Power

Again - best laid plans. 

My blog post that was to be yesterday is now tentatively slated for tomorrow.  You know.....because. 

Yesterday, in my late post, I alluded to a power outage, but it was so much more than that. 

We were slated for rain. Even a t-storm and a small window for a severe t-storm. It all went south, very quickly. 

All of the sudden I'm getting tornado warnings coming across my phone, and then an alleged sighting / touchdown (score!) on the far west side of the 216 (which is actually the 440 over there).

We didn't even have a drop of rain yet, though it looked darker out west. But it didn't take long. 

Deluge would be the proper word, I think. Then the wind.  Fuck - the wind.  So. Much. Wind. 

All of the sudden every device screeeeeeeches to take shelter immediately. So into the basement my sister-in-law and I go. Simon, who loves to break into the basement and scrounge around refused to come down. Typical boy, once he has permission, he doesn't want to do it. 

The problem with the basement is - I can't really tell (meaning, at all) what's going on upstairs or outside. 

Report were a few miles down the road a fire station had its roof ripped off. There were several other tornados that had confirmed touchdowns all over town. Nothing in any kind of pattern, of which I could tell. 

As you might have guessed from yesterday's post, I drafted it and was setting it to 'publish' when the power finally went out. It had flickered, but kept coming back. I was semi-hopeful for a few. But it was out and there would be no confirmation that it would publish - though I knew it wouldn't. 

The power stayed out - and at the drafting of this - is still out. The 216 (along with the 440 and 330) had / have about 331,900 people without power. You can see a small portion of the outage map in your left hand corner of the post. And that's just what's reported. I didn't even bother, as everyone around us did already. And honestly, I couldn't get to the site easily because of no wifi and using only limited cellular. 

It didn't take a long long time for phones, watches, laptops to just lose power. I charged my phone in my car as I went to get Shep for daycare. It turned out to be a long drive. 

Traffic signals - all out. Debris - everywhere. We had a sizable branch down, but other places had massive trees down, taking out power lines along the way. Some major streets closed due to impasse because of the trees. 

Naturally, I just went shopping and stocked the freezer and fridge. All of that is not going to last and will have to be tossed.  Bother. 

710 brought dinner home. That he found an open place was great. But I was in bed by 20:45. It was getting dark, my devices were dead and I had nothing to do. 

Yesterday morning was more of the same. I had a banana for breakfast, but the gym was out of power. Most every establishment was closed due to no power, or no employees due to no power. 

Since I have some power now, I'm drafting this way way early in the day. I have no idea if we will have power today or not. First Energy isn't sure either. 

The only saving grace is, it cooled off a bit. If it were still in the high 80s and low 90s it would really suck. 

But the longer the power is off, the more things will start to die. Our security systems, some other things that are hooked up to power and not battery.  There will be a lot of chirping in our near future. 

Still - first world problems, but honestly it doesn't take a lot to take a society down to second and third world status. Difficult to find food. No energy. No water - if you're on a well or a pump. No communication. It doesn't take much. 

And if I still don't have power, I have tomorrow's post (twice delayed) ready to go. 

Song by: Tears for Fears