I never used to pay attention to the weather forecast, and was amused by my mother-in-law's apparent fixation on the topic. She was a Connecticut Yankee, and the weather sometimes meant life or death to her early New England ancestors.
So too, for Floridians, and ever since 2004, when we emerged from our 40-year hurricane lull, I've found it wise to keep an eye on the forecast, at least during hurricane season. I have my favorite Tropical Weather link, and have carefully followed the progress of Fay, Gustav, and Ike recently.Not carefully enough, however. I tend to ignore them once they have gone far inland and are down to tropical storm strength. This proved to be a mistake, as I took my eyes off Ike. I thought its remnants would miss the Pittsburgh area, and in any case were still a coupe of days away from getting near us. Ike did not take its eyes off me, however, and visited us with strong winds Sunday night. Even then I was clueless and did not associate the wind with a hurricane. If I had, I might not have so casually stepped outside to enjoy the weather, even before the dinner dishes were washed. I remember how much I enjoyed a good windstorm as a child, often experiencing them from a perch in one of my favorite climbing trees. But in Florida, strong winds generally mean hurricanes, and hurricanes blow trees down.
Blissfully ignorant that this was anything more than a simple storm, the boys and I cavorted in the breeze. Jonathan especially loved to see the tree trunks swaying, and Noah sought the moon as it played hide and seek amongst the clouds. The ashes from a neighbor's fire pit blew into our eyes, but that was only a minor annoyance.
Expecting rain, Jon decided the new gutters needed some more solid fastenings, so he and Porter braved the wind and the approaching dark to do the job. I really only started worrying when the ladder blew down; after that the boys and I watched the proceedings from the porch. By the time they were finished I was glad to get into the safety of the house, but before we could get back to washing the dishes, the power went off. When the lights had flickered earlier, Jon had filled two five-gallon buckets with water for toilet flushing, and we had some jugs of potable bottled water, so the best course of action seemed to be to go to bed. (The water was needed because the well pump requires electricity.)
Sometime in the middle of the night the power came back on, but for less than a minute. Porter arose at 5:15, intending to catch an early flight, and wondered how he was going to get hot water for shaving. Lo and behold, just as he was asking that question, the power returned, more seriously this time. Porter's flight was delayed by about an hour, thanks to the effects of the storm, but the day was fine and we didn't think more about it, just washed dishes, did laundry, and otherwise savored the joys of having power and water. We could tell that all was not well, however, because we had no Internet connection (the cable company was without power) and two of our three cell phones worked poorly if at all (probably due to the nearest AT&T cell tower being out; Heather's phone uses a different service).
In the mid-afternoon we went for a walk around the neighborhood, and when we returned we discovered that the Internet connection was back. I had just started to catch up when the power went out again! I was able to complete an explanatory e-mail to family members, thanks to the UPS, but soon Heather turned that off to conserve its battery. The power company was less than helpful, with no explanation why we lost power the second time, only an assurance that all would be well by midnight Tuesday.
Jon had spent the day in Pittsburgh, so he didn't have much time before dark to deal with another problem: the wind had blown several shingles from the roof and dislodged others. He was able to make some temporary repairs; fortunately, the storm brought no rain with it. The boys had great fun lighting candles and running around with flashlights, and would have had an even more glorious time had we not been concerned with conserving the batteries. We left another pile of dishes (and some partly-done laundry) and again went to bed.
This time the power returned at about 1:30 a.m. In the morning I tackled the mound of dishes and the interrupted laundry, and was just about to step into the shower when we lost power yet again. Our cell phone service had returned to normal strength, and the Internet still worked, but the latter was not much good without electricity, so Jon spent most of the day with a friend who still had power, and the rest of us went into Pittsburgh. The Church of the Ascension (Women's Bible Study meeting), the Carnegie Library (genealogy research), Trader Joe's (shopping), the bank, and Wendy's (lunch) all had power, but some traffic lights were out and a number of stores were still dark and closed.
We headed for home, hoping the outage would be nearly over, since the power company had said this morning all would be fixed by 6:00 p.m. When we picked up Jon, however, we learned that what they had really said was 6:00 p.m. on Friday! We began to make plans to deal with that eventuality, but returned home to find the lights on, much to our relief. True to pattern, the Internet was down again, but returned fairly soon after that. Once again, we washed dishes and did laundry—Heather was really glad to get a diaper wash done—and I finally got my delayed bath.
We filled the water containers again and made further preparations, not knowing how long the power will last this time—but so far, so good. Annoying as the on-again-off-again behavior has been, it is a blessing, as it gives the refrigerator and freezer time to recover. Many people have been continuously without power and have lost food.
Those of you who have had more reliable access to news probably know more about the broader situation than we do. I know we had record winds, with gusts of nearly 80 mph, though I don't think we personally experienced any that strong. Many trees are down, though none here. There's not a generator to be bought in town. Stores like Home Depot don't stock as many as they do in Florida, and much of what they did have they sent to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas recently, never dreaming how much demand there would be for them right here in Western Pennsylvania.
The morals of this story:
- Be prepared, as the Boy Scouts say
- Keep short accounts—don't count on being able to get anything done at the last minute, whether laundry or e-mail or bathing
- Relax and have fun with unusual circumstances, whether it be enjoying a candlelit dinner or eating up the ice cream so it won't melt
- Take time to be grateful for what you take for granted, such as electricity, phone service, and water
- And keep a weather eye out!
