I woke up in complete darkness early this morning. It was so dark that I couldn’t see the clock next to my bed. I couldn’t see any light outside my window. That’s when it occurred to me that there must be a power outage. I live in a mobile home park and there is a very bright street light almost directly across from my driveway which causes lots of light to enter my windows so I am never in the dark here. This was the first time since I moved here that this had happened.
Of course, I do have a flashlight, one of those crank-when-you-need-it ones that require no batteries. I keep it right next to my night stand. I reached for it and it wasn’t there. Then I remembered that I had given it to my grandson to play with the last time he came over. He had grabbed my 12 inch-and-very-heavy-Maglight. He was swinging it all around him. He’s got a very good arm…baseball worthy if it keeps up…so I was afraid he would toss it at something when he tired of it, as he often does. So I swapped with him, giving him the plastic crank flashlight instead. When he went home, I forgot to put it back next to my night stand. Of course, it was so dark that I couldn’t see to find it.
The next best thing was my cell phone. That was where it always is when I sleep, plugged in next to my night stand. I had plugged it in just before going to bed. I had no idea how long that had been. I knew I had stayed up really late…until maybe 4…streaming my favorite TV show of the past…NYPD Blue. I reached for it and turned it on. It was 6 and it hadn’t charged much. It was only at about 40% charge so I knew the power had been out for awhile. I couldn’t use it as a flashlight because then the battery would drain and I knew I might need it before the power came back on. Although it was 6, it was still dark and it was overcast and raining so it was bound to remain dark for awhile.
I found my way to the living room where my laptop was. I would check to see what I could find about the power outage. Wrong! No electricity means no wi-fi. I looked out the front window and could only see dark grayness all around me. So I had to use my cell phone to look up the local TV station’s website for news. I found it right away. It was the top story: Over 8,000 homes without power in my county; equipment failure; PGE working on it; expected to be restored by 7:30. I shut it off right away so I wouldn’t wear out the battery. It was very cold and I didn’t really think I wanted to go sit in the car with the engine running to charge the phone if I needed it charged so I decided to preserve what charge I had.
I thought of getting dressed and going out to the local Denny’s for breakfast to kill some time. However, the news story had said it was county-wide and I could see from my window that no light seemed to be seeping from any place nearby so I figured that was not a good idea. And, the article had said that traffic lights were also out. That could be dangerous. I decided to stay indoors.
It was really cold, too…indoors. No electricity=no heater. My back was aching but I couldn’t use my heating pad. I bundled up on the couch to wait. But then I had to go to the bathroom so I inched my way down the darkened hallway and to the bathroom, stumbling on a couple of things the baby had left outside that bathroom. As I flushed, I realized I should not have. Our water is from a well and the well pump is run on electricity so when we have no power, we have no water. Yup, it flushed but it didn’t re-fill with water. This was going to be a long hour and a half until power was restored.
It actually took until after 9 to come back on. Long wait. I ended up falling asleep thinking about how dependent we are on electricity and wondering how life must have been way back before we had electricity…or before it was so available and relied upon as it is today. What would we do without electricity?
That’s how my day began.
Ah – remember the great So Cal Power Outage of 2011? My boys and I learned a few tricks from that 18 hour experience & a subsequent 12 hour planned repair outage afterwards. Lemme tell you – electricity is sure KING in our lives, isn’t it?
First off – buy some solar powered landscaping lights for around your home. Should electricity go out, they are fabulous sources of light for getting around the house. And, you don’t have to worry about running out any battery source!
Secondly – I used my laptop as a stopgap way to charge my phone. Though, I did cruise around my neighborhood charging the phone that night too. Mostly stop signs around me anyway and since we were all under the blackout conditions everyone was pretty cautious on the local streets.
Third, in addition to having that handy flashlight next to your bed (figures it wasn’t there right?!) – keep an battery powered hand held radio nearby for quick access to news reports. We were huddled around our little transistor unit to keep track of the power situation while playing scrabble by landscape lights in my backyard 🙂 It was a lot of fun!
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I have solar lights but they don’t work up here because it’s too cold. So although they are up, they aren’t going to work for me until spring when we get out of the 30’s for overnight temps.
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Brings back memories. My power goes off frequently, but usually just for hours. During hurricanes it has been days. Flashlights are all over the house and I have a generator that will run refrigerator, TV, microwave and a couple of lights. Also a battery radio.Jerry and I usually had neighbors over and opened a bottle of wine if it went on too long.I haven’t had to handle a hurricane by myself yet.
I like the solar idea. A charge lasts all night. When I store my solar Christmas lights they don’t go off for days in a dark bag. LOL Also important is a phone that doesn’t need to be plugged in. Cell is fine except during emergencies like hurricanes band width is reserved for emergencies and they are worthless. Ah the things you learn in Florida.
Glad you are back up and running. Being without power is truly humbling.
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I need to get a battery operated radio. The only radio I have in the house is electric. And I have to replace flashlights. At one point I had a flashlight in every room but never replaced them once the batteries died. I’ll have to find them and replace batteries then put one next to the door to each room. Of course, then I have to hope that Anderson will leave them there. He loves anything with lights and walks around the house pointing to every light bulb and saying, “lights night” . So he probably won’t leave them there. Maybe inside each closet is a better idea.
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The last time I had a power outage at my place was the weekend of the Royal Wedding last April. There was a windstorm that knocked power out to pockets of the city, and by the time things got back in order, the wedding had come and gone, so I missed getting up insanely early for that.
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I guess some people would consider you to have been blessed by that power outage. It depends on how you see it! Thank you for stopping by.
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