Star Simpson

my experience with an e-scooter that used them is that lead acids are really easy to ruin if you don’t keep them charged

Right! Better if left on a trickle charger/battery tender?

for sure - maybe this is being too picky, but my idealized disaster kit is shelf-stable, in a box somewhere, not plugged in.

As soon as you need it, it's not plugged in

I asked a fellow electrical engineer pal about this last night who's done work mostly in developing world solar -

He was saying that after Haiyan the satellite photos showed darkness in cities, lights in rural towns - wired exactly this way

Out here in the PNW, grid power is unreliable enough that a lot of people have portable generators. Many even have fixed home gensets

And this isn't even for disasters so much as just routine seasonal storms. Half my city had no power for 12+ hours after high wind this week

So I don't see backup power as disaster prep. I file it with snow shovels and lawnmowers as a "everybody needs / probably already has one"

Also, srs Q: what would you use a single car battery + inverter for? Can't cook / run a fridge for long. Barely 4 hours of a TV or lamp

~Infinite cell phone recharges, occasional lighting, a few laptop refills.

It just seems baffling to me that we chart food, water, but not power, given our reliance on devices for communication.

Understood, was just wondering what you wanted the backup power for.

My advice: USB power bank for phone, chemlights for dim area lighting, flashlight for bright point lighting. Ditch the laptop to start

Heck, much of what you’d want to run after a disaster is 5v anyway. So you might even be able to skip the inverter.

Handful of AAs and you are good to go.

As soon as I can charge my phone on AA's more easily than the convenient efficiency nightmare of battery-inverter-charger ;)