When we came into our house after our vacation, we found that our technology fast was continuing. We had no electricity. We came back to the great power outage of 2012.
We had heard people talking in the airport before our connecting flight about the big storm–the straight winds of over 80 miles an hour known as a derecho (Spanish for “straight,” as opposed to a tornado, meaning “turning”) that hit the country, knocking out power for millions in the D.C. area. When we drove into the small town where we live, the first stop light was out, but then the others seemed to be working, as were the lights in shops and the loudspeaker at the Little League park near our home. But when we unlocked the door and walked into our house, we stepped into a blast furnace. No air conditioning, no lights, no kitchen appliances, no internet. The landline didn’t work either, which usually doesn’t happen when the electricity goes, and our cell batteries were running low.
What to do? We were weary of hotels, but surely many of them would be without power too, and the ones that were functioning were surely full. We called our power company to report our problem and see how the repairs were coming, but the animated message could give no estimate of when electricity might be restored. I got on my smart phone and learned that repairs could take not hours but days. We resolved to just try to get some sleep in the sauna that was our room. We sat out on the porch until it got dark. Finally, we got sleepy and went inside. To cooler air! To the humming of the refrigerator! The lights came on!
Our electricity was out for only about 24 hours, and we missed most of it. We lost some food, but we had drawn our supplies down anyway for our two weeks of vacation, so that wasn’t so bad. There are about 600,000 people in the area–one out of three electricity company customers–who still don’t have power, so I both sympathize and empathize with them.
So now, despite our fun time in the woods, I now hail the electronic era as a great blessing and have learned not to take it for granted.
Power outages drag on in D.C. region; officials fuming at utility companies – The Washington Post.
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