Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Power outage

The power went off tonight, somewhere around 6 p.m.

I'm obsessive about power surges ruining my computer - even though I use a protective power strip, I unplug even that when I'm not using the computer - so the fact that everything flicked off when I was online caused me immediate concern.

My house is in some disarray, but fortunately I remembered that I still had my winter storm survival pack assembled - and it contained a headlamp. I dug it out, checked around the house (the dog got scared and left the comfort of the recliner for the cocoon-like safety of her crate), and then did about the only thing I could do - bury myself under some blankets, turn on the battery-powered radio and read by the light of the headlamp.

I thought about how much my life requires electricity - especially in winter. No power means no heat (the furnace and space heaters are all I've got), no water (the well requires electricity, though I always keep some pitchers / jugs filled for these situations), no cooking. I think I can manually open the garage door, but even that would require some figuring out because it's attached to an automatic opener. At least my neighbors have a fireplace that can heat their house, so I know I wouldn't freeze in a prolonged power outage - though my house's pipes would.

After maybe 15 minutes, the power came back on... and a couple minutes later, it went off again. Another 15 minutes and it came back. It's been hours now, and no further issues.

I'm not sure what caused the outage - no snow today, relatively warm weather. In any case, the house is warm, the dog is back on the recliner and the computer seems to be fine.

1 comment:

Beverly said...

This is weird. It was out in the Kenwood shopping area. It was out at your house. My house had a palpable surge and oomph noise for a moment, but the lights didn't go out. Losing power is bad for the heat, but good for saving your food. I once put bags of snow in the freezer for three days waiting for our power to be restored. I need to move to someplace more normal; we get forgotten here.