as a bonus, and I ordered from them a lot. So, the combination of these crappy matches and sorry candles it was. The kids have, I have to say, enjoyed having a bath by candlelight in the past in the event of a power outage, but I don’t think it’s their preferred form of bathing. 

 

Conveniently, in the past few weeks, the flashlight on my smartphone has died, so that isn’t even really an option for me either. 
So, ya, not a ton to choose from in our house. In the past week or so, we’ve been subjected to a few power outages. First, there were the storms that ripped through the area, causing power to go out all over the county, for various periods of time and then, on Labour Day, there was some localized action that resulted in the power going out on our street. It was during this most recent one that we discovered how many hidden flashlight alternatives we had under our roof. Every time we grumbled and cursed under our breath as we waited at a merch stand at Disney on Ice, Frozen the Musical or The Wiggles live in Toronto simply melted away as we realized just how many forms of a sort of glowing wand we’ve purchased in recent years. They certainly came in handy. Not only did they help light the place up as the sun went down, but they kept the kids in good spirits, playing, dancing and jumping, all while waving these things around as they travelled around the house or, in the case of the other night, the backyards of our neighbours.

 

So, long story short, I need to buy some batteries, but I take back any comments I’ve made in the past about us buying too many cheap souvenirs for our kids for bloated prices at performances. Their true use has been shown to me and I am grateful for them.

 

Having said that, a nice run of power outage-less weeks would be nice right about now.