Just a quick hello from my snow and ice bound, and powerless, home. We’re pushing 80+ hours off the grid, but are doing alright due to some preparedness and the awesomeness of friends and neighbors. We’ve got a generator, which we’ve been sharing with the next door neighbors. We’ve got cords of wood, split this summer during my unemployment. Our fireplace makes the living room a good place to spend our days, and we have loads of warm blankets to get us through the nights. The generator allows us to run our fridge and keep our freezer frozen, and we can switch cords and power the wifi and our recharging station (a power strip on the office floor) so our phones and laptops and tablet are powered up.
We’ve been sharing resources with our next door neighbors, they have a gas stove, and have invited us over for a couple of hot meals. Gas hot water heaters mean we can take showers and wash our dishes. We aren’t doing nearly as badly as some folks in the area, and any of us with houses are doing better than those without. Boredom is barely being staved off by books and some internet time, tablet games for the toddler and some socializing with other friends in the neighborhood. All in all, we’re very fortunate.
The stir crazy mentality is taking its toll on each of us though, and I’m glad that school will be in session tomorrow (albeit with a late start) and I’ll be heading to work. My truck is still snow bound, and there is the matter of the power line down across our driveway, but we can get out in the Subaru, so my wife will give me a lift to and from work. The toddler will go to daycare. We’re hoping that we don’t cross the 96 hour mark (tomorrow at 8), but if we do, I fervently wish our neighborhood greets Monday evening with all the bright glow of streetlights and TV sets.
I don’t know how many of you are Western Washington, dealing with this, but good luck and I hope we all come out of the dark soon.
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Oh no!! I’m so sorry to hear this. We experienced a lack of power with our freak storm in October and while it was cold (to the point where I called my momma the 3rd day, crying, because I was so cold and in pain and sick of the no-power thing) but it wasn’t as cold as it would be if this happened right now.
We don’t have a generator. We don’t know any neighbors. So we just stayed here. And I’ve been told that even though downed trees took out the power twice this year for 2-7 days it’s never happened before. Hopefully never again. My mother got us one of those propane-powered disc heaters. We have an oil water heater and furnace but it’s still powered by electricity so no hot water or anything for us. And the house we rent has a fireplace but its so old and the owner never bothered to get it cleaned or kept in usable order so we couldn’t have a fire. I cannot imagine this happening now with our 8-32 degree weather.