As Hurricane Henri threatens Long Island in New York or southern New England this Sunday, affected citizens need to make intensive preparations to overcome the worst.
One inevitability is the certain loss of power, with anticipated downing of trees and unavailability of critical infrastructure for days or weeks, CNN said. The New York Post, meanwhile, is reporting heavy rains and flash floods hitting New York City streets and subways.
Of course, when such a disaster strikes, you may not be able to use your phone. Here some important pointers you need to remember to keep your iPhone or Samsung battery working even with power outages everywhere.
While it is important to keep enough water and canned food that should last a week, it should also be essential to keep your gadgets working with just the right amount of power left in your batteries without charging. How to do it?
Hurricane Henri 2021: Power-Saving Tips
5. Change Phone Habits, Save on Battery Power
Survivalist Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret, shared to Cnet how to save on the battery power you'd need to stay connected as the hurricane barrels through. First, you need to change phone habits--no extended scrolling on Facebook, maybe limiting social media posts, and of course no playing mobile phone games. Your phone must be shut down and turned off when not in use to conserve power.
Phones during a possible disaster event should be used as a survival tool. It must just be used to communicate or check on the safety of loved ones, as well as to call essential public services for assistance or rescue.
4. In Cases of Network Congestion, Use Text Messaging to Reach Loved Ones
During moments cellular services are experiencing congestion, calling family and friends may not be possible. As such, people should be ready when voice calls are not possible and simply rely on text messaging for communications, Cnet quoted hurricane expert Bryan Norcross in its post.
3. Have Additional Battery Packs Ready
Should the outage last a week, people need to have additional backup battery packs ready. While pocket-sized power banks are helpful for travel, it is even more useful to have higher capacity and larger sized battery packs--those that can power even TVs for a short time. Other high end packs can even enable car batteries, and the priciest could also handle more appliances and gadgets.
A reminder: Do not let those batteries stay unused for a long time then suddenly use them when a hurricane strikes. Leaving them idle would make them unusable. Because of this, you need to charge, use often and keep them in a cool room so that the battery packs won't degrade. In addition, your car can provide your devices emergency charges, though you should save up on gas to make the vehicle ready for any sudden evacuations.
2. Use Solar Chargers As a Backup Option
Another good option is purchasing portable solar chargers as alternative battery packs. The larger the solar panel, the better. It may take a long while to charge up, sometimes up to five hours. As such, all the collected energy from these packs should also be transferred to other battery packs.
1. UPS Needed to Keep Device Charging Safe When Using Power Generators
If you have a generator to power your household when the hurricane strikes, you'd also need an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system to prevent gadget malfunction due to voltage fluctuations, which could damage electronics.
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