The power came back around 6 a.m., just as I was snuggling up with Molly to nurse and trying to stop kicking blankets off her chilly feet. The temperature in the house had dropped to 61.
This was the view out our windows:
By the time Jim left for work the roads were fine, the house was warming up and everything seemed to be back to normal. Then around 8 a.m. the power went off again. Hours went by, still no power. It was getting cold in the house again so I packed the baby into the car.
Trees were down everywhere. I could smell pine, even with the car windows closed. Our grocery store was open and some people were shopping, but it was dark inside -- clearly running on a generator -- and a woman appeared to be putting plastic over the refrigerated produce. We drove on to a grocery store farther away that had power. Then we drove around looking for stores that were open (didn't find much) and killing time. The baby fell asleep. When the sun came out it looked as if all the trees were made of glass. Here's a picture I took after we got home.
Around late afternoon we started to worry we were facing an even colder night in the house with no heat. Hundreds of thousands of people lost power. The radio reports said it probably wouldn't be back in a lot of places until Monday.
We booked a hotel room. It was getting dark by the time Jim got home and we used flashlights to finish packing and shutting off the utilities. (Molly had a good time toddling around with a flashlight). The car was loaded and we were just about to go out the door when Jim noticed that one house down the hill had lights on. Then he noticed another and another. He went downstairs to turn our power back on and it worked! We heard one of our neighbors cheering down the street.
So that was our exciting day. The lesson? We need to stop talking about buying a generator and actually buy one. At least Molly didn't seem to be bothered by the whole experience. Of course, we didn't actually have to leave the house. Big sigh of relief!!!
2 comments:
Wow! We really lucked out in this ice storm! Our power was out for an hour, but so many other people had nothing all day! I'm glad it came back finally and you didn't need to hit the hotel (did the hotel have power?) Alan ran some lights for us off the car. Talk to him about hooking that up for you :)
I am glad that your power came back so quickly. Although, if it had stayed down maybe you could have come here early! :)
You learned another important lesson, more importnat than having a generator, toddlers love flashlights! A flashlight will keep Lucy occupied for at least 20 minutes at a time.
See you in a few days!
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