When the Lights Go Out
In the early hours of Tuesday April 19th, we got a snow storm. One foot of very wet, slushy snow fell overnight, preceded and followed by rain. The weight of the snow knocked over trees and power lines. According to the news, eleven counties in New York have been affected and over half of the residents in my county were out of power. My street did not lose electricity until 5 PM, presumably when the electric company cut the grid in order to repair a pole that came down.
With our parents out of town, Sis#6 & Sis#7 were a little anxious about being home alone without power so I spent much of the evening with them. I checked in on three neighbors that are elderly and or ill to make sure they didn't need anything. Sis#1 and her family downstairs were fine, so Sis#3 and I settled into an evening of darkness. She works early and I have been having trouble sleeping in addition to having a head cold, so neither of us thought going to bed at 8pm was a stellar idea. We made a makeshift lantern from a flashlight and an empty plastic gallon milk jug, pulled out some cards and sat on the living room floor. We goofed around until 9:45 when the power returned. After making sure everything was okay, she went to bed and I stayed up a bit longer because now that the stress was off, I was wide awake and unable to sleep.
I feel like I should be better at preparing for emergencies considering that my county has been hit by two historic level floods in the last sixteen years. I might not have everything in a single spot, packed and ready to go, but I make sure I have things I would need.
Flashlights, batteries and battery tester, candles, matches, blankets, emergency radio, water.
In this case, I didn't have to worry about water because we're on the city system so even without power, the water still runs. Cell towers were not affected so I didn't have to worry about my cell phone except for the battery (which I was able to charge if needed on my emergency radio). The radio has NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) frequencies and I was able to tune in to the local NOAA channel that looped all of the current and expected forecast. Finding a local news station that actually reported local news, like outages and assistance, is nearly impossible and I really wish there was a frequency for the village that you could tune into. All of the heaters in my house are electric so knowing that we would be out of heat for up to a full day, I closed all of the shades and curtains on the windows and made sure blankets and sweaters were accessible. In total, we are out of power about five and a half hours, which is really decent considering that people in the country can be out for days.
The biggest stressors on my mind during all of this was the fact that my parents were out of town and my two sisters were home alone and had never been in charge during any sort of emergency. My parents left well after the snow had been cleared from the roads and before we lost power so no one expected a situation like this. The girls handled it admirably. They had already taken whatever precautions they could think of, which was correct. When we were younger and there was less surge protection built into electronics, it was a very different story when the power went out. Our stoves are gas so all we needed to do was carefully light the gas with a match.
Once I was sure they were set, I checked in on neighbors. We have a lady next door to my house who is ill and frail, so I made sure she had anything she needed for the night, including loaning her some flashlights and giving her my phone number. The house next to her has an older couple that recently moved in and didn't know what to expect. I got to meet them and give them a quick rundown on how few power outages we actually have in the area. My parents live across the street and their neighbors are a delightful couple in their late 'eighties who are like second grandparents to us. We're more of an immediate response if something happens since three of their four children live local. I saw both of their daughters stop by and they were eventually coaxed out of the house to spend the night somewhere with electricity.
This is all exciting and memorable. I've been through several power outages so I'm not terribly concerned. What is interesting and why I'm making this post is to think about how something like this would affect characters in a story.
Have they ever been through a power outage?
Are they in a location that is easily accessible and fixed first, or are they further away and left on their own longer?
What fail-safes are built in to make sure people can be communicated to about the state of affairs and where to find assistance?
Do they have necessary supplies in their house or the knowledge to know what to do?
Is it summer or winter? If it's summer, you have to worry about food going bad very quickly and keeping the refrigerator closed as much as possible. In the winter, if it's cold enough you can put food outside but you may have to worry about it freezing.
If a house temperature drops below freezing for long amounts of time, you run the risk of water inside your pipes freezing and then bursting, causing all kinds of damage inside the walls. This is one of the biggest after effects of the ice storm in Texas a few years ago.
What were the circumstances that caused the characters to lose power in the first place? Is it a tree down? Heavy snow? Earthquake? Hail storm? Heavy winds? Each type will inevitably impact how power restoration is approached.
Schools were closed yesterday because of the heavy slushy snow, but many are closed today because the districts don't have power. You see an influx of people at grocery stores because they either need to replace everything in there fridge or they have to buy food for each meal so they don't waste anything. People are also looking for emergency supplies like candles and flashlights.
Once the power goes out, you truly see how much of your life is run on electricity. No radio. No computer, no phone unless you have a way to charge the battery, no lights, no refrigerator, no heat, no appliances. When you can't turn the light on, it gets dark fast. When it's dark in the house, your natural responses to turn on lights and when that doesn't work, go to bed. If you're lucky, you have some battery operated clocks and know what time it is. I'm adamant about keeping battery clocks in the house.
Then suddenly you're thinking about how it makes so much more sense in the past centuries that people were up with the sun and went to bed shortly after dusk. If you were poor and couldn't afford fuel for lamps or fireplaces, you would save that for necessities like making food. For the wealthy to have extravagant evening galas that went into the early hours of the morning, it as yet another sign of their wealth. They could afford the light.
When you have a tiny bit of light, you start to realize how much it actually fills a space. One candle is a lot brighter when it's the only light in a room, and a city on a hill that's all lit up can be seen from miles away. It was so important during the World Wars to have blackout shades and curfews because any light was a sign of inhabitants and could become a target for bombing raids.
When you have no power, you keep looking up and down the street in search of a light, any other light. It's eerie to be surrounded by darkness where you know there should be light.
