On this upcoming Sunday, the power at my apartment building will be turned off from 11pm until 6am the next morning. The reason for the shut down to have maintenance done on our electrical vault.
This is a considerable undertaking as not only is my building affected but the two other residential buildings in the complex plus the shopping area below. Hundreds of people will be without power along with the many businesses downstairs. Some of those businesses will actually be still open at the start of the shut down. The Safeway is open until midnight every day. I wonder if they’ll close an hour early. The movie theatre frequently has shows that don’t finish until after 11pm. Will they just not have late showings that night?
I’ve been told that some businesses will be on emergency generators for the duration of the outage. I’m certain that’s how Safeway will be able to keep all their stock from spoiling. Will the movie theatre be able to function on emergency power alone? The projection and sound system of a single auditorium draws a significant amount of power and I can’t see emergency generators running ten separate screens at once.
I usually don’t go to bed on Sundays until well after midnight, so I need to find something to do until then. The easiest solution is to just go to sleep but I like doing things the difficult way. Internet access will be limited to what my phone can give me directly or making it into a wi-fi hotspot. I also have my tablet as well. Both of these devices will need to be fully charged at the beginning of the shut down. I’ll also utilize the portable chargers I have to keep the juice flowing if need be.
As for light, I have lots of candles and a flashlight. I will likely just read a book on my tablet or do some light surfing until it’s time for bed.