yeah it was like 2 weeks ago but we didn’t have power for 6 days, then my pc was having issues so i’m just now getting around to writing about it.

let me just say that i really feel for those poor souls down in TX that got completely jacked by ike.  i have a much greater sympathy for them now since i’ve been through this minor ordeal.  not having power sucked for sure, but not having a home at all must be the worst feeling in the world.  so all my love and support to those people that have lost it all in any kind of catastrophe.  also, this is going to seem like minor shit in comparison to their troubles.

that said, here’s my thoughts on our little “adventure”.

for one, it was pretty cool to see the wind blowing like it was.  it was amazing to look up into the sky and see the low lying storm clouds flying by at amazing speeds, but then up above them the higher, wispier clouds just standing utterly still.  i really wanted to see something come crashing down, but i missed it all.  we did have some debris fall near our place though.

debris 1

debris 2

there was some pretty sweet damage other places around town too.  saw this tree brutally ripped basically in two and leaning on another tree next to it.

tree damage

not having power is definitely very shitty.  of course, K and i had just bought groceries the day before we lost power.  by tuesday (almost 72 hours without power) we had eaten what we could and thrown out the rest.

i didn’t really miss tv all that much.  i really only watch a couple of things on it, so i didn’t feel like i needed it to be entertained.  you think “oh, i can read or play a board game or find something else to do” until you are actually in the situation.  have you tried to read anything by candlelight recently?  it fucking sucks.  it gives you a headache after a few minutes.  games are ok but they can be hard to see by flame also.  what we ended up doing was either going to other friends who had power, or else going to bed at like 9pm.

losing power also made me realize just how fragile our society really is.  at first it’s kind of fun.  you get to “camp out” in your own house and burn candles and all that shit.  after a couple of days it starts to get old.  after a few more you think that you’ll never have power again.  i started to think about what it would be like if we lost power for a longer time (or even forever).  it would be hard to feed yourself.  you don’t realize how much food you have that needs to be refrigerated until you don’t have one anymore.  peanut butter (but no jelly, because it needs to be kept cool after opening) and bread gets old fast.  so does slightly cooler than room temperature beer.

let me explain how our little condo neighborhood is arranged.  there is a road that runs around a cluster of buildings, with other buildings around it (see my oh-so-awesome mspaint diagram below).  what happened was, one night while K and i were out running errands the power came back on.  we drove by and saw a neighbors porch light in.  in elation we decide to go get dinner out one last night. this was on weds night, around 6pm.  by the time we made it back home at 7 the power was out in our building and a few others (in black below) while other buildings in our area had power (in yellow below).

let me tell you how annoying this was.  from our back window i could see buildings on the other side of the back street  with every goddamn light on possible. i swear these people went into every room in their condo and turned on every fucking light possible.  it was like they were flaunting their power to those of us a mere 20ft away.  i really felt bad for the people directly across from them that didn’t have power.

powah

so since we saw other people around us with power we knew something must be up.  K calls the power company and lets them know we don’t have power, our neighbors do, etc etc etc.  they tell her that we should have power.  she assures them we do not.  they tell her they’ll look into it and get back to us.

by the next day, we still didn’t have power.  this annoys us greatly, so we call again.  again we get the “you should have power” line.  we tell them again that we do not.  we even go so far as to say we saw someone outside (a neighbor possibly, we weren’t sure) with a flashlight checking out boxes on the poles.  we’re afraid someone is going to try to fix it on their own.  the lady at AEP tells us thanks for the info and she’d put a note in our account.

that same day one of the neighbors comes by while i’m out back grilling.  he introduces himself and asks if we’d called the power company.  i tell him yeah we just did and also that we’d called the day before.  he then tells me that his wife had called, got the whole “you should have power” story so they decided to go around to every neighbor they could find to tell them to call AEP to let them know that there actually is a problem here and we don’t have power.

a few minutes later the previously mentioned wife comes by and tells us that one of the other neighbors she talked to was told that there weren’t enough units out in our area for it to be a “high priority” and that we shouldn’t expect power until early in the following week.

this news disheartened us greatly because we were planning on having a bday party for K on the next day (friday).  we decided that power or not, we were having the party and started to plan accordingly.  we went out and bought about 66lbs of ice and filled our coolers with beer.  we had already gotten rid of pretty much all the food so we went out and stocked up on snacks and stuff for the party.  we came back home around 830 or so and started getting everything packed into the coolers.

of course, about 10 minutes after moving coolers around, filling them with beer, getting candles out and ready what happens?  the fucking power comes back on!  the next day (friday) we had our party, with power, and all was well.

all in all it was an eye opening experience.  dealing with the power company during an emergency can be a real pain in the ass.  the worst part about it is, they’re the power company, so it’s not like you can threaten to get your power from someone else.  you are totally at their mercy.  i’m just glad we didn’t have to go for a full week without power.  the 5 days we did go was bad enough.