Power Outages in 2025: Now What?

I woke up out of a dead sleep at 2:50 this morning, Monday August 18th, when everything in my house suddenly powered down, making all sorts of beeping and dinging sounds that had me ridiculously confused as to what was going on at that time of night.

A random power outage? In the middle of the night?

Fantastic.

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Power Outages Aren't Like What They Used To Be

I'm not sure if you can relate, but when the power went out as a kid it was always exciting, a free-for-all of sorts. I remember my parents always having a game plan for a power outage; they had a bin with all sorts of different sized flashlights, extra batteries of course, enough candles to host a seance, with a lighter nearby. At the first sign of a light flicker, they were ready to go.

As for my sister and I, we'd grab blankets and build a fort, find a board game or a book and some snacks, and have ourselves a time.

These days, not so much.

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A Power Outage Hits Differently in 2025

Even though it was 3am, there was no way I was going to fall back asleep, especially with the glow of my two cats eyeballs three inches from my face wondering what I was doing up at that time.

Attempting to get out of bed, well that was pretty difficult when the power is out and you have an adjustable frame with some crazy zero gravity setting that requires electric to reset - strike one.

Strike two - how do you exist in your home in the middle of the night with no lights, no internet, and no handy bucket of power outage supplies (don't tell my mom, ok)? The phone flashlight can only take you so far when you're trying to navigate stairs in the dark AND when your phone didn't even have the time to fully charge yet.

The first candle I found while navigating my house at 3am was watermelon lemonade scented, AND I even got my hands on a lighter fairly easily. I bet you didn't know that B&BW watermelon lemonade candles will fill your dark house with the scent of a jolly rancher in the middle of the night. I remembered another candle I recently bought, and on my way to grab it, found the world's smallest flashlight hanging on the key hook near the front door, as pictured below in this afternoon's photo titled 'the aftermath.'

Coffee? Nope, because who has any means to make a cup of coffee without a Keurig or some fancy machine these days? Not me, that makes three.

I rigged up a hotspot to my laptop and watched Netflix reruns for a few hours because what else are you supposed to do with no actual internet? I heard the crews working in the area and learned that it was just my neighborhood impacted, and the estimated time for restoration was 6am. When 6am came and went I decided that was enough for me, and I was going to relocate to my parents so I didn't have to take a shower by jolly rancher candlelight.

Have We Become Too Reliant On Conveniences?

I know we live in these AI super advanced times and everything is so conveniently hooked up to our phones, or whatever voice activated device we have controlling our day-to-day, but have you thought about how reliant we have become?

Could I get back into my house from the driveway after I manually closed and locked the garage door behind me? No, because I didn't have a key to the garage, the opener is electric or app powered, and why would I have my house keys on me?

Many of the things in my house are hooked up to an app or device, so when the power came back on, several hours later, alarms were going off, air conditioners were running, my outdoor cameras didn't quite know what to do with themselves, sending all sorts of error messages about the wifi, and the coffee pot that was pre-programmed for 6am brewed onto the counter where the cup was supposed to be, but wasn't because I moved it in the dark.

My 3am power outage was a bit of a reality check of how much simpler life used to be, how I need to be more prepared for situations like these (flashlight box and batteries anyone), and just how reliant we've become on an apps, devices, and the internet, just to get by.