Survey Says: You would save food first

Many, many months ago, a disaster hit the area where I live. Hurricane Ike slammed in to the Texas coast and brought me closer to the destruction of a hurricane than I'd ever been in the past. My family was fortunate and we escaped the storm with no major property damage, but we did lose power for more than a week. And that inspired the last Telerik Watch poll. You never realize how much steady, easily available electricity affects your quality of life until it's gone- and gone for more than a couple days. You lose more than you think (or at least more that I thought I would, originally). Your fridge and freezer full of food? It all gets trashed. Addicted to the Internet? Sorry. Live in a hot climate and depend on your AC to breathe? Prepare to sweat yourself to sleep. So I asked you, if you could power only one device in a long-term power outage, what would it be? The results were interesting. More than half of you would go for the food and keep the fridge and freezer running. For the other half that is content to live off of canned food heated over gas stoves (or fires) and warm beer, the number-one saved device is your computer. I suppose that's a smart move since the computer can also be a source of light and- assuming you have the ability to get a reliable 3G internet connection- a good source of entertainment and news. Still another full 8% of you would save nothing and enjoy the stillness and "back to the basics" life that a power outage brings. Perhaps most (least?) surprising is that no one would save their TV! Now, I'm assuming you all would make the argument that the computer is like TV+ (you can get your news, entertainment, and still have a computer to use), but it's still revealing. The tech crowd definitely recognizes the non-necessity of the TV in a disaster. Again- almost 10% of you would rather save nothing than save your TV. Telling... Thanks for sharing your input. I hope none of you find yourself in a long term power outage anytime soon, but if you do, you'll be going with the crowd if you choose to save your fridge- and food- first.