Lights Out

As I write this column I am seated at the Mount Nittany Conservancy information table at Millbrook Marsh’s Earth Day Birthday event.  It’s a celebration of Millbrook Marsh’s 20th Anniversary with displays from local environmental organizations (the reason I’m here) plus activities, games and local entertainment. It’s a beautiful sunny day, there are wispy cirrus clouds high in the sky, an armed services plane is circling overhead practicing touch-and-gos at the airport, and there are lots of families with young children wandering around the grounds having a great day.

This is complete turnaround from the nasty weather conditions Happy Valley experienced a little more than a week ago. While at work one day I felt as if I was either in the beginnings of a Snoopy novel (It was a dark and stormy night…) or somewhere in an A. A. Milne story (the blustery day turned into a blustery night…). The wind was whipping, the temperature was dropping, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a woman on a bicycle outside my window.

All of which makes for an exciting workday – especially when you are safe inside and not out in the elements.

Exciting, that is, right up until the power goes out and whatever file you were working on on the computer disappears, at which point you hope the autosave launched right before the electricity cut off.

I know, losing power for a few minutes is a problem that comes along with being a privileged first-world resident. And if I was truly concerned about power outages, I would invest in a universal power supply. But since I do most of my important work on my laptop rather than my desktop I have a battery that serves the same purpose so I don’t lose anything valuable.

Nonetheless, power outages are still annoying, even when they only last a few seconds as these did. Just long enough for all the digital clocks to require resetting.

However, several weeks earlier we had experienced a power outage at home that lasted several hours. It was long enough that we called the power company hotline and were informed the estimated time of power resumption was several hours – something you hope is accurate, but then you start planning for a worst-case scenario. Those are the types of outages that start to move from small inconvenience into “let’s check local hotel availability” territory.

That outage was on a very cold day, which in some respects is helpful because one of the first things you consider when the power goes out is how long the chest freezer (can’t lose that beef!) and regular refrigerator will stay cold. But then you remember the entire outdoors is at a lower temperature than either of those appliances so you can just put all your food into plastic bins and place them on the back porch.

It reminds me of the old George Carlin routine when he reflects how early humans got cold so they built a box (house) to stay warm. But the meat spoiled inside the warm box so they built a cold box (refrigerator) inside the warm box. But then the butter got hard inside the cold box, so they built a warm box inside the cold box inside the warm box.

After you realize you won’t have a problem keeping your food cold, then you remember that you prefer to keep yourself warm, and without electricity your gas-fired heat pump isn’t turning on. Although the gas-powered fireplace will (just not the blower) so the entire family could gather round the faux fireplace in sleeping bags if things got bad.

Another thought that crosses your mind soon after you get an extended power outage is water availability. Since water normally flows on pressure and doesn’t need electricity there’s no need to worry about getting parched. But getting hot water is a concern. So get that hot shower quickly before the hot water runs out.

Which leads me to a pet peeve about home construction. I’ve lived in a number of houses in my life, and in every one the water faucet furthest away from the water heater is the shower head in the master bath. Why is that? It seems builders would want the people using the master bath, the ones who likely bought and paid for the house, to be happiest and get their hot water first. But no. In our current house I often turn on the water in the shower for a full minute before it gets hot.

But once you’ve physically dealt with the major survival issues in the event of a power outage – food, water, shelter – then you can begin working on the mental aspects of getting through one, such as wondering how long the electricity would have to be off before Happy Valley descended into a third-world country.

We do have some recent history in this country as a guide to provide some short-term comfort. In August 1992 Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and the Gulf Coast and was, at the time, the most destructive hurricane in United States history. Power was out in sections of south Florida for days when more than 3,300 miles of power lines went down – which is a lot anywhere but especially in Florida considering many power lines are underground. During those days there was a bit of civil unrest but society survived and did not become unglued after a few days.

More than a decade later another August event, the so-called “Northeast Blackout” took place on Aug. 14, 2003. It affected 45 million people in the Northeast and Midwest, including all of New York City. The City That Never Sleeps didn’t get power completely restored for two days.  At the time it was the world’s second most widespread blackout in history, yet civil unrest was extremely limited. In some cases people found ways – let’s eat all the ice cream! – to semi-enjoy the inconvenience.

So we know even densely populated society can survive a short time without power., which as I said earlier can make for an exciting workday as long as you’re safe inside.

But not everyone gets to be safe inside.  Somebody has to get the power back on. Someone has to be out in the dark or the elements or the heat fixing the parts of the electric grid that are broken. Somebody has to be willing to work with live transmission lines and high-voltage wires. It’s those wonderful electric company workers.

Next time you drive by a truck with its lift extended working on wires out in the elements, smile and wave. They’re the folks keeping us a from the possible dark side of humanity.