It’s been forty-eight hours since the windstorm hit Highland Park, and some power lines aren’t even close to being repaired.
For residents without electricity, like Steve Munguia, that means another day without a cellphone, a laptop, a flat-screen t-v and more.
“I got finals coming up, and I can’t study,” Munguia said. “No Internet.”
Next door, Peter Cienfuegos’s iPad is dead and dark, but it’s his nearly dead cellphone that concerns him.
“Something happens, no one’s gonna know until … who knows?” Cienfuengos said.
The power companies sure don’t. Some are telling residents to prepare for a couple of days or more.
The fact is, in our connected, digital, dot-com world, we lose track of how much we now rely on electrical power until it’s suddenly gone.
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That can be dangerous, said Jeff Edelstein, whose SOS Survival Store in Van Nuys outfits people for natural disaster.
If there’s an outage and that device goes dark, what happens to your business?
What about your job?
Are there medicines in the house that need refrigeration?
What about “c-pap” machines, heart monitors or oxygen?
“There’s definitely medical risks if you have no power,” Edelstein said.
Wednesday’s storm and its resulting outages are just a reminder, experts said, of what a major earthquake could do, and for much longer.
Edelstein said there are products now to accommodate your electricity needs.
After all, if you plan ahead, the sun will still be available, even after a quake.
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