Flashlights never seem that important until you really, really need one.  I found that out the hard way after Hurricane Ike last year.  After the massive storm smashed into the Gulf Coast, the region’s power grid was a mess.  Something like 90% of the South Texas coast had no electricity.  When the power company has a system-wide outage like that, it’s going to take a minute to fix.  In the storm’s wake, there were electrical trucks all over the place, patching up torn lines, replacing felled poles, removing the debris from power stations, and pumping the water out of generators all over the city.  I didn’t have power in my home for eight days.


When you don’t have power for eight days, you realize how boring life must have been before electricity.  There was nothing to do but eat, drink, and talk.  Remembering the relatively light blow my home had been dealt by Hurricane Rita a couple of years prior, I hadn’t stocked up on electric lights or batteries.  When the sun went down, I went to bed.  There was no TV to watch and there wasn’t even enough light to read.  I learned my lesson.  Now I have a hurricane tool kit that includes several rechargeable flashlights like the RoadPro MPLK-501 Grip Power LED. Hurricane season was pretty quiet this year, but I know that someday that hard, cold wind will come calling again.