Powerless
Polley sensed the impending disaster first.
“Listen to that wind!” We were both sitting in our leather recliner watching an old Perry Mason episode. I pressed pause on the tv remote. Yes. The wind just perked up from a breeze to a howling banchee. Oh oh.
A good friend of ours remembers the waters rising around his hometown of Bloomsburg, Pa. from Hurricane Agnes. He showed me pictures of rowboats cruising down the streets of that town, and it was such a traumatic event that when it starts to drizzle, the fear returns and the locals scan the skies hoping for a non-repeat of the disaster.
Three years ago a winter storm packed with strong winds and snow blizzards swept through our area knocking out power for four or five days—more in other nearby neighborhoods. Our good friend Milly rescued us from hypothermia by allowing us to stay with her, and our vets housed Tiger, our cat. That was a long four days. So when the wind begins to swirl noisily around our home, we try to remember where the flashlights and candles are.
Sure enough Perry is about to identify the killer during the trial when the lights flicker and everything in the house goes dark.
Thirty seconds pass. The lights flicker back on, giving us hope. “Oh wow! That wasn’t so bad.” Then the lights go out again. A minute passes. Clocks start blinking “12:00” in red. “Well, that wasn’t so bad.” Twenty seconds pass. Lights go out again. After ten minutes in the dark we decide it is time to break out the candles and flashlights. Polley notes that this time we are fortunate that our recliner is in the UP position. That was not so during the last outage, and we almost had to call the Jaws of Life to extract us from the electric chair…um, .electric recliner. We find other facts to be joyous about. We had dinner, so chomping down on sardines by candlelight won’t be necessary.
So what do you do sitting in the dark? A candle is radiating a soft yellowish light from the end table, and I pick up the book I am reading and try to digest a few pages. No such luck. The light is too dim and I can barely distinguish sentences let alone words. How did the pioneers do it? Growing up I learned that the early settlers gathered the family around the hearth and read the bible to the assemblage. Later they read Dickens or Hawthorne or Twain. Considering the fact that in winter it is definitely dark by 7PM, and also considering the reality that candles were not easily squandered, I believe that the pioneers must have hit the sack around 7:30. No wonder they got up at dawn. They had 11 hours of sleep!
Going to bed just after what would have been the Final Jeopardy question if we had electricity was not an attractive option. So Polley and I sat there in the dark, blanket over our legs, waiting for the cold to surround us since the heater was off, and then I realized that the Masterpiece Theater program we were going to record on our DVR (the first episode of “The Twits of Twittingham”), will not be recorded because of the outage. When the power is restored we will have to search to see if that episode is playing again on another channel….we can’t miss the first episode!
I stand up, grab a flashlight and head upstairs to the bathroom. On my way I stop at the front door and scan the neighborhood to see if we are the only ones without power. Nope. Everyone on our block is sitting in the dark waiting for electricity to return, for our lifestyles to resume, for the extension of daytime to be fulfilled by the power of electrons moving quickly along the shielded wires.
When I return to the recliner Polley has her mobile phone on, reporting the outage to the electric company.
“We have discovered there is a power outage in your area. Power is expected to be restored by an undetermined time.” Why is that not reassuring? The metallic voice continues. “Please visit our website at www….. to find status of your outage.” Lady, my computer is powered by electricity, so we can only address this website if we have a mobile device….which we do, but we are sucking the battery dry by playing Word Bubbles in the dark.
There is not much to do in the dark but think. Which is okay, since I like thinking, but naturally my thought process drifts to the future and the things we have to do when normalcy is returned. When power is restored how many clocks will we have to readjust? If the outage lasts days, not hours, when do we transfer the food in the freezer to a friend’s freezer? Or do we have a Gluttony-A-Thon and cook on the barbie and wolf down a dozen frankfurters and a twelve pound brisket? What about our Smart Things? Our Vocal Assistant will have to be retaught after the surge and the other settings for our timed lights and alarm system will have to be reset. I ponder the ways all our high tech systems save us time until we have to repair them.
However, as I always tried to impress upon my students, perspective helps retain sanity, or, as one of my students suggested, “our pain is alleviated by the more severe pain experienced by others.” Here are some facts about power outages in other states.
N 2017, THE TOP FIVE STATES FOR POWER OUTAGES WERE:
- MICHIGAN
Michigan’s most interesting fact about its power outages may be that it has the highest outages per capita of all the other states. Weather-related outages caused 56 of the 155 outages in 2017. Faulty equipment took second place with 36 caused outages. Average outages lasted just over an hour and affected just over 2 million people over the course of the year.
Odd Outage Fact: A dashboard video revealed the cause of an outage that affected 4,500 customers for five hours to be a goose. The camera caught the animal falling lifelessly from the sky. The bird apparently hit a 7,200-volt line, which tripped a nearby transformer.
- OHIO
Another Midwestern state joins Michigan in the nation’s top five. While Ohio suffered more outages than Michigan in 2017 (158) the outages affected only 663,000 customers. Similar to other states near the Great Lakes, Ohioans experience the most outages due to weather.
Odd Outage Fact: A cement mixer caused a blackout in Edgerton when the driver tried to pass a tractor but veered too far to the side. The truck was pulled into the ditch, and turned the mixer sideways, sending it into a power pole, which it severed.
- NEW YORK
Yet again, weather remains the number one factor for power outages in this east coast state. New York had 165 outages affecting almost 900,000 people in 2017. Nor’easters are to blame for the most weather-related outages and had many suburban citizens calling for tree removal to help prevent the damage. Thankfully, the average duration of an outage is only about an hour.
Odd Outage Fact: A train derailment triggered a power outage in Manhattan. Nearly three dozen people were injured when two cars of a subway flew off the rails.The accident triggered a blackout that stopped service on four subway lines.
- TEXAS
Everything’s bigger in Texas. Including the number of power outages. Texas takes the number two spot for power outages in 2017 with 192 outages affecting 1.1 million people. Heatwaves and flooding caused the majority of the outages in Texas in 2017.
Odd Outage Fact: A buzzard got into some equipment in a Crandall substation. It resulted in an outage to 1,527 customers.
- CALIFORNIA
In 2017, California ranked number one in four of the categories that Eaton Blackout Tracker monitors. These categories are vehicle accidents, animal outages, faulty equipment and weather. The state saw 438 outages over the year that affected almost 3 million people. A quarter of power losses reported had no definite reason.
Odd Outage Fact: A bobcat climbed to the top of a power pole in Cambria, shorting out the circuit at the end of his climb and cutting power to 3,530 customers. The animal did not survive.
https://www.generac.com/be-prepared/power-outages/top-5-states-where-power-outage-occur
If I want to feel even more appreciative of the company that supplies me with energy, I consider the following facts:
In 2013 Pakistan experienced 75 power outages A MONTH, Bangladesh 64, Lebanon 50, and Papua, New Guinea 41. That is a lot of clock resetting not to mention finding out times to record The Twits of Twittingham.
How do other countries do it?
When I consider these realities, the frequencies and numbers of outages in other parts of the world, including my own nation, I feel pretty fortunate. When an outage occurs, and I have more clocks to reset and more devices to reboot, it is only because I have more.
Thanks, Ralph
Always a treat to read!
Love,
Dawn