Power Outage

 We had a thunderstorm this morning at 2:08. It woke me up, and the digital clock near the bed has very large numbers. I laid back to try to sleep. The weather forecast had shown a north/south line of them crossing the state overnight, with then current warnings all along the western border. We live by the eastern border. Sleep wasn’t coming, I decided after 5 minute listening to the storm, but something else wanted to.

I got up to make my way through the house. Fortunately I know it well. There is a little night light just over the bed which gave a glow, enough for my dark adjusted eyes to find my way through to the main part of the house to the bathroom. The CO detector in that hallway also gives a tiny glow, and there is a light-sensitive night light in the bathroom itself. While I was in there, it went out. Huh? Bad bulb, taking just this exact second to announce itself?

Once I walked out, the CO detector’s light was flashing, dimming. The other night light in the kitchen was out, no street lights either. Oh well, bed called. Besides, Paul keeps the house cold for us Arizona folks, and we almost never use the window AC we have in our former-garage-now-bedroom. If I’d had any doubts about the power, the bedroom clock no longer displayed the time.

I went back to sleep, trying to give myself a mental warning to wake by 5, so I could be sure to get Paul up for work. Sometimes that actually works. It did this time, but he was already up. I guess he has one of those battery reinforced alarm clocks. I returned to the warm bed again, after reminding myself just what wasn’t going to work in the morning, starting with Steve’s lift chair.

What else? We are so spoiled. No TV, internet, lights, refrigerator - freezer (gotta try to avoid opening that), microwave, even the gas stove with its electric “pilot lights”. OK, I know where the striker matches are, both boxes. The water itself is fine, since we live half a block from the water tower. But if this drags on for a while, the city pumps will be out and it won’t refill. But no hot water, so try not to need a shower! Yikes! On the plus side, nobody else should have hot water either so usage in general should be way down. Also no finishing the loads of laundry I started yesterday. Coffee will be cold, though it’s instant and just takes a bit longer to dissolve. Still tastes good. There is lots of food left from our trip up which doesn’t need cooking or refrigeration.

I think I got them all except one set of things: smoke detectors! They are wired through the house, and the battery which keeps the one in the  basement charged just a bit longer  is complaining loudly that its power is running low. I wonder just how long that can go on. I can hear it all too well, though its high pitch is beyond Steve’s hearing these days. At least they’re not toooooo loud with the door shut. Maybe.

Note: the smoke detector shut off at around 7:30. I survived the incessant noise! Whew!

Once Steve and I both got up and dressed, we found out that his lift chair was left in a very slight up position, so he says he can still sit in it. There is just enough tilt that he has to keep his feet on the floor, fighting against sliding forward. But he says it’s good enough.

The wifi router is off, of course, so I can only use my laptop for non-connected things like writing this but not posting it, and he can use his Kindle to read the book he downloaded and had just started yesterday. Both have a full battery charge, fortunately. By the time this is posted I can add what time (day?) the power returned.

With that question in mind, I decided to see if the cell towers were functioning. But at barely after 6 AM, whom to call? Oh yeah, the power company. This is a tiny town, and the early risers likely would be hurrying out their doors to work down in the metro, presuming there was power there, and that somebody else here would call Xcel. That could be me. I hit the buttons and it went through. (Cell towers are up! Yay!) The message was something like this:

“There are a lot of outages in the area. If you are calling about a gas problem,  blah blah blah or call 911. If you are calling to report an electric outage, please stay on the line. Wait times are long. You can also report electronically at blah blah blah.”

Wait, what? I can report an electric outage... wait for it ... electronically?

Seriously?

Does anybody really think through these things?


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Power returned a little after 8:15. That’s AM. It took Steve about 10 minutes to realize that now he could adjust his lift chair again, so it mustn't have been too bad to sit in.