Natural disasters - Lessons Learn - Lights

Sub Umbra - Thank you for the informative, real world post. Just so I am clear - are you saying that NV will not pick up the blue / green LED color ? I thought they were optimized for the IR / Red, but I did not know they did not see blue / green.

I hope that your family and life can somehow return to normalcy at some point, although I am unclear on exactly how that will happen in NO.

HarryN said:

...are you saying that NV will not pick up the blue / green LED color ? I thought they were optimized for the IR / Red, but I did not know they did not see blue / green....

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I'm no NV expert but I've read that all NV gear has part of the spectrum filtered out on purpose so a helo pilot (for example) may fly NOE (nap of the earth) with NV goggles on while his co-pilot reads a map or studies some other mission critical info while sitting right next to him. It wouldn't do to turn on a small light and blind your own team member.

My understanding is that if the light is the right frequency it will only be visible to NV gear when pointed directly at it.

I mentioned to the guys in the 82nd Airborne that I had a light that I didn't think would cause their NV gear to bloom like other lights would. They were skeptical and said that their gear was probably two generations beyond anything I'd seen. He switched it on and said something like, "...Wow, that's pretty good."

I don't know what the frequency is but the blue-green CMG was attenuated quite a bit. I would have liked to try the other two on my list.

Sub_Umbra said:

As strange as it sounds the most used lights during the entire event were:

• An old CMG Infinity in blue-green.
• A Pak-Lite in turquoise.
• An ARC AAA in turquoise. (A little bit too bright)

Battery storage is no issue for the first two lights I listed. I would never accept the risks inherent in a candle as long as I had an old CMG Infinity that would run forty hrs on one AA cell -- the most common cell on earth -- a cell that can even be scavenged from TV remotes and clocks in your own house. A Pak-Lite will run six hundred hrs on one nine volt battery. How many batteries will you have to lay up for these lights? Not many. It's certainly not worth squinting right next to a candle during the hottest September on record since the advent of accurate thermometers.

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Sub_Umbra, Thanks for sharing your real life experiences. God bless you.
Agreed, inherent risks of candle or open flame is simply too great in an disaster environment, where there is a possible of leaking gas and children around the place with you.
I do keep a pack of tea light candles but these are last resort when I had exhausted all my options.

By the way, how many battery did your light consumes during the 6 weeks ?
Your light selection is a great choice.

firefly99 said:

By the way, how many battery did your light consumes during the 6 weeks ?

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That is a great question. I would never been able to even make a good guess before the event.

In six weeks we used:

• Less than two AA Coppertops in the CMG Infinity blue-green.
  
• Less than three nine volt batteries for the Pak-Light turq. That number is a little deceptive.
  All three batteries were already half used up as each had been used for one performance
  powering a body mic in a cabaret. We have boxes of these slightly more than half used
  Coppertops since they cannot be used for another performance. While they may be
  used for rehearsals -- that really doesn't use up many. Pak-Lites are real vampires
  when it comes to sucking the last juice out of a battery.
  
  It should also be noted that we really didn't use three half-batteries in the Pak-Lite.
  I took the bulb out of a desk lamp and added some glue backed Velcro to the inside of
  the lampshade and the third nine volt batt so we could use the Pak-Lite in a very directed
  manner with very little spill. I taped the power cord out of the way and that setup was
  very portable and extremely handy. So for the Pak-Lite we actually alternated
  between two batteries, one with a ring of old bicycle inner tube slipped over the battery
  for hand use that could be easily held in the teeth, and one with self adhesive Velcro
  for use in the lamp
  
• Six AAA NiMH and two Coppertops for the ARC AAA turq. The NiMH's were 750 mAh
  Powerizers that I topped off two days before the storm hit. They held up very well as far
  as self discharge goes. the Coppertops were new.

In the days just prior to the event I was able to top off nearly all of my NiCad and NiMH cells. (AAAs, AAs, Cs, Ds) Don't be put off by the self discharge charts. The bottom line is that if the emergency you are facing turns out to be of short duration you will save money by not having to dip into your stash of primary cells at all, and if the emergency becomes a longer term event like Katrina did, your primary cells will take you further because you won't have to dig into them right away.

In the first week of the event I pulled every primary cell from nearly every device in the house, including VCR and TV remotes and clocks. I measured the voltage of each and marked and grouped them accordingly for later use. Then we tried to use NiMH cells up first, followed by the NiCads which have a slower self discharge rate. At the time I didn't know whether or not I was wasting my time but now I know that it was a very good strategy for extending my supply of usable cells. In the future I will probably buy even more NiCads as they are cheap, they hold a charge well and they work well with all but the brightest LED lights.

I think it's interesting to note that as far as brightness goes, all three of the above lights are far more useful than candles and my experience would indicate that you don't have to spend an arm and a leg on batteries to have a supply that will take you through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of darkness. Having said that I must sheepishly confess to having boxes and boxes of candles in my freezer. They've been there since the last century. Errr.....consider them trade goods...

As previously mentioned, there was also brief use of brighter lights, including:

• EL Hyper Blaster (powered with Powerizer 9500 mAH Ds)
• INOVA XO-3
• INOVA X-1
• Nightcutter (3 LED - green)
• Nightcutter (5 LED - green)
• Nightcutter (3 LED - white)
• HDS EDC Basic 60

I was extremely glad we had these brighter lights (and others) with us as when you need a brighter light nothing else will do. We never came close to changing the cells in any of the brighter lights, but that should in no way be interpreted to mean that we didn't need or use them.

Although it doesn't count as a disaster, we recently experienced a 12 hour power failure following a storm. Like Sub_Umbra I found the less bright, long-running lights to be the most useful. You can leave one running on a table or counter and it provides about as much light as a candle would with greater safety.

I also used a green Infinity, along with an Infinity Ultra, an old Arc AAA and several mini-mags fitted with MJ-LEDs.

In this admittedly brief period I didn't have much use for my brighter lights, although eventually I'm sure I would have.

That was a heart-wrenching read, sub_umbra.

I'm just north of you in BR. While I was spared having to go into New Orleans, I did work 27 days straight during those first few terrible weeks. Lots of my colleagues were down there and have tons of Katrina stories.

I just want you to know most that the asinine actions of NOPD during the event were the result of the dynamic duo of congenital idiots; Ray Nagin and Eddie Compass. I never thought I'd see a public official make a bigger public moron out of himself than Aaron Broussard; I was wrong. Of course, old Eddie had to leave; but that's another story. Watch the paper...

I am not defending NOPD. While many of them are indeed dedicated cops, an equal number did many shameful things; most of which will never be accounted for. The 50 or so who did not bother to return from their desertion of duty have been fired. But the ones who left, then crawled back when the danger was past, and the ones who stayed and took advantage of the situation... history has apparently been re-written for them. Frankly, I'm not surprised.

But the nonsense about dragging residents out by their heels... that was pure Nagin/Compass. I'm told that the few instances where this was actually done (mainly in the Quarter), the street cops who did it did so very reluctantly.

If the city survives, it will be a better place than it was; mainly because practically all of the project trash is gone and not likely to return. But the tax base is not coming back quick enough to sustain operations, we hear.

At any rate, good luck; and a tip of the hat for surviving in place for so long without assistance. I think very few folks even realize just how bad things were there.

Steve C said:

...I just want you to know most that the asinine actions of NOPD during the event were the result of the dynamic duo of congenital idiots; Ray Nagin and Eddie Compass...

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They were NOT. The ACTIONS of the NOPD are exactly what I am addressing here. Mindless automatons probably should not wear guns and badges and be paid by taxpayers. They are totally responsible for their own actions. The "We were just following orders" defense didn't hold water in Germany in 1945 and it's not going to wash here, either.

Steve C said:

...I am not defending NOPD. While many of them are indeed dedicated cops...

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Let me tell you something about the cops in N.O. They are either part of the solution or they're part of the problem. When NOPD cops start busting other NOPD cops your statement will have one weak leg to stand on. Until those "...dedicated cops..." become dedicated enough to dump their blue code of silence baggage they are definitely part of the problem, not the solution. My folks told me to always be careful about who I associated with because that is part of what people judge each other on. It was something about "those who run with dogs..."

Steve C said:

...But the nonsense about dragging residents out by their heels... that was pure Nagin/Compass. I'm told that the few instances where this was actually done (mainly in the Quarter)...

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Call it nonsense if you like but you have been told wrong. I have two neighbors (that I know of so far -- many are still gone) who were removed from their houses at gunpoint. Their houses were not in the Quarter. One was a state corrections officer. They both feel quite strongly, to say the least, about what happened to them. The word nonsense never came up. You might feel differently if you were one of those who were illegally separated from your pets and possessions at gunpoint.

I've tried to describe the lights I used during the event in a meaningful fashion -- and because most of them were green I felt I should explain why.

Steve C said:

...the street cops who did it did so very reluctantly...

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That doesn't sound very comforting. I wish you had half as much concern for the for the citizens that the NOPD brutalized as you seem to have for how bad those poor cops felt while they were brutalizing them and depriving them of due process. I'm sure that you could also make the argument that the National Socialists who made lampshades out of human skin during WWII were traumatized by the experience -- but I'll bet that it was worse for those whose skin went on the lampshades. Both the NOPD and Hitler's National Socialists had FREE WILL and that needs to be clearly understood.