We were among the 800,000 or so people in Maryland who lost power late Friday night as
a result of a storm that appeared to catch meteorologists and power company executives by surprise.
Our power was finally restored this morning around eleven. I had
just picked up two bags of free ice from Harris Teeter in Kings Contrivance
when Mama Wordbones called with the news that the juice was flowing again. I was
grateful. Spending another day of scorching heat trying to keep our house cool
and our food from becoming spoiled was not my idea of a fun way to spend a
weekend. Thankfully, our home has a finished basement which remained cool while
the rest of the house baked and that’s where we ending up sleeping last night.
Now, with our power restored and the a/c cranking out cool air again, I thought I'd share a couple of observations.
Gadgets
No power means living on borrowed time for eReaders, iPads,
and smartphones. My Nook held on until this morning before it died. My iPad, forced
to rely on a 3G network, was only a little more useful than a paperweight. I
kept my smartphone alive by greatly curtailing its use along with periodic
infusions of juice from the car battery.
Fortunately, I still receive regular newspaper delivery so I
didn’t need to rely on digital devices to find out what was going on in the
world.
Food
Yesterday morning, as we were being warned that the outage
could last for days, Mama Wordbones took on the role of refrigerator cop.
Thanks to her efforts we didn’t lose any food. I think we opened the fridge a
total of three times yesterday. Instead of going out for dinner last night, we
ate what was most at risk for spoiling, using the gas grill for cooking and dining in the cool basement.
Community
It was thanks to Courtney Watsons Twitter feed that I learned
about the free ice at Harris Teeter this morning. I also learned that CA had
opened all of its pools to HoCo residents without power who needed to cool off.
A wag of the Wordbones tail goes out to all that have helped their powerless neighbors
cope during this emergency.
