Our Wired Up Age
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Are you ready for a major disruption in your life? We weren't!
At 3:00 AM on Sunday, our power went out. We didn't discover this until we got up on Sunday morning. No coffee, no internet, no hot water, no elevator, no Netflix! Apart from one flashlight and some candles, we were not prepared, even though our local government makes public service announcements on a regular basis advising citizens to have an emergency pack ready. We always made a note of it in our list of things to do. It never got done.
Luckily, we had running water and a barbeque. But, the propane tank was empty which necessitated a drive across town for a fill-up. As we live in a top-floor apartment, lugging a full tank of propane up eleven flights of stairs was no fun. However, we were able to cook up breakfast. Without the internet and our smartphones not charged up enough for web browsing, we could not check online with our power supply company. A phone call elicited the information that a cable had blown up (whatever that means) in a local sub-station. The recorded voice message advised the company was aware of the situation and there would be regular updates. Phoning around to some friends, we discovered the blackout was quite widespread and no one had any idea when power would be restored.
By mid-morning, the weather had changed and a cold front bought in a windstorm. By mid-afternoon, there were trees down everywhere with resulting power outages. Friends we had connected with initially and who were unaffected by the initial power outage were now without power. Further calls to the power company provided little new information with no news on when the problem would be resolved. By 7 PM, darkness had descended, it was cold, it was windy, and apart from a few residences that had emergency generators, it was dark.
We lit the few candles we had and turned on the two small flashlights and proceeded to reheat some spaghetti sauce and boil some water for pasta on the barbeque. This was followed by boiling a pot of water for tea. So, at the very least we were fed. But with the wind and the cold front, extra clothes were in order. We looked forward to spending a cold night in the dark…
