So what did I get out of all this?
1. When they tell you to prepare for X amount of days double it. It's more realistic.
2. You loose weight when you don't have much food - even when you eat out.
3. It gets really really dark at night with no power. Like the you can't see your hand an inch in front of your face kind of dark.
4. These kinds of things effect your pets more than you would ever imagine. The dog didn't eat for the first two days, didn't want to go outside, he peed right by the house instead of going all the way out to the back yard, he was always under foot and wouldn't sleep alone. He had to be in bed with us at night. The cats were just as bad.
5. You know and understand on a normal day that friends and family are important but when something like this happens it reinforces it an inexplicable amount. They are the greatest people on this earth and you realize even more how much you love them.
I'm almost going to miss some of this...the quiet, the non-rush of things and the slow pace of life. You learn to appreciate the simple things more. I missed having running water and flush toilets more than any other thing. And the dork that I am missed my on-line friends, people that I've played games with and chatted with, some I've talked with for more than two years.
It amazed me how much we are bound to routine, 5 days with no power and I still found myself stepping into a room flipping on the light switch and expecting something to happen.
Looking Ahead
There is another hurricane on the way. It's still to far out to predict where it's going just yet, but we will be better prepared next time.
Here is a list of necessities of what we would have ready for next time based on what we went though this time.
Preparation List:
1. $200-500 in cash...no power means that stores on back up power or doing things manually will not be able to take debit/credit cards.
2. Making sure to fill way more buckets with water and make sure you know where to get water if you run out. Don't be afraid to fill up every pot and pan, bucket and pail, you will need both toilet flushing water and drinking water if you have a well.
3. Entertainment - Have entertainment that doesn't require power..games, playing cards, books.
4. Small generator - so needed to save the food in the fridge and freezer, to run a lamp or charge rechargeable. If not expect to throw everything in the fridge and freezers out.
5. Gas - Fill all your gas cans for generators, tractors, and cars. No power means that the gas pumps won't be running and there might be another gas shortage.
6. Batteries - Lots of them..buy stock in them as I say, and do it well in advance of the storm...4 days before the storm hit and we were struggling to find them.
7. Flashlights/Lanterns - 4-5 of them if not more. You will need one for basically every person in the house. If you can't find flashlights or lanterns (we used the battery operated lanterns), book lights make good alternatives.
8. Eco friendly bulbs - This is so you can run more than one light on the small generator.
9. A need to find some way to make coffee with no power. :S
10. Canned food - bread - peanut butter - jelly - grillables (hotdogs/hamburgers that you can throw in a cooler after you loose power or to use if you have a generator)
11. Propane for grill
12. Tape for windows and cardboard. The way I look at it is I'd rather loose a window than put holes in the window frames from ply wood. Tape an X on each section of window then place cardboard over the inside of the window and tape that up. The cardboard will help minimize broken glass in the house.
13. Bathroom spray + Eco friendly toilet bowl cleaner (we use seventh generation). Not flushing the toilets all the time makes the bathroom stink - spray after using the bathroom and squirt a little cleaner in the toilet after flushing to keep the toilet smelling fresh. (Remember to close the lid to keep animals out.)
14. Paper/plastic Products - Cups, plates, knives, forks and spoons - remember there's no real way to wash dishes, water is priceless so you don't want to waste it.
15. Foil for grilling on.
16. Food for animals - Don't forget about them, make sure you have enough food stock piled for them as well, and remember to figure them into the water usage too.
17. Glow bracelets/sticks - Packages of these are cheap, buy them at the dollar store or in the dollar section of Target or Wal-mart. They are great for the kids at night who use nightlights so they are not afraid of the dark...Just remember you will need one - two of these per child per night.
We will definitely be more prepared next time around.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Friday Day 6 - Written 9/2
9:30 am It's amazing how tired you are and how much you sleep when you have no power. I'm thinking it's the sever lack of coffee!
10:00 am Still need to go out and get coffee. The approaching end to all of this has eased some of the tension and stress around here. My hubby thinks I'm completely demented because I said that I'm going to kind of miss this whole experience. I mean I've been without power before but never this long.
10:45 am McDonalds coffee is gone already :(
1:15 pm WE HAVE POWER!!!!! All they had to do was take the final branch out of the lines and flip the switch...like they couldn't have done that sooner, but hey who am I to complain I have power!!!
10:00 am Still need to go out and get coffee. The approaching end to all of this has eased some of the tension and stress around here. My hubby thinks I'm completely demented because I said that I'm going to kind of miss this whole experience. I mean I've been without power before but never this long.
10:45 am McDonalds coffee is gone already :(
1:15 pm WE HAVE POWER!!!!! All they had to do was take the final branch out of the lines and flip the switch...like they couldn't have done that sooner, but hey who am I to complain I have power!!!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday - written 9/1
Day 5
8:22am You guessed it...still no power or restoration update.
8:33am Out to get coffee. Trees are out of the road but they left the one hanging on the top of the pole in the lines. The trees in the lines down the other way are gone as well...maybe just maybe we will get power back today.
9:00am Bakery is open! :) Doughnuts and coffee for breakfast. Small coffee but hey, it's coffee. I'll definitely need more later. Got to fill the water jugs on the way home.
11:10am Kids are antsy and things are running out of battery life. No more DS, no more portable DVD player. Can't get in the shed to get the bikes or scooters because the old CB antenna is hanging and leaning on a bent bolt. Maybe some coloring...
Talked to mom who told us that according to the electric companies web site map 65% of our town is still without power. The good news is that gas shipments should be back to normal tomorrow.
11:34am And the frustration is unbearable. A call to the electric company and the first selectman gives us bad news.....the restoration schedule that the electric company was suppose to have done for this morning is not done and will not be done till some time tomorrow. Because we were so far behind in the ticketing process, (remember for some reason the ticket kept disappearing,) we will now not have power till next Wednesday. That's 6 more days with no power. Hubby's about to completely loose it. He has a deadline. All his work is on his computer. Even if we got power back today he would still be pushing to make the deadline.
12:16pm Hubby called the company he's working for. There is no possible way they can extend his deadline. He has to send everything back done or not...he will only get paid for what is done (which is only about half if that.) He hopes that this will not effect any future employment with this company. I feel bad and wish there was something I could do to help. It hurts knowing that we are losing money and he is losing work for things that are beyond our control :( (heartbroken, frustrated, depressed and angry don't even scratch the surface of how I feel.) 5:00pm Went out and bought soup and sandwiches for dinner. MMMMM... can't wait to dig into that. Holding off on eating till the older child gets home from group. Looks like it might rain outside which would stink because we can't run the generator in the rain. According to the new message on the electric companies phone we should have power back by Monday 8:30 pm. but I'm not keeping my hopes up. I've all but given up on getting power back before Wednesday. It's suppose to rain this weekend so we'll have to figure out something for the generator. I'm thinking we put it on one of the folded metal tables (leaving it folded up so it's off the ground.) Then put another metal table open over it with a plastic table cloth over that to help keep it dry, leaving the ends open for exhaust of course. We'll see what we come up with. Got a DSi car charger so we can charge the kids DSi's so they have something to do. They are starting to get on each others nerves and fighting has ensued, hopefully the charged DSi's will fix some of that.
6:15pm I LOVE MY SOUP AND SANDWICH!!!!! <3 Yummy tortellini zucchini soup and turkey sandwich, so good I almost forgot I didn't have power.
7:30pm The first selectman called us and said that the electric companies phone message is wrong and that we will have power back tomorrow. They are all meeting tomorrow at 4:00am to dispatch crews and we should have the whole town back up by tomorrow night sometime. On a side note...kids are a riot. I was informed that boys have nipples and girls have boobies which made the little one laugh incredibly hard.
10:00pm Tired of being tired and wanting to sleep by 10:00pm :(
8:22am You guessed it...still no power or restoration update.
8:33am Out to get coffee. Trees are out of the road but they left the one hanging on the top of the pole in the lines. The trees in the lines down the other way are gone as well...maybe just maybe we will get power back today.
9:00am Bakery is open! :) Doughnuts and coffee for breakfast. Small coffee but hey, it's coffee. I'll definitely need more later. Got to fill the water jugs on the way home.
11:10am Kids are antsy and things are running out of battery life. No more DS, no more portable DVD player. Can't get in the shed to get the bikes or scooters because the old CB antenna is hanging and leaning on a bent bolt. Maybe some coloring...
Talked to mom who told us that according to the electric companies web site map 65% of our town is still without power. The good news is that gas shipments should be back to normal tomorrow.
11:34am And the frustration is unbearable. A call to the electric company and the first selectman gives us bad news.....the restoration schedule that the electric company was suppose to have done for this morning is not done and will not be done till some time tomorrow. Because we were so far behind in the ticketing process, (remember for some reason the ticket kept disappearing,) we will now not have power till next Wednesday. That's 6 more days with no power. Hubby's about to completely loose it. He has a deadline. All his work is on his computer. Even if we got power back today he would still be pushing to make the deadline.
12:16pm Hubby called the company he's working for. There is no possible way they can extend his deadline. He has to send everything back done or not...he will only get paid for what is done (which is only about half if that.) He hopes that this will not effect any future employment with this company. I feel bad and wish there was something I could do to help. It hurts knowing that we are losing money and he is losing work for things that are beyond our control :( (heartbroken, frustrated, depressed and angry don't even scratch the surface of how I feel.) 5:00pm Went out and bought soup and sandwiches for dinner. MMMMM... can't wait to dig into that. Holding off on eating till the older child gets home from group. Looks like it might rain outside which would stink because we can't run the generator in the rain. According to the new message on the electric companies phone we should have power back by Monday 8:30 pm. but I'm not keeping my hopes up. I've all but given up on getting power back before Wednesday. It's suppose to rain this weekend so we'll have to figure out something for the generator. I'm thinking we put it on one of the folded metal tables (leaving it folded up so it's off the ground.) Then put another metal table open over it with a plastic table cloth over that to help keep it dry, leaving the ends open for exhaust of course. We'll see what we come up with. Got a DSi car charger so we can charge the kids DSi's so they have something to do. They are starting to get on each others nerves and fighting has ensued, hopefully the charged DSi's will fix some of that.
6:15pm I LOVE MY SOUP AND SANDWICH!!!!! <3 Yummy tortellini zucchini soup and turkey sandwich, so good I almost forgot I didn't have power.
7:30pm The first selectman called us and said that the electric companies phone message is wrong and that we will have power back tomorrow. They are all meeting tomorrow at 4:00am to dispatch crews and we should have the whole town back up by tomorrow night sometime. On a side note...kids are a riot. I was informed that boys have nipples and girls have boobies which made the little one laugh incredibly hard.
10:00pm Tired of being tired and wanting to sleep by 10:00pm :(
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Wednesday - written 8/31
9:16am Still no power a call to the electric company yields that we will not get power back till late next week. The crews that the first selectman said were in town are not anywhere near town. We have no crews currently working in town. The tree that's hanging in the wires up the road is still there 4 days later because the electric company claims no one ever reported it. Two of their own crew trucks have driven right by it and we've been calling the electric company 2-3 time per day. It's kind of hard to tell them what is wrong when you get an automated system all the time with no option on talking to a live person, though we've reported the outage via the automated system days ago. We just talked to a person 2 days ago...what the heck happened to that ticket we put in then for the tree on the lines. Very frustrating.
9:54am Wal-Mart is open on back up power and we can now get drinking water from there.
11:28am Got a Call back from the first selectman who gave us some good news. He met with the electric company today and notified them of the trees on both ends of our road. He said that they would get to cleaning that up later today and we should have power restored tomorrow or the next day. The kiddos won't start school till next Tuesday now from all of this.
1:44pm Out and about...picked up some cat food and something for the kids to do. Saw a few crews from Michigan working a few towns over. The electric company has now changed their message again to say that they have 900 crews working today. They have restored power to about 500,000 customers and have about 300,000 customers still with out power. They plan on having restoration done by Saturday evening and full restoration done by next Wednesday. So...What's the difference between the restoration (Saturday) and the full restoration (next Wednesday)? Does that mean if I don't get power back by Saturday I'm screwed? :(
1:50pm Some street lights up the road are on!!! Keeping my fingers crossed....Tree still in road....No power :( (I want to cry) One can only hope that since they have restored power to the next street over that we will have power back soon.
3:30pm Another call to the electric company...again they are saying that there is no ticket or work order in for the trees on our road. What the heck keeps happening to them? Didn't we just call and go though the same damn thing this morning? We've reported this problem to 5 different reps and the first selectman who reported it to the electric company as well. Tree cutting crews drove by it again. (I understand that they can't touch the crap that's touching the lines because they don't know if the lines are live or not, but take the rest of the crap out of the road so we don't have to go off roading to get by it.) Left another message for the first selectman telling him about the no work order and how there are still no crews working in our area according to the electric company. Hopefully we will hear something soon.
10:05pm Friends of ours were kind enough to allow us to use their showers and into their home stinking and all. For them I am extremely grateful. That goes down as one of the best showers ever. I am clean!! Well at least for the day and I feel better. We took them out to dinner which was fun. It's been forever since we've done anything like that. It was nice to sit and chat and have fun, to forget about the problems for a bit. I can never repay them for opening their home to us and letting us shower. <3
Kids are in bed - generator has been restarted and oh yeah the electric company has been called again...no way shape or form did they attempt to fix the tree in the road. They told us that we need to make accommodations by staying in a hotel or with family, eating out for food but they're not going to pay for it and we don't have the money. They told us that they tree in the lines on our road wasn't a priority or a danger. That we need to wait our turn in line like everyone else...(well everyone else in town just about got power today.) The first selectman told us that the tree would at least be taken care of today...grr.. another call to him and he's not happy with the fact that it wasn't taken care of today like he was told by them and told us to call him tomorrow morning. Sigh. Well at least I'm clean and the kiddos are clean and we had a good day.
10:35pm You know what's bad...Walking into the bathroom closing the door behind you and flipping the switch, expecting that light will come even after four days of no power. Then having to run back out grab a flash light. Wondering if by the time we get power back if I'll end up just walking into the bathroom with the flash light.
9:54am Wal-Mart is open on back up power and we can now get drinking water from there.
11:28am Got a Call back from the first selectman who gave us some good news. He met with the electric company today and notified them of the trees on both ends of our road. He said that they would get to cleaning that up later today and we should have power restored tomorrow or the next day. The kiddos won't start school till next Tuesday now from all of this.
1:44pm Out and about...picked up some cat food and something for the kids to do. Saw a few crews from Michigan working a few towns over. The electric company has now changed their message again to say that they have 900 crews working today. They have restored power to about 500,000 customers and have about 300,000 customers still with out power. They plan on having restoration done by Saturday evening and full restoration done by next Wednesday. So...What's the difference between the restoration (Saturday) and the full restoration (next Wednesday)? Does that mean if I don't get power back by Saturday I'm screwed? :(
1:50pm Some street lights up the road are on!!! Keeping my fingers crossed....Tree still in road....No power :( (I want to cry) One can only hope that since they have restored power to the next street over that we will have power back soon.
3:30pm Another call to the electric company...again they are saying that there is no ticket or work order in for the trees on our road. What the heck keeps happening to them? Didn't we just call and go though the same damn thing this morning? We've reported this problem to 5 different reps and the first selectman who reported it to the electric company as well. Tree cutting crews drove by it again. (I understand that they can't touch the crap that's touching the lines because they don't know if the lines are live or not, but take the rest of the crap out of the road so we don't have to go off roading to get by it.) Left another message for the first selectman telling him about the no work order and how there are still no crews working in our area according to the electric company. Hopefully we will hear something soon.
10:05pm Friends of ours were kind enough to allow us to use their showers and into their home stinking and all. For them I am extremely grateful. That goes down as one of the best showers ever. I am clean!! Well at least for the day and I feel better. We took them out to dinner which was fun. It's been forever since we've done anything like that. It was nice to sit and chat and have fun, to forget about the problems for a bit. I can never repay them for opening their home to us and letting us shower. <3
Kids are in bed - generator has been restarted and oh yeah the electric company has been called again...no way shape or form did they attempt to fix the tree in the road. They told us that we need to make accommodations by staying in a hotel or with family, eating out for food but they're not going to pay for it and we don't have the money. They told us that they tree in the lines on our road wasn't a priority or a danger. That we need to wait our turn in line like everyone else...(well everyone else in town just about got power today.) The first selectman told us that the tree would at least be taken care of today...grr.. another call to him and he's not happy with the fact that it wasn't taken care of today like he was told by them and told us to call him tomorrow morning. Sigh. Well at least I'm clean and the kiddos are clean and we had a good day.
10:35pm You know what's bad...Walking into the bathroom closing the door behind you and flipping the switch, expecting that light will come even after four days of no power. Then having to run back out grab a flash light. Wondering if by the time we get power back if I'll end up just walking into the bathroom with the flash light.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Tuesday - written 8/30
3:08am I'm freaking out! The fear and paronoia are setting in.....It's not hard to tell who's without power and there are a lot of messed up people out there. We've recently had an increase in crime around here, even the quiet part of town, armed robbery, break ins and theft. How long till that really picks up? Not hard to get in when you know people are without power and running generators. I guess the neighbors were smart for taking the time to practice shooting the day before all this happened.
4:31am You don't realize just how dark it is till there is no light. Oh and apparently yelling that you would like to speak to a human at the automated phone recording that the electric company has works out pretty good. Hubby actually got a person, not that they were any sort of help. All they could tell us was that the whole town is out of power and that the crews will be back out to work in a few hours. Ummm...A FEW HOURS??? Hold on a second, half the darn state is without power, why the hell aren't you people working 24/7 till it's freaking fixed? Also there is no estimate of when we will see power back. :(
5:22am I can only doze off for a few minutes at a time. It's so quiet every noise wakes me up :S
7:04amI swear I hear lots of trucks...maybe power...I want to wake hubby up to go into town to see if they actually got power back yesterday and if so stop and get coffee and danish. Real coffee, yummm. To early to wake him though. I haven't slept since I last wrote, I got sucked into another book.
12:28pm Well I did manage to get a few hours of sleep. Woke up at 9:00 and headed out to town. Unfortunately the bakery wasn't open. The gas station had gas though we had to wait 10 min in line to put some gas in the car. Funny how prices are going though the roof. We drove to the next town over to a bagel shop for coffee...sucks having to go though the days without my numerous cups of coffee. We also stopped by the school to fill up the jugs again with water. Came home picked up some more of the yard. Called the cable company to find out when we'd get phone back. They were kind enough to tell us that we will not get cable, phone or internet back until after we have power restored. They said that the electric company has not given them a time line on when that will be and that we are considered a triage area :( Poor hubby's going batty with no power. He has a deadline in two weeks and now he's 4 days behind.
2:18pm It's been fun. Called the town hall "in town" to see where the emergency facilities were so we could get water and showers and such. HA! When the "town" got power back yesterday they closed the shelter. WTF? Our town is completely without power. Gah! Just because the "in town" people have power they close the shelter. What about the 3000+ other households in this god forsaken town that don't have power. We all pay taxes, we are part of this "town" just because people are not staying at the shelter and "in town" has power doesn't mean that the facilities are unneeded by the rest. (In case you were wondering there are many sections to the town. We all share the same zip code and all pay taxes to the same town hall and we all use the same school, buses, etc. We basically make up one big town.) Talking to the first selectman gets us no where. Seems he's just happy "in town" has power back one. He couldn't offer any insight into anything. This is all getting very frustrating. It's hot and humid...I'm stinky and sticky and all I want is a damn shower :\
2:44pm Going out to use the phone upgrade, hopefully to get a smart phone with internet so we can see what the hell is going on out there in the world. :)
7:00pm No go with the phone. I just can't seem to justify the 30 extra dollars a month at the moment. Things are not looking very good. The electric company still will not give us estimates on when we'll be back up and running. They said on the news that they plan to have everyone fully restored by next Wednesday. O.O Umm...Yeah. On top of that the state set rations on gas to where the gas stations are only going to get deliveries of 3,000 gallons per delivery. So if they only get deliveries every other day that's 3,000 gallons every other day. (I see riots at the gas pumps happening in the future if that doesn't change.) The gas station "in town" ran out of gas by late afternoon and they aren't expecting a delivery until late tomorrow or Thursday. Wer'e down to about 6 gallons of gas for the generator. We've been averaging about 2 gallons a day, so that's enough gas for the generator till Friday maybe Saturday if we push it. We are down to 6 gallons of drinking water. No way that's going to get us though to next Wednesday and we don't have much gas in the cars either.
8:10pm Whoohoo! A friend of ours had power back and says that we can use their shower and fill up with water there. Finally a little goo news.
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