Last month, Hurricane Sandy hit hard in the New York area, in many places that hadn’t seen devastation of that level in half a century. Many people lost power and internet for days. Many people lost more than that…and our sympathies go out to them.

But, while we fortunately came out of it without any serious issues, it as given us a lot of time to think about emergency preparedness. The need to prepare for the unexpected.

One of the coolest devices we saw being used during this was the BioLite CampStove. This is a small portable camp stove that, when stowed, is the size of a water bottle. It uses twigs and other simple fuel, and can not only cook, but provide USB charging. The company took to the streets during the power outages to offer power and a warm drink. The list price is roughly $130 direct, and the money is partially used to fund a larger version used in third-world countries.

Most people will need to handle an outage of hours or a perhaps a day or two. A long extended outage does happen, but in most areas is not as common. In the case of New York, individuals were heading to areas that had power in search of a charge. Corporations sent in portable charging stations, people crowded around generators, and more.

Now, for individuals on the go in urban areas, carrying a camp stove is not a viable option. Solar is a possibility, but charging by solar takes hours. We haven’t had much luck in solar charging, but we haven’t tried lately. There have been a lot of developments in this area. We may try again.

Crank chargers seem like a lot of fun, and are great for portable radios and lights, but powering a cell phone is a bit hard. In testing, fifteen minutes of cranking got a few percent points of power back into a smartphone, but the crank broke off right after that, so future testing will not be possible.

That leads us to the most useful of emergency power measures….the battery. Buying extra batteries for devices works. But every time you get a new cell phone or other specialty device, you end up needing to buy new batteries. Devices that use standardized batteries, such as AA and AAA, are easier to keep batteries on hand for. But, with the increasing number of devices that use USB charging, you can get a battery with USB output, that will work with a variety of devices.

Buying batteries is not a problem. The issue is being prepared. In many cases, you can prepare for an emergency…bad weather, etc. may cause you to check your equipment. But many things will happen unexpectedly.  It is a good idea to keep good care of these items.

Next, we’ll be discussing UPS power…