The Blackout

So we were part of an unprecedented October Nor'easter last week, maybe you heard about. It started snowing at about 2 pm on Saturday, October 29th and was done less than 24 hours later, but trees still full of leaves, a foot of snow, and above ground power lines don't really mix that well. Just so I don't forget here is how we spent our "adventurous" week

Day 1-Saturday

The snow was beautiful and we enjoyed it with lights flickering until about 10:45 pm when we lost power. Thank heavens the flickering lights gave us time to prepare grabbing flashlights and fortunately I gave the boys a bath that night before the power went out.

Day 2-Sunday

We woke up to an impressive amount of snow and this is when we saw the first bits of destruction from the storm in our neighbors front yard. There were LOTS of tree limbs down everywhere. Church was canceled because the building had no power so we basically hung around the house trying to stay warm. Rick stopped by the Liddles house and found this giant tree down. It was getting pretty cold so we lit a fire on Sunday night. Then we quickly remembered we really needed our chimney swept from last year, it was really smokey and was our last upstairs fire for the week.
Day 3- Monday (Halloween)

Monday brought more cold and we still had no hot water, so it was basically a day of trying to stay warm. Grandma did her best to keep Clara warm. On Monday we ventured to Target for a few storm essentials and it was crazy! You could tell people were just loitering around enjoying a break from their cold dark houses. The other big adventure was that we needed gas. I was going to have to take everyone to the airport on Tuesday morning and we did not have enough gas to make it, so the hunt was on. We eventually found that BJs had gas and power to pump it, but their was over a two hour line so I had to head home to feed Clara and the Shamos went back and waited it out. It was probably a nice break to be out of our freezing house waiting in the warm car with a radio.

Just a note here about driving, all the lights were out so everything was a 4-way stop and it took forever to get through town, as the week went on people stopped stopping at intersections so driving got even crazier. Plus there were so many down trees, poles, and wires you had to weave through the roads and remember to watch above too so you didn't run into hanging power lines.

It was Halloween so we had our traditional chili by candlelight. We cooked with our propane camp stove all week.
I decided Clara needed a costume so I made some cat ears to complete our Batman, Robin, Cat Woman trio.
We also had no cell service at this point, I am pretty sure a tower lost power because it came back on Friday, but we had not heard the news that Halloween had been canceled so the boys got dressed up and went to two houses before they got the news. Wyatt declared the day a "total bummer." Here we are Halloween night, the flash makes it look bright but it definitely was not. Halloween was suppose to just be delayed until Saturday when it would be safe to walk the streets without running into power lines, but our town was not cleaned up enough by then so it was completely canceled this year, totally lame, but at least the boys got to go to our ward's trunk or treat on Friday night.
Day 4- Tuesday

All of our visitors left on Tuesday morning. They were all very brave to survive a few days of the outage with us, but I am sure the were glad to go home to their warm homes and hot showers. After dropping everyone off, I went and sat in the Michael's parking lot for about an hour to let me and the kids get warm and I had cell service so I got to listen to all the many messages I had. One of them was the pediatrician saying Clara should still have her two week checkup even though they had no power. So I took the boys home and had a neighbor come over and sit with them while I took Clara in. She weighed in at 8 lb 7 oz fully clothed, they didn't make her get undressed longer than necessary in the cold office. Her checkup was done in the dark by camping lantern. Everything looked great and she was given a clean bill of health. One of the many tender mercies that helped me survive the week is what a good sleeper Clara is. She was bundled in snowsuits and blankets and was in our bed all week to stay warm and she slept 6 or 8 hour stretches at night meaning I only had to get up and feed her once which saved me since it was really had to do in the freezing cold, dark, all by head lamp.

Day 5-Wednesday

More dark and cold. We did take an hour drive on Wednesday morning as well to listen to messages and to get warm, making my first stop with all three kids getting out of the car at BJ's to pick up some much needed diapers. The store was dark running on generators. Wednesday was a hard night. Rick came home for about 15 minutes because he had heard he may be able to switch on our heat, bypassing the power, but he couldn't figure it out and had to go back to the OR and then sleep at the hospital because he was on call and we still had no cell service for him to call in from home.

Day 6-Thursday (My 30th birthday)

There were a couple birthday miracles this day. At this point the boys and Clara desperately needed bathes, but it just seemed so mean to make them take one even if I could get hot water to only get out into a 50ish degree house. I was assuming I would need to boil water since our hot water had not been working, but to my surprise it kept coming out piping hot, apparently Rick's attempts the night before had fixed the hot water. So we steamed up the bathroom until it was like a sauna and everyone got a warm bath for my birthday!! We went through the McDonald's drive through for lunch, then did our traditional sit in the car for an hour to stay warm and the boys watched movies. Most afternoons we hung out in our three season porch because it would heat up a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house. Here is sleepy Clara.
Wyatt was a real trooper, he has definitely been missing school. He has been working in some workbooks for hours a day just to keep himself busy and he says it is like his power outage school.
All three kids together. The boys are always fighting over who gets to hold Clara.
My attempt at documenting me on my 30th birthday with the kids.
Suzanne stop by to wish me a happy birthday and it was nice to talk to someone since we were still cut off from communication with the outside world. Then we got ready to meet Rick for dinner. Rick was able to switch call, but one of his chiefs, that I may not really love, would not let him miss a program dinner so he came home to meet us for dinner around 7:30pm. While we were waiting for him, it was cold so I loaded the kids in the car and just let them watch a movie while we were waiting. While we were waiting Mike and Kisti stopped by with birthday cookies, which maybe made my day.

Day 7- Friday

Mike and Kisti had gotten power the day before and were nice enough to let me go over to their warm house while they were at work and do a load of desperately needed laundry. As we were driving home I took this picture of the tree that was keeping us in the dark so long. You may have to click to make it bigger, but you can see it is laying on the power lines. The highlight of Friday was Rick came home and worked on the heater until he figured it out and the heat kicked on. From Friday night at about 9pm on we were sitting around 70 degrees and at this point I felt like I could handle another week of no power as long as we had heat, although it was a little sad to think we could have had heat the whole time. The constant cold is what really killed me.

Day 8- Saturday

We had heat this day so all was well. We cleaned the house and Rick was home so this was one of the easiest days by far. The hard part at the this point was by now I had thrown out our entire fridge and freezer so we were getting pretty low on food options. The Liddles came to rescue bringing over dinner and coming over to enjoy some of our new found heat.

Day 9- Sunday

This was a great day too; Rick was home, it was warm in the house, and their was hope in CL&P's promise that we would have power by midnight because there were line trucks in our neighborhood. Here is Clara basking in her warm Sunday bath, Wyatt pointed out she is small enough to use a washcloth as a blanket.We took a walk in the afternoon and talked to a line crew that was waiting for the lines to be energized. They had come all the way from Georgia and were really nice. We went to the Fullers for dinner, light, and heat and after loitering over there for awhile we came home to a well lit street around 8:30ish pm. The boys were running around everywhere they were so excited, and our house looked SOOO bright. I immediately started the mountains of laundry that had been building up.

Now I feel we are recovered and EXTRA grateful for the blessing of modern conveniences we normally take for granted. We just got the call that school is going to be back in session tomorrow so it looks like we are almost totally back to normal.