"Power Out Night"

Nickey H., a member of our ward, told me about “Power Out Night” at their house.

The kids love it, they ask “When is the next Power Out Night?.”

Nickey explained it this way:
“I try not to do anything ahead of time, that way it is a test for my husband and I as well as for the kids. I’ll just say okay, and turn off all the lights and the air conditioner. Then we all have to try to find the candles, and try to go until the next morning without electricity. We’ve probably done it five times at least. “

What has been their biggest failure?

“I want it to be like a real emergency, so I don’t test things ahead of time . One time I got everything out for dinner, my husband went outside to grill it and our propane tank was empty. I think we ended up having cold sandwiches and Danimals yogurt drink.”

What went well?

“We spent the whole night playing games by candle light. Then we all camped out in living room, it was summer, so downstairs was the coolest part of the house.”

When we did it in the winter, we had a fireplace, and roasted hot dogs in the fireplace.”



What have you learned that you can share with us?

“Once our flashlight exploded. The batteries had all gone bad inside it. We learned not to leave batteries inside the flashlights, now we tape a ziploc bag containing batteries to the outside of each flashlight.”

“We also learned to let the kids play outside until it is truly dark, because they need to get their wiggles out, and they won’t be able to run around inside the house later, its too dark. We had to teach them not to run in the dark house, you can’t see where you’re going.”

“We had to review candle safety, because we had to leave a candle burning in the bathroom overnight. Now we wouldn’t use a candle, we would put a glowstick in there.”

“Also, I try to check the weather first, I make sure its not going to be an incredibly hot day so we don’t suffer too much with the air conditioner off.”