Some places are prepared for these kinds of things. There was an outdoor market in Calcutta. It looked something like this only not as fancy, mostly food, 1990. I used to walk there almost every night just to have something to do. They had regularly scheduled power outages in the city, as well as unscheduled ones. It happened at least once every day. When the power went out after dark, everyone brought out candles and propane lights, and business went on as usual. It was actually quite romantic at the market when it happened.
I can just imagine what it was like for the Eskimo people in the old days, when they were in total darkness for months at a time, with the only light being seal oil lamps. If it was cloudy or stormy, they didn't even have starlight.
Holly, no doubt about it; I WAS glad when the power came back and we could take real showers again. Actually, we were thankful that we survived as well as we did , when we saw the total devastation all around us. Since I had lived in north Idaho with no power or water, it was not like I had never had to do that before, and we just stayed home,and “roughed it” as the saying goes. I washed clothes in a big tub with the hose, and hung them over the fence to dry, and we had one big room and most of the kitchen that had survived the tornado, so we slept out there. We had one of those little propane burners that is for sitting outside on cool evenings, and that is how we heated hot water, and had instant coffee. The solar candles didn’t give much light, but we could use them to find our way down the hall to the bathroom and back. All in all, it went okay for what it was. However, my son, Michael, who had come out to visit us, has never been back since. I think that he is sure we would have another tornado if he came back out here.