In the Dark

Our family just spent 41 long hours in the dark, figuratively and literally.

A crazy line of thunderstorms blew through our area around 10:45 PM Friday night bringing 70-80 mph winds, constant heat lightning, and heavy downpours.  Luckily we were watching the Olympic Trials on TV so we were somewhat aware of what was coming.  Our only storm prep was moving the potted flowers from the stands and bringing up a flashlight from the basement.

The wind started and our power was off 5 minutes into the storm. 

Our upstairs is hot with A/C on and 3 fans going, so we navigated through the dark house to set up the pack n play for Evie in the living room and relocated to the main floor.  Parker was a hot mess.  Typically he barks at the thunder, but this time he was shaking uncontrollably and hid under the office desk in the basement.  You know how they say animals knew about the tsunami before it came?  Well, I was wondering if Parker knew something we didn't.  No tsunami or tornado.  Just a heck of a lot of lightning and wind.

We woke to the bright sun coming in our non room darkening blinds at 5:55 AM.  We discovered a decent sized tree down on the road out of our community.  Only one lane was blocked, so we were able to leave.  Another tree almost hit a car in the circle.  No physical damage to our house. 

We packed up Evie and put Parker in the cool basement and headed out in search of coffee and to assess the damage in the area.  The only place open was the Target shopping center a few miles from our house.  The lines for coffee at the gas station, McDonald's, and in Target were long.  We picked up a few bags of ice and some bottled water (totally against my green ways).  I'm glad we got there at 8:30 AM when things were still stocked.

Once home we moved some yogurt, milk, cheese, and bacon to the coolers.  We grilled up the chicken that was defrosted and had yummy salads for lunch.  We lost just about everything else in our refrigerator by the time the power came back on.  I cried over dripping bags of chicken.

Our stocked refrigerator minus the dairy stuff we
managed to save

Good-bye food and $130.  At least I finally cleaned
the breast milk that leaked all over the freezer
about 9 months ago.  Haha

We beat the heat in our house by driving around.  The library in Ellicott City was powerless, but did allow us in to get a few new books.  Erica and Robb kindly invited us to their house in Hagerstown to shower and eat dinner.  We met the Hettinger's at the pool on Sunday to commiserate with them and cool everyone off.  Our family of 4 slept in the basement the 2nd night.  It was cool enough to sleep and luckily the sound machine was running off batteries so there was some noise for this white noise addicted crew. 

Our cozy sleeping quarters

It was really strange around town this weekend.  A ton of cars were out with families in them.  You hardly ever see cars filled with more than 1 person these days.  Most cars were full.  Everyone was just driving around looking for answers, places to charge phones, and find unspoiled food.  Traffic lights were out all over the place.  It was a little surreal.  Our neighbors all packed up and went who knows where.  It was a ghost town.  I don't have Internet on my phone so I felt totally clueless what was going on.

By Sunday afternoon once I realized all our food was spoiled, I lost it.  Our house was 83 degrees, I didn't know where to go, we were at each other's throats.  Around 4 PM Parker picked up his head and started barking.  The power clicked on 2 seconds later.

Jason and I rejoiced and instantly went from being snippy with each other to blissful. 

We promptly ran the garbage disposal (the drain was backed up because old habits are hard to break- I started dumping things down the drain), set the clocks (I don't know how many times we looked at the micro for the time), and set the A/C to 80 (we figured it needed some time to cool down from 83). 

We are really thankful to be up and running again.  We had our first "camping" experience together.  Parker was really great considering how hot it was in our house.  Evie transitioned well to her pack n play.  Jason and I, well, we did not handle the situation with patience, but we did survivie.  I am so thankful we are not on well water.  We were able to flush toilets and wash dishes.  We both even had a warm shower once.

That's the second time in Evie's life that we lost power for more than 24 hours.  The first time we were blessed with Kevin's generator and Evie living at KKI.  This time was much more difficult.  Last night we had another round of strong storms.  We are still powered up, but our hearts skipped a few beats. 


PS Spell check isn't working and I don't proof read very well :)