No power

I dedicate this post to my Uncle Ken, who gives so much of himself.

On Friday, June 29th, we had a magnificent storm system move through our area, leaving much damage and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Ohio without electricity. That was just in Ohio.  I can't speak for the other states effected. 

I was in absolute awe of the power this storm demonstrated.  It made me remember once again just how small and insignificant I am. Shortly after the violence of the storm had passed, I drove into town to go work at my second job at our church. There were trees and limbs all across the road and people were, for once, driving very cautiously, but clogging the roadways as they drove around gawking at the devastation.

As I pulled in to the parking lot , the first thing I noticed was the fallen tree behind the church's Youth House, and the garage smashed beneath it. There were were shingles from the Youth House everywhere - it seemed as if the entire roof was laying throughout the parking lot and side yard! Then I noticed our church was missing its steeple.  I drove to the far end of the parking lot and spotted it, still up on the roof, hanging by its lightning rod cord.  I called to report the problems to our minister.

I was unable to work due to no power at the church, so after helping pick up the trash cans and the gas grill out back, which looked as if it had been picked up and slammed back to the ground with great force, and some other items, I headed back home.

The first evening was not all that bad.  Our frame of mind on that night was So the power was out...Big deal.  It was an inconvenience but the storm had cooled things off and the windows were open with a nice breeze blowing, plenty of food in the fridge as I'd just been to the grocery.  We had our Kindles and phones and I suppose in our minds the power would be back on within a few hours.

We were unaware at that point of the extent of damage throughout the state.  We were unaware of how long this would last.

The next day was Saturday, June 30.  Got up early because there were birds singing outside my window.  I remember thinking how nice it was to wake to such a pleasant sound and what a shame that we usually miss that experience because our house is always closed up, to keep the a/c in.  I felt pretty good that morning, so I got up and went in search of ice.  In town, it was crazy and chaotic.  People everywhere, ice no where.  I found six bags only left at Kroger and loaded up 4 of them into my cart.  A man walked up behind me, and I told him there were two left, but I would split it evenly with him if he wanted, and give him a third bag.  He thanked me but said 2 was all he needed.  I saw one of my favorite faculty members in the parking lot, leaving empty-handed and offered him one of my bags of ice, but he too thanked me and said he would look elsewhere.  I headed home to unload the as much as I could from the fridge into coolers.

After that was accomplished, I tried to go work the second job again.  Nope.  Still no power.  Sigh. It had been a challenge to get to the church because, in the time since I'd returned home from getting ice to when I was returning to town to work, a pole had fallen, dropping a bunch of wires (phone? cable?) across the road and there were wires going everywhere about a mile before the church.  There was a woman and an elderly man on site helping to slow and direct traffic, and I'd had to drive clear off the left side of the road to sneak under the lines.  Since I had to travel back that way to get home again I hung around at the church for a while, did some picking up of the debris laying in the lot and yard and gave the crews time to clear the road.

We messed up big time Saturday....we left the house opened up during the heat of the day.  And it was miserable hot.  That was a dumb thing to do because all that heat got inside and there was no way to move it around or get it out come nightfall.  Lessons learned.  In the afternoon Saturday, I received word the church had power back, so I went in there and did what I needed to do and sucked in as much air conditioning as I could.  Felt great!  I was really hoping there would be power at home when I got back home, but by now we were beginning to hear about the extent of the damage, the widespread power outages that stretched from Indiana to West Virginia... and the estimation that it would be 5-7 days before power would be restored.

I slept horribly Saturday night...all that heat in the house, absolutely no breeze coming through the windows all night... I tossed and turned and woke up drenched in sweat I can't tell you how many times.  It was the worst night.

I woke up early again Sunday morning due to the birds making a racket outside my window.  You can see how much my frame of mind had deteriorated at this point. It was humid and I was soaking wet.  I felt exhausted, frustrated, gross and cranky.  Ben went out very early to try to find some ice.  I spent the first hour throwing out over $300 worth of food from the fridge and freezer that we just couldn't save.  The frustration of the waste and the expense had taken a toll on me, but I actually felt a little better after I'd purged it all from the house.  The stress of trying to save it was gone.  It was time to move on.

We were smarter Sunday.  The house had cooled off a bit during the night, so as the temperatures began to rise again, we shut the house all up, closed the windows and the blinds and kept it dark.  It helped.  It was still stifling hot in the house, but remained a consistent 10 degrees cooler than the temperature outside.


We were pretty much out of towels at our house because we had to keep mopping up melted ice all the time. So I packed the kids up and a load of towels and trucked in to my mom and dad's house to shower and do laundry.  My folks had gotten their power back sometime on Saturday.  We all showered and mom said just to leave the towels, she'd do them later.  While we were there my Uncle Ken texted me and was on the prowl for a generator for us over in West Virginia, where he lives.  He was going to get one for us and we would drive down to Marietta and meet him to pick it up.  Ken spent his entire Sunday trying to locate one for us.  Bless the man's heart for his efforts.  


It turned in to a huge mess for him, trying to track one down, and by the time we met up with him, it was after nine p.m. and it was storming so badly in Marietta when we met up that we had to sit and wait it out for a bit before we could even get out of our vehicles to transfer the 200 lb box from his car to ours.  We were even under a covered loading dock, but the wind and rain were intense.  70 mph winds were shooting shopping carts from the nearby Walmart across the parking lot like projectiles, crashing into vehicles and setting off car alarms.  I think Eli might have been fearful.  I'd sort of forgotten about him sitting silently in the back seat as we tried to navigate the parking lot to a safer location, while carts shot out in front of us.  All of a sudden, I heard his little voice say, "...I love you guys...."  I looked back at him and he was sort of pale and his eyes were big behind his glasses.  Bless his heart!!!!  

Under the loading dock at Lowes in Marietta.
It wasn't actually supposed to be dark yet.

By the time we got home Sunday night it was after 11 p.m.  I went straight to bed.  It was too late to set up the generator, and besides we didn't have gas for it anyway at that point...we had to have a 5 gallon gas can and had been unable to locate one anywhere.  


During Sunday afternoon we'd lost our land line phone.  One moment it was working.  The next moment, it wasn't.  It was just one more complication.  I'd planned to have my mom phone me to get me up the next morning so I could go in to their house to shower in order to go to work.  Instead I borrowed a battery operated alarm clock from her and go up at 5:30 a.m. and trucked in to town.

I was trying to capture how hard it was raining,
but it just doesn't do it justice.

Over a thousand crews from other power companies in other states (AL and GA included!) had traveled during the weekend into Ohio to begin helping our local crews with the overwhelming task of getting lines cleared and repaired and power restored.  A "home base" had been set up at the Fairgrounds, complete with lighting, Port-a-potties, food vendors, and later in the week, a station with computers so the crews could Skype with their families back home.  


As I traveled through the dark and fog to my parents house around 5:40 a.m. Monday morning, July 2nd, I drove past the Fairgrounds to see 30-40 huge power company trucks back-lit with flood lights, causing the thick fog to glow as it swirled around these behemoth trucks.  It was an awesome sight!  It filled me with hope!  The cavalry had arrived and maybe this ordeal would soon be over!


Ben and Ash worked during Monday morning to obtain the 5 gal gas can, fill it with gas and then set up the generator.  They had just set everything up and Ben had the electric cord to the refrigerator in his hand, preparing to plug it in to the gennie, when all of a sudden the microwave beeped and the whir of electric things in our home began to buzz as power was restored to us.  Ben stood gaping with the cord still in his hand, and Ash yelled, "YOU'RE KIDDIN' ME!!!"  Then came the laughter of relief.  Yay!  Electric for us!


But.... we were one of the fortunate few, and I almost felt guilty that we had power back.  Several of our friends spent the entire week without electricity.  It was the hottest week we've seen this entire summer thus far, with temps in the high 90's into the 100s most days.  


I think about our three inconvenient days and about how cranky I got and feel a sense of shame for being such a whiner baby.  Of course, we did three days with no assistance of a generator.  Still, it was nothing compared to 7 or 8 days....or more...that others have had to endure.  Yes, we experienced some devastating expense.  Financially it completely wiped me out, and that was very stressful and frustrating.  Yes, we were inconvenienced and hot.  But, as I write this, there are still some folks without power ... this is day 11....and the electric companies are announcing today that they really hope to be able to be able to restore power to them no later than tomorrow night. I just ache for these folks!

 You know what I found fascinating was that while Ben and Ash and I were experiencing aggravation about our situation, the one who handled it best was Eli.  Sure he missed playing video games for a few days, but somehow Eli just accepted that "it was what it was" and got out his toys.  He set up a magnificent battle and worked for hours sorting the guys, setting up the guys, picking out the most perfectly posed guys and creating minutely detailed scenes with exquisite care.  He even got Ash involved and they worked together to help pass the time.

Mind you, Eli didn't have the worry of the loss of all that food.  He didn't have the worry of how to foot the bill for all stuff we were having to buy and replace and survive on, or any of the stressful stuff we adults were having to deal with.  But... he could have made it so much worse by being difficult or having a meltdown about playing his video games, or in so many other ways.  But he didn't.  No meltdown.  No whining.  He really didn't say much at all, in fact.  He just quietly entertained himself the whole three days by playing.  


I was so proud of him!  

       
I learned something about myself though...I will take an extended power outage in the winter over one in the summer ANYTIME!  At least you can put your food outside to keep it cold, and you can always put on more clothes and wrap up in blankets to keep warm.  I handled the 5 days we were out in the winter of 2009, after a massive ice storm knocked out power all over our area, so much  better than I handled this one. SO much better! We closed off rooms in the house to conserve heat and took turns sitting up round the clock with the kerosene heater.  We kept our food on the deck in the snow and cold, and slept in pairs for warmth. It was cozy and kind of fun!

This outage, on the other hand, was hot and sticky and uncomfortable and wasteful and tempers were flaring and food was rotting and bodies were stinking.  Just a whole different experience. And I'm so grateful for God taking time to make me aware of the many, many daily blessings I have all around me...and I have been prayerful in giving praise and thanks for these things!

I'm beyond grateful to my Uncle Ken who spent so much effort on getting us the generator....clearly it was the magic catalyst in getting our actual power restored!!  We will be paying him back a little each month until it's paid off and at least we'll be able to save our food in the future. And run a fan!  It will definitely make a huge difference the next time around!  Thanks so much, Ken!