We have been without power since Saturday night at 10:21 pm when the snowstorm knocked out some important equipment somewhere on the grid. It's one thing to not have electricity and quite another to not have heat or running water. That's the situation we found ourselves in Sunday morning. Uh-oh. We had thought about getting a generator, but it never seemed quite the right time until we found ourselves sitting in a cold dark house. So, on Sunday Roger made some calls to the local hardware stores and found that they had already sold out all of their generators. That meant a 35 mile drive to the nearest big box stores to find one.Luckily, we found a generator there that had enough power to support (4) 120 volt connections and (1) 220, which we needed to power the well pump. We brought it home and used it right away to the heat the house from its 57 degrees and to the cool refrigerator down to its appropriate chill level. Ah modern life.
The local newspaper, which we finally got to read online Monday when our telephone (and dsl) service was mysteriously restored, after dying mid-conversation on Sunday, told us that we are one of 7000 households in Nevada County without power. We probably won't see electricity until Tuesday evening, at the earliest. Even with the generator, we still don't have hot water, but I can at least stop melting snow to wash the dishes. Progress.
I don't think there are any big lessons to be learned from this. You have to experience it to get a real sense of life without power.
