Kept in the dark

After big storms one of the news items on the radio stations I listen to is the number of homes without electricity, as reported by the two big power companies. Thankfully, most of the time I hear this with the lights on. But not today. About 2:00 yesterday afternoon I saw the weather map. There was a line of thunderstorms heading my way. I still had shopping and walking to do. I decided I had better get started. I hoped to be in the mall when the storm hit. I visited the first store on my list. I got to the mall for my afternoon walking in plenty of time. At about 3:30 as I was close to the end of the first lap and in a department store the storm hit. I glanced out doors and could see the force. Moments later the electricity went out. I kept walking. A couple minutes later it came back on. A voice warned shoppers that the cashier terminals needed ten minutes to reset. Perhaps they would consider more shopping while they waited? Shortly after he finished speaking the power went out. And stayed out. I decided I could continue my walking in the dark. It wasn’t completely dark due to sunlights (though the sun was not shining) and people with cell phones. Along the way I passed many stores where the manager was closing the gate or talking to the boss about how to close the gate without power. I was close to the end of my second (and last) lap when a security guard told me the mall was closed to walking and I could stand by an entrance. By then the rain had lessened. I still needed groceries. So I went about a mile in the opposite direction of home. The grocery had lights on, so I went in. At one point I heard some mighty loud thunder. To get home I passed along the mall. Many of the traffic lights between the mall and home were not working, so traffic backed up at each one and the trip was slow. When I got home I saw the whole neighborhood didn’t have power. Maybe going to the grocery store – and buying ice cream – wasn’t such a good idea. I called my electric company to record my outage and get an estimate of when power would be restored. That’s why I keep a land line. It’s a sign of how bad things are when the electric company’s phone service didn’t have electricity. I finally was able to connect with their service center five hours after it happened. No estimate available. I live near a river. There are major roads on either side of me that cross the river, but one of them had a huge backup due to traffic lights that were out. I can sometimes tell when there is a backup because there will be extra traffic in my neighborhood of people looking for another way across the river (there isn’t one). I started supper by eating ice cream. Not the container I had just bought, but the last of the previous container. It was getting soft, but still good. The rest of the meal was half the package of lettuce salad I had just bought and a couple other things that didn’t need heating. I spent my evening reading. After a while I got tired of reading. As it got dark I lit candles. And kept reading. I had one candle I could carry to the bathroom and bedroom. But no reading in bed. A second storm came through about midnight. I didn’t reach for my watch to check the time. A third storm came through at 2:45 am. This one I did check the time because I thought I should get up to check for rain coming in, then wipe up the one area where it did. No need for lights because there was so much lightning. A fourth storm came through a couple hours later. Again, I didn’t check the time. A fifth storm came through at 7:30 am. I decided I could get up and face the day. Towards 8:00 I got in my car to listen to the morning news on NPR. There was a lot of static. When station identification came on I was surprised to hear it wasn’t the Ann Arbor station. It was the Alpena station in the Central Michigan University network on the same frequency. Alpena is over 200 miles straight north. No wonder there was static. The Ann Arbor station didn’t have power. Yup, part of the news was the number of homes without power. This time it was 700,000. I did a walk around the neighborhood. I heard lots of generators rumbling in back yards. Then I thought there was no reason to stick around the house. I went to the grocery store and bought another candle, this one with three wicks. Then I stopped for lunch. Then to a cinema. Out of the dozen screens nothing looked interesting. On to a second cinema. I saw no cars outside, so kept going. I went to a book store and browsed for a couple hours. I spotted an interesting place to get supper, but they’re only open for lunch. So at the place next door I got boneless wings (which used to be called chicken nuggets) with lemon pepper sauce. I would have preferred about half the lemon and twice the pepper. I ate my supper and was about to settle in for an evening of reading, soon by candlelight, when the oven chirped to indicate power was back. Total time without power: 28 hours. Once online I searched for sites that explained how long a fridge could be without power before food started going bad. The answer: in the fridge, maybe up to six hours. In the freezer, maybe up to 24. Some things, like hard cheese and ketchup, can survive longer. My task for the morning will be to clean out the fridge. Alas, trash pickup was this morning and won’t again until next Thursday. Which could lead to a really smelly garage. So perhaps I should just leave it in the fridge – well understood what had gone bad – until the day before trash day. Tomorrow afternoon will be trips to my usual grocery stores, to stock up on perishables.