I was just finishing cooking dinner on Monday evening when the lights went out. Since our house is all electric, we not only had no lights but no heat either and it was getting colder. We found and lit candles and then we sat down to eat dinner. The electric company (PECO) could only tell us that they were aware of the outage and would get it fixed as quickly as possible. It would be the last hot meal we had in six days because the few restaurants that were open, had very long lines and were quickly running out of food.
Within a few hours, the winds were blowing more than 50 mph and the rain was coming down sideways. The bench we have sitting outside the front door was picked up and flew within inches of my brand new car. Earlier we had put away the trash cans or they would have been blown away to heaven knows where--that's how hard the wind was blowing.
Fortunately, we do have a propane heater that doesn't require electricity to run it. As long as we stayed in the room with the heater, we were at least warm. The first night was probably the easiest to get through. At that time, we still had hope that power would come back on quickly.
Tuesday, every house on our street got power back with the exception of our house and the house directly across the street from us. We both built our houses at the same time and are connected to a different power line than the rest of the street. Our neighbor directly next door kindly allowed us to plug into an outlet on his deck to run our refrigerator. Bless him because it saved a whole lot of perishables.
By that tine, I was dying for a cup of tea so I walked over to the nearest supermarket because they have a Starbucks in the store, and the McDonald's is right across the street. Many others had the same idea because you couldn't get near McDonalds and the Starbucks had a line almost completely around the block! No tea for me that day.
Gradually, over the next couple of days, neighborhoods started to get their power back. We didn't. No one was worried about the two houses left on our street that were powerless. Friday evening our street came abuzz with utility trucks from Meade Co. of Indianapolis, Indiana. I felt like the calvary was coming to rescue us. We were able to tell them we saw flashes of light in the sky and they came from the development next to us, and up the street. Meade went to that area and discovered there were two huge pine trees laying across the wires. They had to call a tree surgeon to come and cut down the trees. My heart dropped when the Meade trucks drove away.
We went to bed on Friday evening sure that it would be a couple of more days before our power returned. New transformers had to be brought from another area to replace the ones the trees burned out. Saturday was a very long day for me. Towards evening, my sweet husband unplugged the refrigerator so I could plug in my electric kettle to make a pot of tea. When the water started to boil, I heard this beep, looked up and saw the phone was lit. Power had returned!!!!
I no longer had to take cold showers (and by that time, the water was really cold!) and we could have a hot dinner. I could LSO turn on the electric blanket and sleep peacefully. But first, we both took a very long, hot shower and washed our hair. How wonderful that felt!
All I can say is thank God for the wonderful Meade people and the persistence they showed in fixing our power outage. Many of our neighbors will be saying special prayers for these gentlemen at Sunday morning mass. The people in my area only suffered power outages and little damage to their homes. Prayers must go to the people in New York City, and Staten Island who are surely suffering more than we an imagine. Those at the New Jersey shore are also in need of prayers for they lost their homes and everything in them.
Wednesday, we are expecting a N'easter storm. Hopefully, the winds won't be as strong and the rains not quite as fierce.
