Say you’re at work and the power goes out. After an hour, they start sending people home because there’s no estimated end to the power outage yet. You get your cell phone out and no calls will go out. Your cellular and data aren’t working on your phone. There’s no cable or TV signal when you get home.
Your kids are still at school and your wife isn’t home from work yet.
Fun question, my situation maybe a little different than most. I own my own business so I just drive home where our house is off the grid and completely solar powered. Our daughter is home schooled. The wife works with me so we leave together. We have get home bags in our cars, we are a 3 day walk from home if the vehicles don’t work.
When we’re home, we start implementing our preplanned defensive strategy.
Are we preppers, maybe. Do we live in a bunker or container, no, that’s stupid, ugly and the wife would never approve of that. (Me neither actually)
Funny you start this topic today. I just read this article and wonder if it was your inspiration.
Me and My Family were born in such conditions. No cellphones, lack of TV, frequent power outages. So that still sits in our minds.
The plan is simple: don’t panic. Drive to school and check your kids. Your spouse is adult so she / he takes care of himself / herself. Eventually drive back home (with or without kids), enjoy the rest of the day next to fireplace 
This is my worst nightmare because I travel for work and could have a hard time getting home. But the plan is to get home and stay close. We aren’t near a city or area where looting would be a big concern so staying out is best. We’d be good for a week before having to think about long term solutions. We obviously wouldn’t wait a week but it’s nice knowing we don’t need to rush to a decision
I work in Satellite TV which is now owned by a cell company, power out at a customers home, job goes on hold, I have my work van. A whole area blackout, i know many routes to get home and I start going to my neutral location just a short distance from home…
If it’s a total blackout, power and cell, I go home, use my personal device and use my designated device to send a message (for when cell network reestablished) my code signaling I’m OK.
My Ambulance is fired up and my 1500w inverter that is always on (battery maintainer keeps the batteries charged) and plug in my backup satellite TV system and boxes and check my news both US based and international to find out what’s going on. DC generater if needed (got to finish building it) or fire up the RV generator.
If it looks to be more of a long term outage, I deploy my 600w worth of solar panels and connect to my battery banks and inverters. Up will also go my small wind turbines. The generators will be saved for emergencies.
I can run general power, still have my hot water showers, used my rocket stoves for basic cooking and save the fuel stoves for emergencies. No heat so I will only heat the master bedroom, connect my diesel electric heater (12v) into the MBDR and run for at most a couple hours a day/night (hundreds of gallons of WVO that is clean to run). Propane tankless hot water heater, runs for over a year on one 20lb propane tank.
HAM radios set to listen in on police, ems, and local HAM repeaters.
Go from there.
We had an internet outage at the USCCA headquarters on Friday for about 90 min. Brought work to a standstill. 
We all got the chance to talk with our coworkers for a while which doesn’t always happen when we’re usually so busy. 
One job I had during one summer we lost power so often from nearby construction I had a little 5 inch black and white tv I brought in (it also had am/fm radio).
…
Not so far fetched. It is the concern with N. Korea. There are some really great ideas being posted by this group. Kudos.
The question becomes what is your emergency plan.
Every person need a Fairly Comprehensive Emergency Plan for fire, weather, and national disaster. There are radios with good range on them that are handheld and easily kept in cars (so long as you check them regularly and have back up batteries).
Do your kids at school have a close shelter plan with a family friend or relative? That way you know how to get to them.
Do you have a Go Bag and actual maps to help you get home? Keep your car at least half full for gas?
Do you have an inverter and some basic solar panels to let you keep your freezer from defrosting or provide power to emergency medical devices at home? Gas will rapidly disappear and generators are beacons to thieves that don’t care about hurting you to get to them or their supply of gas. .
Do you at least own a shotgun? If nothing else, it will let you get to a room. Letting them take what they want in the rest of the house. You will have some way to keep you and yours alive.
Do you have a solar/windup emergency radio?
Do you have a potable water tank between your hot water heater intake and the water line feeding the house? This is a cheap constant supply of potable water.Close the water line when power goes off to protect it from contamination. A couple of hundred gallons used sparingly is a life saver.
Do you have a couple of clean trash cans set aside or potable containers planned to capture water when it rains? with water purification pills or bleach powder for purification?
Do you have canned, dehydrated, and other packaged foods for at least a week.? Packages of spare batteries?
Strangely enough, I actually have this written down with a weekly checklist done same time, same day, each week.
being from the stone-age before most all of the modern items the human race takes for granted load all up and the guns and ammo plus the food I have stored and head for my place deep in the mountains and woods of MT. where also have a lot of stuff stored and live quite comfy.
If power goes out at work then serious world events are underway. I will most likely never see home again. I ride in a vanpool and we drive through some of the worst traffic on the east coast. At least 3 hrs. in the van daily on good days. No firearms allowed. Too old to hump through 60+ miles of urban terrain. Know most of the roads on the trek. My constant carry is an IFAK, compass, pocket knife, CLIF Bars, water and Advil. No stockpiles at home. No bugout.
I’d think seriously about acting upon my desire to terminate my tv cable and cell phone subscriptions; my gawd! when I was working and supporting a family they were a fact of life, now? They are a huge portion of the monthly budget. (humph, why do I need a power / internet outage ?..)
Power outage and internet down? Is it an EMP? Or just something localized?
I have a 25mi hike to get home if it’s an EMP, and that falls under SHTF scenarios 
If it’s just power & internet, my home/work are far enough apart that probably they aren’t out at both places.
If no power/internet at home, i have tons of flashlights & batteries and books
It’s funny how quickly we adopt technology. Imagine, two hundred years ago getting into a metal box and closing the door? (We do it everyday with elevators).
But there are many workarounds to technology let downs. I have an 8.0kW photovoltaic grid on each of my houses which I can use if the street power is off. It takes a little messing around, but I can run my refrigerators, WIFI and such with it.
If the internet is down for awhile, then it’s back to my landline and the Yellow Pages.
wow great topic… i drive truck so usually long way from home… but when I drive locally I try to keep close contact with everyone… not sure what we would do… looks like time for family discussion 
I’ll play along. I work from home so I am covered. My wife I trust would head home. (we’ve talked about it). If my daughter is in school, I’d pack up the car to get her. It’s about 3 miles. The kids are my responsibility. Our son is at college so he’s on his own. I did put together a useful bag for him but it’s probably not enough.
So, funny thing. Tomorrow we are expecting damaging winds, up to an inch of rain and T-storms. All electronic devices are charged. Freezer is packed. If we lose internet, well we are all home at least thanks to the pandemic. 1 car has a full tank, 2 others are less than half, I don’t know about my wife’s Prius. My e-bike is fully charged.
I have 7 battery backups in the house to cover us for a while. Our whole house audio is on 1 and will go for 24 minutes. I have 1 on the fish tank, tankless water heater… I can move them to power what I need (small amp wise).
It would probably take me from 20 minutes to 6 hours to know the power is out more than usual on any given construction site. If for some reason I was back at the shop it would be a 2 hour walk home given my vehicle no longer worked (ie:EMP) otherwise from various job sites 12 - 48 hours walking. If I made it home I would stab the points and condenser’s 1972 vintage distributor in my 1977 Ranchero Hot Rod and have wheels. If it was TEOWAWKI I’d bug out with as much as I could carry in the Chero. There are other plans after that but they are best discussed over scotch and a campfire.
Cheers,
Craig6
I see this topic started in January. I wonder if opinions have changed since then? I’ve noticed a lot more openness to prepping from my family and coworkers, although some confuse it with hoarding.
@Ouade5 if you are not prepping you may be foolish given your location. If you are “hoarding” than you are invested in a single/few item and may be more foolish. Preparation is a total need for X number of days for X number of people. I have stores of regular food that will normally last 30 - 60 days, less with loss of power for my house. I have back up food for 60 days power or no power. 15 years from now I will find out how it tastes when I buy new. This particular event showed us some unexpected needs (TP, Paper Towels, Powder, Primers, Ammo) it is wise to learn from the lessons given even if you did not need them. Quite frankly the ammo, powder and primer shortage was not a surprise I just was unable to capitalize on it prior to the rush. Unlike several commodities primers, powder, and 22 ammo have not fallen back to pre hysteria levels. My hope is that they will to some degree stabilize only slightly higher than before the Wuhan Flu.
Cheers,
Craig6