Thursday, February 7, 2008

Yeah, power!

Tuesday night, we had some horrendous storms with lots of rain and wind rip through here. Since it was at night, most people were sleeping, including me. The one good thing I did (or at least thought I did) was set my cell phone alarm in case the power did go out. Lo and behold, the power did go out, however, my alarm did not. Actually, I should back up and say my cell phone alarm didn't go off, but Baxter decided to take its place. It worked out well since I had to be at work by 8 AM.

So no big deal the power was out. I called that morning and reported it to the electric company and talked to them about when restored service would be. They said they were working on and it would be soon. Evening rolled around, and no power. Again, not that alarming, I had my flashlights, candles, and my headlight band. I expected the to be restored by the time I woke up, especially since my landlord who lives 0.5 mile away had power.

The next morning, again no power. I was beginning to panic at this point. I had a lot of freezer and refrigerator food plus all my dogs' food and my freezers were thawing out. After talking to the electric company this afternoon and them telling me there was no guarantee on restored power today, I decided to move my stuff into coolers. Then when I got home around 8:00 PM after going to the library to check my e-mail because I hate being "e-mail-less" and whining to my friends that my power was out, the power was back on. I was quite relieved to say the least, but at the same time, I felt like I was worrying for nothing.

It's interesting, because back in 2003, there was a very bad ice storm here. I ended up without power for 11 days! I survived it and did okay, but ever since then, I just seem to panic when the power goes out for longer than a day. It's not only that, but I've come to the realization that I would not do well in some place like Alaska where there are not as many sunlight hours.

I think there is more to this than just the power going out. It's the fact that my whole routine changed. I wasn't able to get any of my land runs in this week due to the weather. I had other appointments in the afternoon to go to, I had more work to do at the kennel since my boss was gone, and a few days, I just didn't feel that well and was exhausted. I'm hoping now that things are mostly back to normal, my mind will ease a bit, and I can relax. It's amazing how important electricity is and not to be taken for granted.

1 comment:

Dr. Deb said...

Ah, now I know why you had no elelctricty. Isn't it amazing how we don't know what we have till we lose it. It must have been such a different way of life before the industrial revolution. My refrigerator's compressor broke this week, and we have living out of an ice cooler!!

Hope things return to normal for ya soon.