An important part of your severe weather prep is thinking about the ways to keep your home running following a storm.
A new study shows Americans are not confident that their current electric provider can reliably deliver electricity during all types of weather events.
On the anniversary of the historic winter storm in Texas that left thousands without power we are talking about ways to remain resilient. Emily talked with Jennifer Borget, founder of Cherish365.com, who stayed warm during the catastrophic power outage. She is teaming up with the Propane Education and Research Council, to remind people to be prepared.
What was the experience like? Jennifer says we have three kids and when the lights went out, we ran to our propane-powered fireplace. The kids thought we were having this awesome campout but my husband I tried not to panic because those storms caused the worse energy infrastructure failure in Texas history and there were shortages of food, water and of course heat. She says in our case, several appliances in our home rely on propane so when we had intermittent power, our fireplace, furnace, and water heater we were able to quickly warm our family and I didn’t realize it until we were in the middle of it.so I am just happy to spread that knowledge incase other families were looking to make upgrades to their home.
Jennifer Borget, says in Texas we aren’t as used to snow but we learned an important lesson that everyone can learn, which was just to be prepared because it is not just the weather that is causing power outages. We are seeing utility companies around the country throttle already fragile grid systems and there always seems to be a disaster so it is important to consider a mix of energy sources like propane, solar, electric, natural gas, these different options we can use to keep our homes and businesses powered and our families safe. She says you may not know this but when the power goes out you can still use some of your propane-powered appliances and that is something thing I didn’t realize that until we were in the middle of the Texas storms last year.
Jennifer says she is one of thousands who doubt that our electric company or current providers are going to reliably be able to cover us in all cases of weather events, so she has propane onsite ready to power all the systems in her home regardless of the grid and we are always trying to regardless of the grid. We are always trying to make environmentally conscious decisions when we are upgrading our home. Right now, she says, my husband and I are looking to buy a stand-by generator of our won that can power our whole home if we lose power and using propane, a low carbon fuel to power that generator just makes sense to us.
For more information go to Propane.com
