Power Out 


Weathering the aftermath of the storm may be worse than weathering the storm itself. 

Wednesday early evening I was sitting at my computer working, when I noticed an unusual storm on the accuweather.com map. It was coming straight from the north and headed right for St. Louis. I was dickering with a telemarketer at the time, and couldn't quite convince her to hang up and call back later. Then Zap! Power OUT. Little did I know that we wouldn't see our house lights again for 72 hours.

That first evening took a predictable course. First we regretted that we hadn't spent time relocating the flashlight that had been misplaced a couple of weeks before. Then Stephen and I got busy and dug out the votive lights, candles, candle lighter and matches, putting a pale gold flicker in each room. As minutes turned into an hour, we resolved not to open the refrigerator or freezer door. I ventured two doors down to the corner after the storm was over and saw that streets were blocked with strewn tree limbs in two directions. We knew it was probably bad outside, but we didn't even have a clue! We just went to bed early.

The next morning I got up just after dawn and walked down to the corner to get a newspaper. God, what a shock! There were at least three uprooted trees within a block. A car lay under a tree and a light post, on Nebraska. The paper said an estimated 450,000 customers were out of electricity. We spent the better part of the morning cleaning up the two back decks, which were plastered with leaves and branches. Then we set about ventilating the house. The neat thing about living in a three story brick townhouse is that the place is naturally air conditioned, meaning that the first level never really got out of the seventies. Steve had a performance that evening and I couldn't talk him out of going. That night I slept on the floor in the front room, and Steve eventually retreated to the 2nd floor.

By the second day (Friday) things were beginning to get difficult in subtle ways, but it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Now we were 36 hours from email or web contact with the world. No TV, and the only radios that would play were in the car. Fortunately, we still had phone communication, and cell phone, too. But it was really a challenge to drive anywhere. Most street lights were out, and so traffic inched across the intersection, taking sort of half-hearted turns. We were getting really concerned about food loss, and did throw the refrigerated stuff away later that day. But we also started to get really concerned and upset.

Well, first we were pissed at AmerenUE, which has a lousy track record for dealing with storms. This wasn't even a tornado, and the whole area is out. Plus a second storm hit the east side hard on the next day, jacking up the out-of-power users to over 500,000. We read in the post that somewhat smaller outings occurred in the previous two years, and Stephen was without power for several days in 2000 when I went to Europe. Second, we were very mindful that upsetting as this was, it didn't even vaguely compare with last year's tragedy in New Orleans. Third, we were very aware of how unprepared we were, but we couldn't agree on how to correct that. Steve wants a generator, I do not. Steve's list of things we needed was quite different from mine. Certainly a time of stress is NOT the time to have a rational discussion of what to do.

Frankly, I became very testy with Steve, but I knew it and knew that I had to get hold of myself. I just wasn't prepared for how deeply this period of powerlessness would affect me. Part if it has to do with the fact that each of us is now dealing with two chronic health conditions. That makes coping a bit more of a challenge. Also, that second day, we felt kind of abandoned by friends. (Whether or not that was true, that was how we felt.) We knew that some folks had got power, but they didn't say, do you want to come over? Now that changed the third day, and we did get several offers of help. I think maybe the whole city was just sort of in shock. Later that day, in the evening, I tried praying and meditating, but both I only half-heartedly managed. At least the temperature broke, and we could sleep.

By Saturday, I think we had begun to adjust. We had sacristy duty at church, and then in the afternoon was a blessing of a marriage, which turned out to be lovely, and a really fine and happy outing for us. But also, living without electricity had become a routine. There was the morning paper, a few restaurants were open, and a grocery store. Lights gradually had begun to come back on. Phone contact with important people had been made.

We got home from church about 5 pm and were informed by a neighbor that the utility trucks had been in the back alley all afternoon. In the mean time we bit the bullet and just threw out everything in the freezer. That was painful, I hate to waste food. Then we had no excuse but to clean the refrigerator, which was in desperate need of a good bath. As we chugged along that evening, actually regaining a semblance of cooperation (as close as we two old roosters ever get), the lights came on. A friend I talked to today, Jan, who has been walking up and down 7 flights of stairs, said that she had settled in to read a book and was almost annoyed by the power restoration.

Stephen and I ended up spending most of Saturday evening cleaning the refrigerator. We had a good night's sleep and the next day (Sunday) seemed fairly normal. Here's what I'm currently carrying away from this experience. I have a heightened awareness both of the chaos and disruption that natural catastrophes can cause and the fragile and ephemeral nature of any peaceful state of mind I might achieve. I see clearly that without love we are less than human, and that love is a choice that we must make, even when we find that we can't.

I'm back on the bicycle again, but riding very much with these awarenesses in mind. 

Posted: Sun - July 23, 2006 at 10:04 PM          

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