Fun Times Pt. 6

The Fun Times category encompasses those unfortunate events that can be looked back on with anything other than horror. The prowler/burglar that became a flying squirrel chase. The TV turning itself on, prompting myself and my brother to do honest-to-God house-clearing.

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Went running yesterday around 4 maybe. Got home, showered, watched an episode of House. I notice out my bedroom window that's it's getting dark. 5:45 sees thunder and distant lightning. I shut my laptop off and unplug it at 6, as thunder and lightning start booming directly overhead.

I go down to the junkroom where my mom is using the computer and feeding the rats. At this point we've got torrential rains to the point where you can't see through the backyard, and the oak trees are waving like palm fronds. The sky is nasal-discharge green.

Mom says "hey, that'd make a good picture" goes to get her camera. Three things happen at once.

1.The back screen door is practically ripped open.
2.The garage door explodes inward (open) and something long flies in.
3.There's the noise of an explosion and all the lights go out.

Mom screams and dives to pull the backdoor closed. It's a fight against the wind. My first thought is "Someone just kicked the door in and I'm on the only end of the house without the appropriate equipment for shooting them." Second thought is a tree fell on the house and a branch came through the ceiling. It is dark as night in the house and I can't tell if there's structural damage, what's going on.

I go shut and lock the garage door. I go shut and lock the back door, run to the other end of the house and grab my Maglite and dad's weather radio. Mom's tripping on shoes and whatever flew in when the door burst open. Doorjam maybe?

I flick the light over the other end of the hallway - it's the curtain rod from over the window in the door. My brother's downstairs, taking a shower, and the next order of business is to get him light. No problem he yells up, there's an emergency light in the bathroom.

I'll expound on emergency lights in a little bit.

It still sounds like the end of the world outside, so we take the rats and the bird downstairs and set them on pool table, and I set about flipping the breakers to see which one will turn the power back on. None of them do. This wasn't a fuse that snapped, this is interruption of power to the house.

Twenty minutes later the worst of the storm is over. We go outside and find a tree branch snapped off, tore the powerlines down in the neighbor's yard. Later we discover that the powerpole in our backyard has been sheared off about five feet from the top, bringing the transformer down. No power for us for a long time. It's probably 7 at this time.

In the meantime we've lit candles, because it is DARK out and in.

We order a pizza and eat, and around 9 my brother and I go and get ice to keep the contents of the downstairs freezer frozen.

The power company gets here about 10:30 and commences wandering through the yards with flashlights, laughing and joking and looking around.

I go to bed in the junkroom around 11:00. The garage door won't close, so the house is pretty much open to whoever wants to come in. If you've ever watched Jericho, you remember the episode Rogue River, which ends with Jake sitting up in his family's livingroom with a shotgun waiting for trouble to show up. That was pretty much me last night.

Power was restored around 4 this morning.
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Power outages are not normal occurances, but they're not alien either. I remember big chunks of the US going dark due to too much traffic on the electric grid a couple summers ago. I remember NY having a similar problem I think just last summer. Those problems lasted long than 10 hours though.

Emergency lights are one of the best things you can have in your house. $5-10 at Menards/Fleet Farm/Home Depot, and they plug into your wall outlets. In the event of an outage, they come on, providing 1-3 hours of constant power. These should be in every room of the house and will provide enough light to get you to a flashlight.

We've got 3 good flashlights, and that's not nearly enough. You should have one flashlight per room, if not more. A decent Maglite will set you back $20, and by my estimate, will provide 4-8 hours of constant power. You should have a decent stock of batteries, and check the flashlights often to see if their batteries are leaking or are running down.

Once you've got the situation assessed, it's time to light candles in the main parts of the house and turn the flashlights off. You should have LOTS of big candles. We've got 8 hurricane candles, which each provide about 16 hours of meager illumination, as well as probably 8 big decorative candles and maybe thirty candles ranging in size from drinking cups down to tea-lights. Candles don't do a very good job of illumination, so you'll need more of them. By my estimate, those eight hurricane candles would've lasted us three nights.

When my brother and I went to Walmart to get ice, I bought 4 packs of chemlights. They're in camping section, Ozark brand. They come 2-3 to a pack, and come in multiple colors. Bend them till they crack and then shake, and they provide strong light for about six hours. I snapped one at 9:30 and it was still going somewhat strong at 4:30. As soon as I pay off the eight shotgun magazines I bought, I'm going to fill a .30cal can with chemlights.

First aid kits should be kept on hand, and should be capable of addressing decently sized wounds. One of the first things my mom did once the storm was over was to go and check on the elderly immigrant couple on the corner, and wound up coming back to get supplies to clean and bandage a medium serious gash on the man's leg that he got from tripping in the dark.

Here's what I keep thinking - we lost power for 10-12 hours. Our main concerns were light, and keeping the stuff in the freezer frozen.

Now imagine it's the middle of summer and the grid goes down because everybody's running 3 airconditioners. Businesses AND houses are dark. No more fans, airconditioners, lights, computers, whatever man, if it's plugged in, it's dead. Now imagine that going 3 or more days. I don't know if that would affect water pumping stations, but I suspect so. Suddenly I don't feel so paranoid. Every population center, major or not, is 24 hours of no power away from a breakdown of social order. We've got about 40 gallons of water downstairs and tons of canned food, and right now it doesn't feel like enough.

Or imagine a major blizzard lasting 3 or 4 days. Ice dragging down powerlines, whiteout conditions making the roads impassible. Such a thing is not unexpected here.

A little hardship, and suddenly, I feel vindicated.