Yes, you heard me right! At 3am this morning, we finally got our power back. It had gone out at 8:30 Friday morning, after a night of ice that had closed down schools and left, according to the news, a million New Englanders without power. We were lucky enough to be in that group! (sarcasm)
We have lost power before, but b/c we are on the same grid as the shipyard, we have never gone without for more than a few hours. Well, this time, outages were really sporadic, and the shipyard never lost power, so we were stuck in the dark, with no word from Central Maine Power (CMP) as to how long it would take to restore power.
Friday during the day wasn't too bad, but we knew it was going to get cold that night. We went to our friend's John and Julie's house for dinner, and then we went home to try and get an old, borrowed generator to run a space heater. We closed off the dining room and living room, and hunkered down for the night. Needless to say, the generator was not keeping up, it kept stalling, Rick kept swearing, and by morning, it was 52 degrees in the living room, and Rick, who had to go into work, was demanding I take Cate and abandon ship. Like all successful wives, I turned on the tears, and within 5 minutes, he was back home with one of the captains who wired in the generator to our oil-burning furnace. By midmorning, he had gotten ahold of a co-worker's 5500 Watt generator, that had only been used once before. Before we knew it, the furnace was fired up, the house was warming, and the refrigerator was also back in business. Now, we still had no hot water, no working appliances, no light, but at least we weren't going to lose our food, and the pipes weren't going to freeze.
Even so, by Sunday, as we saw virtually everyone else in town regain power, as we heard that many in the surrounding rural areas and islands had regained power, and as we watched CMP trucks driving OUT OF town, the neighbors (including us) were getting fiesty. There were discussions of hunting down CMP trucks, plans to storm the local CMP office, promises of mailing CMP one dead Angel fish, a neighbor's pet of 10 years that died after his house temperature dropped to 37 degrees (he, unfortunately, had no generator). Overall, there was crying, swearing, pacing, but also lots of neighbors taking care of neighbors- it may be the most socializing we'll do during our long, hibernation-inducing Maine winter.
As we went to bed last night, our little group of about 25 houses, completely dark, and surrounded by a sea of houses lit with Christmas lights (need I remind you all that we live RIGHT IN TOWN; we're not down some dirt road on one of the islands), were all losing hope. Certainly, CMP had forgotten us. Then at 11:30pm, the phone rang- it was CMP- "Do you have power yet?" No. 2:30am- phone rings again, "Power yet?" Oh, street next to us did- getting closer. 3am- power is on!! Turns out Rick was outside talking to the nice, old CMP man, walking around our neighborhood with a flashlight, going house to house. I guess he found the problem, b/c minutes later, the big boom truck showed up, and tada!! Power!!! After a mini- middle of the night celebration, generators started to shut down, some turned on their Christmas lights for the rest of the night, and we all settled back to sleep.
At one point in all of this I said to Rick that when we build our house some day and he says he wants to hardwire in a generator, and I say it's too expensive, please remind me of this weekend. I don't ever want to do this again. But here are a few pictures to give you a taste.
We have lost power before, but b/c we are on the same grid as the shipyard, we have never gone without for more than a few hours. Well, this time, outages were really sporadic, and the shipyard never lost power, so we were stuck in the dark, with no word from Central Maine Power (CMP) as to how long it would take to restore power.
Friday during the day wasn't too bad, but we knew it was going to get cold that night. We went to our friend's John and Julie's house for dinner, and then we went home to try and get an old, borrowed generator to run a space heater. We closed off the dining room and living room, and hunkered down for the night. Needless to say, the generator was not keeping up, it kept stalling, Rick kept swearing, and by morning, it was 52 degrees in the living room, and Rick, who had to go into work, was demanding I take Cate and abandon ship. Like all successful wives, I turned on the tears, and within 5 minutes, he was back home with one of the captains who wired in the generator to our oil-burning furnace. By midmorning, he had gotten ahold of a co-worker's 5500 Watt generator, that had only been used once before. Before we knew it, the furnace was fired up, the house was warming, and the refrigerator was also back in business. Now, we still had no hot water, no working appliances, no light, but at least we weren't going to lose our food, and the pipes weren't going to freeze.
Even so, by Sunday, as we saw virtually everyone else in town regain power, as we heard that many in the surrounding rural areas and islands had regained power, and as we watched CMP trucks driving OUT OF town, the neighbors (including us) were getting fiesty. There were discussions of hunting down CMP trucks, plans to storm the local CMP office, promises of mailing CMP one dead Angel fish, a neighbor's pet of 10 years that died after his house temperature dropped to 37 degrees (he, unfortunately, had no generator). Overall, there was crying, swearing, pacing, but also lots of neighbors taking care of neighbors- it may be the most socializing we'll do during our long, hibernation-inducing Maine winter.
As we went to bed last night, our little group of about 25 houses, completely dark, and surrounded by a sea of houses lit with Christmas lights (need I remind you all that we live RIGHT IN TOWN; we're not down some dirt road on one of the islands), were all losing hope. Certainly, CMP had forgotten us. Then at 11:30pm, the phone rang- it was CMP- "Do you have power yet?" No. 2:30am- phone rings again, "Power yet?" Oh, street next to us did- getting closer. 3am- power is on!! Turns out Rick was outside talking to the nice, old CMP man, walking around our neighborhood with a flashlight, going house to house. I guess he found the problem, b/c minutes later, the big boom truck showed up, and tada!! Power!!! After a mini- middle of the night celebration, generators started to shut down, some turned on their Christmas lights for the rest of the night, and we all settled back to sleep.
At one point in all of this I said to Rick that when we build our house some day and he says he wants to hardwire in a generator, and I say it's too expensive, please remind me of this weekend. I don't ever want to do this again. But here are a few pictures to give you a taste.
Cate having dinner by candlelight. She didn't seem to mind the dark at all, although b/c it's dark here by 4pm, she was ready for bed by 5.
Here was Mr. Porter Cable 5500- our best friend - had it been summer, one would have thought everyone was mowing lawns. These things are loud!!! But they do work! The plugs came in our kitchen window, one went to the fridge, and the other plugged into the wall and somehow made the furnace run. I don't remember covering generators in college physics, so not quite sure how that worked (Martha, we never did any generator problems, did we?) :)
Resourcefulness was key this weekend. Sunday morning, Rick used the side burner of the grill to make us egg sandwiches for breakfast (notice Zoe hoping for some cheese and eggs). Also, the big radiator came in handy as one of our only methods of heating/warming (particularly water for Cate's bottles). I also put a left over egg roll on there- not too bad!
Well, enough about power outages. We're glad to be back on the grid and thankful that we and the house are all ok. Tomorrow Cate will be 11 months old, so more then! Time to give Cate a bath in her own bathtub! Yay!! Good night!!
2 comments:
Your writing is hysterically wonderful!!! Reminiscent of Erma Bombeck!! Sorry you had to go through all that...we had 24 hours once and THAT was enough! Started out as a romantic adventure by the candle lit fireplace and got boring really fast...(what does that say about us?????!) Glad all ended up well up there....
Oh my! It was one thing when it was just you and Rick but with Cate that had to be really stressful. Glad to hear you're back up again. And no, I don't recall any generator problems in physics. :) At least not how they get plugged in to the house.
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