When Jan Zwicky talked about the need to be independent of the grid, she referred to a 60 second power outage at 4 AM last year. Zwicky wasn’t aware there was a problem until she went into the basement three days later. Her freezer, which had been packed with food, was still off. Most of the contents were ruined. 

Zwicky said she is not dependant on a computer and has a back-up system that can keep the lights on, “ But boy, I don’t want that freezer to fall apart!”