Where I live up in northern Michigan, power outages are pretty common. Since I moved here a few years ago, I can't remember a single year when we haven't had at least several days without power. I'm thankful that one or two day outages are usually the extent of things, but we did have a 3.5 day outage once shortly after I moved here.

Winter is more to be worried about than summer. It gets hot here now and then, but I've only run my air conditioner three times so far this year. Seriously cold temperatures are the big problem with power outages. Fortunately, I have natural gas, and while my furnace won't work without electricity, my gas oven and stove can keep part of the house warm enough to live in safely.

Water is another problem. I have a well with only an electric pump. I can drive a few blocks and hand pump 5-gallon buckets at the town pump.

So I've taken to keeping plenty of drinking water on hand just in case. I've recently started keeping five buckets filled for flushing toilets. That's usually enough for a couple days, sparing me a trip to the hand pump.

Solar is an option in summer. I have a solar powered emergency light that can charge my devices. It works pretty well most days in summer. I haven't tried it yet in winter, but I'm expecting it will not be all that useful. We go days at a time without seeing the sun, and of course storms that knock out power do tend to come in with lots of clouds.

So, preparedness for me means storing water, ensuring I have plenty of shelf stable food on hand, and keeping small LED lights charged up so I can see after the sun goes down — which is super early in winter!

I wish I could afford battery banks,.but that's out of the budget for the time being.