After I did a few things yesterday (errands and an airport run for a friend), I decided I wanted to be lazy (continue being) and watch TV and maybe a movie, all night long.
While I was watching I could hear a big storm coming through, but I didn’t think anything of it—I was safe and cozy in my home…until the power went out.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
Step one: locate candles and flashlight. Step two: go out to car to charge phone and bit more. Step three: Annoy people on twitter?
A picture of the houses in the area from my car. You can how dark it is 😉
After about 2 1/2 hours the power did come back on, luckily. I’m more accustomed to extensive power outages, OR power outages where you can’t run water either (at my parents’ house if you lose power, you lose water too because it is from a well, so you get ONE flush. Use it wisely—) so this really wasn’t a big deal at all. And I started rereading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Do you guys remember or were you affected by the big power outage in the fall of 2003? I was just moving back to Cleveland, caravaning with my sister Leslie when the power went out. Things that suck: trying to move into a new apartment when there is no electricity or food, and all of the stores and restaurants have shut down because they have to power. We spent the night eating dry “Honey Bunches of Oats” and sweating from lack of fans and having to share one bed since that was all that we could manage to set up in the dark with just a flashlight.
The next day wasn’t much better—some restaurants were open so we were able to eat, but the restaurant didn’t have fountain Diet Coke! It was a nightmare.
We did finally get our power back on a few days later and in retrospect it was a wonderful adventure. Considering that the day I moved to Charlotte was September 11, 2001, the great Northeast Blackout of 2003 was really no big deal. I think the day we moved to St Louis was really uneventful in comparison though—the key is to have a day that doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry on it (the best I can find is it was the day Barack Obama was officially nominated for the Democratic Candidate for President, but that was a fairly foregone conclusion at that point anyway…). And I’m cheating a bit—my move to Charlotte was a multi day process—one day I moved from Cleveland to my parents house, then from there to Charlotte, and I made more than one trip.
My sister sent this picture of her new kitty, Catalunya. I wanted to just share it randomly. I don’t know how her little body is able to support that head…
Were you affected by the blackout in 2003? I probably wouldn’t remember it so strongly if I hadn’t also been moving at the same time.
Woah! I’ve never seen a kitty head so big!
I think it’s that the kitty body is very tiny! But YES.
Oh boy do I ever remember what I was doing during that blackout!!! I was also moving to Cleveland and was flying from Australia, I got as far as Chicago and we were told that the whole eastern side of the country was in blackout so no flights and no idea of when flights would resume. As we were standing in line to rebook on something the next day (with no promise that it would go!) I overheard some businessmen saying “hey let’s just rent a car and drive to Cleveland”. In my extreme tired state (I had already been travelling for about 20 hours!) I tapped them on the shoulder and said “um, mind if I tag along too??”. So my cello and me hopped into a car with two complete male strangers and drove for the next 8 hours or so. Actually to be perfectly honest I don’t know how long it was because I was passed out in the back seat for the whole thing!!! Luckily they weren’t murderers or rapists and I arrived safely to a still-blackouted Cleveland!
I was in college and had to work at Pizza Hut. We couldn’t open and threw out a ton of dough that would go bad. Not fun.
We had a heck of a snowstorm and power outage here in SLC 2 yrs ago. The power was out for about 12 hrs. It was MIGHTY cold.