Surviving the ice storm
I was up late, watching an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise on my laptop when the power went out. We’d had a power outage a week before only to have the service restored four hours later, so I wasn’t too worried. I finished watching my show on battery power and wrapped up warm for the night. Sure enough, at some time in the night I could hear various electrical devices, like the fax machine, trying to start up, over and over again. I was awoken several times by those sounds, but when we woke up for good the electricity was still out. And we’re now into the third day without power.
That first morning we heard on the battery-powered radio we keep for emergencies that there were 200,000 New Hampshire households without power. Later than was upgraded to more than 300,000 households, in NH, and a million in the north east. The freezing rain had brought down power lines all over the north east. I decided to go for a drive to see what the situation was and to get gas and batteries. Newmarket was completely dark, as was Durham, six miles away. I had to go about 10 miles before I saw a functioning traffic light. Newington, on the outskirts of Portsmouth, was lighted, and I managed to get gas. I also picked up batteries and coffee in a supermarket. Ironically, the woman behind me at the checkout was buying a large bag of ice. Nothing else, just ice.
Since then we’ve been heading out to malls, restaurants, and friends’ houses to keep warm. Two friends who live nearby let us use their bath and we had dinner with them last night.
We have a gas fire in the basement which is gamely pumping warmth into the house, although on its own it’s no match for the -9C (15F) temperatures outside. But with the judicious use of our gas stove we can keep the temperatures in the 60s. (Yes, I’m aware of the risk of asphyxiation, so we don’t run the stove for too long).
We had plenty of candles and a few flashlights for the first night. Yesterday afternoon I went out and bought an inverter, which takes power from the car battery and converts it to A/C power so that we can run a few devices. In theory it can run up to 800W of appliances, but in practice that would drain the car battery faster than the running motor can recharge it.
But we’re managing to keep the iguana warm (she goes into “torpid” mode at 65F but any lower is bad for her, and I don’t want her to be cold for too long), can run a couple of CF lights, and even have the internet router going. and we can recharge the laptops and cellphones. Fortunately the phone service is intact.
I’m keeping our food fresh by putting containers of water outside to freeze solid, and then putting them in the fridge.
Maia seems to be immune to the cold and also takes the absence of light and power in her stride. She does, however, want to keep blowing out candles, which is not surprising since she normally only gets to see candles on birthday cakes.
As far as I’ve seen, we’re the only street in our part of town that’s without power. The downed cable is clearly visible just a few hundred yards from the house, and it looks like a simple job to fix it, but given that there are still close to a quarter of a million homes and businesses without power in New Hampshire it’s probably going to take a while to get round to fixing every last disconnected cable. We’re actually fortunate because we do have gas heating, even though only one fire will work without electricity.
It may be another four days before we have power restored. At least compared to former domestic dramas (like the great flood of 2005) we can stay in the house and haven’t been forced to evacuate.
4 Responses to “Surviving the ice storm”
About this entry
You’re currently reading “Surviving the ice storm,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying
Published: Dec 14 2008
Good Luck. I’m from Alaska and I know its no fun being without power in the winter.
Good luck with it Bodhipaksa. Don’t give in to that little have-a-go voice in the back of your head that is saying to you – Homer Simpson style – that you just might be able to fix that cable yourself.
Oh boy! Wild horses would not be able to drag me near one of those downed cables. Power came back on early yesterday morning, by the way.
I hear what you are saying. I at least have electricity but the furnace or the thermostat is malfunctioning in the room I’ve rented. I’m going to have to go and buy a heater tonight.