Friday, August 24, 2018

Flashlights in every room in Santa Barbara?

Where I live in the SF Bay Area we don't have flashlights in every room but we do have battery powered lanterns in all the bedrooms and in the kitchen which adjoins the living room and den. So, this way you are only 10 or 20 feet from the nearest lantern when the lights go out some night usually in December to March sometimes when 100 mph winds come off the ocean in a storm and bring trees and power down for 1 day to 1 week most years (at least once). Fires are not as big a problem along the coast further north where I live.

But, at first I was trying to figure out WHY? they had flashlights in every room in their Santa Barbara House (my wife's Mom's house)? Then it came back to me. I was in Southern California where now fires can happen 12 months a year. When I lived in Glendale (next to Burbank and Hollywood and Los Angeles and Eagle Rock and Pasadena) (so you get the location), fires happened all the time especially in spring, or fall or summer there from 1956 to 1969 when I lived there growing up. But, flashlights were not as important then because the electrical grid goes all across the Los Angeles area from multiple directions at once.

But, here in Santa Barbara it likely comes either from the north or south and because the coastal range is so close to the water here, it likely ONLY would come from the north and south or just one or the other. (likely from the south where Los Angeles and Ventura and Oxnard are in that direction logically). Because of this fire could cut the power to Santa Barbara any day of the year.

So, logically therefore, flashlights in every room of the house.

Today I feel congested from the smoke by the way and last night I thought I was getting a cold but no, it's just the smoke making me feel like I had a cold. For my wife it made her sound like she had laryngitis  this morning for example.

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