The power went out Wednesday afternoon. We'd had a bit of a snow/ice storm in the morning, nothing drastic, about 6 inches of snow, and the precipitation had petered out and it was turning warm, rather strangely warm, which must have had something to do with the wind picking up. Soon it was beyond blustery, with trashcans and various other items flying around the block. Suddenly there was that freight-train-like roar, and that bone-crunching crack of heavy tree trunks snapping, and the groan of roots letting go of the ground. They say it was a wind shear -- kinda like a tornado without quite the funnel. When it was over the power was off -- over 20 utility poles were ripped out of our main road just around the corner, and many others were down in other yards. For several hours we could not get off the block, with huge trees across the road in either direction; various practical men with chainsaws were soon out tackling the problem and we could leave the block... but with no where to go. Live wires were across the road out in both directions. By the time I had to leave to teach a class in a town 40 miles to the south, there was only one small road open, and that was northward. I drove 10 miles north, dodging trees hanging from lines and falling on the road as I went, then back 50 miles to the College of St. Joseph for my Business Communications class, last one before final exams. Three hours later, I took the same route back north, then had to talk my way past firefighter road blocks to get back into my neighborhood.
But while being on the road dodging wires was a bit hairy, being home was fine. The woodstove hummed happily, with soup bubbling away in a cast iron pot and a huge vat of stock simmering on the side shelf. We had plenty of candles and lamps with lamp oil. We are on town water, and although we have an electric water pump it seems to only come on for the hot water -- not entirely sure how that works, but somehow our water continues to flow out of the faucets, albeit cold, when the power is out.
By first light the neighbors were all out strolling the block, stopping in on one another, offering food or heat or an extension cord to a generator or use of a hot shower, seeing if all was okay, gawking at the damage (trees right through a few roofs and sheered off one neighbor's porch; trees sitting on other roofs with some shingle and fascia damage), jokingly guessing how many cords of free firewood were now down in everyone's yards.
There was conversation about how long stuff in the freezer would last, and there was admittedly a lot of ice-cream eating going on (couldn't let it go to waste, could we?).
I thought alot about other disasters we've heard of in the news over the years, in large urban places, and about my various friends' apartments in those urban places, with nary a bite to eat in the kitchen except maybe a leftover bit of Chinese take-out. I can comprehend the panic in, say, Manhattan, when the power goes out -- how will you get out of your apartment? How will you eat? It doesn't take too many hours of cold and fear before your stomach starts growling, but when the power's off and the stores and restaurants close, where will those kitchenless apartment dwellers find food?
Food security and the practical skills of our neighbors meant that this display of Mother Nature's force remained in the realm of quite interesting, or at worst merely inconvenient, rather than terrifying or anxiety-provoking. Everyone made sure everyone else was okay, and everyone was warm and dry and had plenty to eat. By late Friday afternoon, there were no longer downed trees but neat stacks of new firewood, and the hum of chainsaws cave way to the buzz of borrowed leaf chippers turning the last of the brush to garden mulch.
Then, of course, we all had to drive out to buy more ice cream.
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