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Gadgets weather natural disaster

Early this morning, Hawaii (where I live) was hit with an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale. The state was incredibly fortunate to have sustained little structural damage and no fatalities or serious injuries. In fact, aside from rattled nerves, the worst that most residents had to endure were massive (island-wide on Oahu) power outages. The lack of electrical power for an extended period could have severely impacted hospitals and those who depend on various medical equipment, but luckily the majority of the state was up and running within 15 hours of the quake.

Honolulu (the state’s capital and my address) was without electrical power for about 14 hours. Many people dug out their emergency AM/FM radios, cranked on their generators, or picked up their landline corded phones to keep up on the news as it developed. My husband and I, being without all of these things, reached for our gadgets soon after being awakened by knick-knacks falling off shelves and our 17-story condominium shaking and swaying in ways that don’t inspire confidence in architecture. We tuned in to whatever could be caught on a portable 2.3-inch TV, switched stations on the ZVM’s built-in FM tuner, watched movies on two laptops and an Archos AV420, got online with the Treo 650, and kept everything charged with a universal battery pack.

Consumer electronics kept us informed and entertained. Without them, we would’ve been left in the dark (figuratively and literally).

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Jenn K. Lee

Jenn K. Lee is the founder of Pocketables. She loves gadgets the way most women love shoes and purses. The pieces in her tech wardrobe that go with everything are currently the Samsung Galaxy Note II, Sony Tablet P, and Nexus 7, but there are still a couple of vintage UMPCs/MIDs in the back of her closet.

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