Herkie the Dog's World Musings
A Blackout Not Caused By Alcohol
Well, that was an experience, wasn't it?
The next time I have the opportunity to participate in another international crisis, I'll pass. Losing power in 8 states and 1 province during a serious heat wave is something that I hope will never be repeated, but something tells me that someday it will. It's a little unnerving to think how helpless we can be without electricity, especially when it causes the water to go out, traffic lights to go dead, cell phones to be useless, gas stations to shut down and an inability to access any sort of currency.
Driving home from work 20 minutes after the blackout occurred, I had no inkling of the magnitude of the outage. At work, we had pretty much figured that a lot of the city was hit, but it wasn't until I turned on the car radio that I truly understood the ramifications. Some of the radio stations were completely off the air. The rest were not playing music, but were instead broadcasting feeds from local news or even CNN. It was truly stunning and shocking to hear that not only had my area been drained of power, but that an entire region of the continent had gone black. Then reports started coming in that the outage caused a shutdown of the city water and sewage plants that service just about the whole southeast Michigan region. No power and no water...for an entire city.
The feeling that I had to get home to be sure Lisa and Christie were okay intensified with that knowledge, but it was becoming more obvious that it wasn't going to be a short ride. The normally 30 minute commute extended into a 2-1/2 hour ordeal of gridlock. Amazingly, this actually served to calm me down because I was able to hear all the news reports and learn what the situation really was. It was still not good, but I knew that it wasn't anarchy.
For a guy who unfortunately tends to assume the worst in his fellow humans (a feeling that is intensified by working in the auto industry), it was very rewarding to see that people generally kept calm and rational during this whole incident. Well...except for treating a downed intersection as a four way stop. Do not believe what they said about how well that worked out during rush hour. It was still tricky navigation, but it was a major miracle that no real road rage seemed to flare up.
Power restoration varied by community, but I'm reasonably sure that my neighborhood was the absolute last place to get it back. We would end up experiencing two nights without electricity. At least we had running water, which was more than some places did.
The first night was a clear night with no moon out. On a normal night, you'd have light from porches, streetlights or simply coming from the neighbor's windows as well as the faint illumination from the adjacent communities and cities. On this night, it was totally black, like being in a closet with the door closed. And quiet. Eerily quiet. No people on the street, no cars driving...nothing.
But the quiet and darkness actually created a sort of serene atmosphere. And because of the darkness, you could see stars that you'd normally never see. The sheer number of visible stars seemed overwhelming. When I was in grade school, I used to be able to pick out all the different constellations. On this particular night, there were so many stars that all I could reasonably pick out was the Big Dipper.
Day number 2 became one big cookout. The refrigerator was rapidly warming up, and it was likely that we were going to have to trash all of our food. So we decided that instead of wasting it, we'd throw it all on the gas grill. I felt better throwing out cooked food that we couldn't finish rather than raw food that went bad. We ended up with a lunchtime feast: steak, pork chops and salmon along with sides of noodles and rolls. With so much food, we tried to see if we could get some people over for an impromptu cook out, but only Paul was able to stop by (no, you are not a mooch!). But as Herkie would point out, this meant more food for the dog. I'd swear I saw a huge smile on his face as he sucked down bits of steak and pork.
By now, news was spreading that DTE Energy was getting many communities back online, but the progress was slow and none of these communities were very close to us. We were fairly sure that the power was going to be back, but based on the timeframe they were saying, we figured it would be at least one more day. Faced with another night of darkness and, more importantly, no internet, I decided to reacquaint myself with some friends. On my way back from Windsor earlier in the week, I was able to pick up some grappa and limoncello. This night seemed to be a very good time to recall just how much I enjoyed their company.
Christie did very well with the blackout. Occasionally, she would ask if the power had come back and tried the TV or a light switch just to be sure. As night fell, she'd ask for a flashlight and run around with it. To her, the blackout was a whole new environment to play in.
At 1:30 AM, the power came back online in our area. The blackout was over. Now all that's left is the grocery shopping.
The next time I have the opportunity to participate in another international crisis, I'll pass. Losing power in 8 states and 1 province during a serious heat wave is something that I hope will never be repeated, but something tells me that someday it will. It's a little unnerving to think how helpless we can be without electricity, especially when it causes the water to go out, traffic lights to go dead, cell phones to be useless, gas stations to shut down and an inability to access any sort of currency.
Driving home from work 20 minutes after the blackout occurred, I had no inkling of the magnitude of the outage. At work, we had pretty much figured that a lot of the city was hit, but it wasn't until I turned on the car radio that I truly understood the ramifications. Some of the radio stations were completely off the air. The rest were not playing music, but were instead broadcasting feeds from local news or even CNN. It was truly stunning and shocking to hear that not only had my area been drained of power, but that an entire region of the continent had gone black. Then reports started coming in that the outage caused a shutdown of the city water and sewage plants that service just about the whole southeast Michigan region. No power and no water...for an entire city.
The feeling that I had to get home to be sure Lisa and Christie were okay intensified with that knowledge, but it was becoming more obvious that it wasn't going to be a short ride. The normally 30 minute commute extended into a 2-1/2 hour ordeal of gridlock. Amazingly, this actually served to calm me down because I was able to hear all the news reports and learn what the situation really was. It was still not good, but I knew that it wasn't anarchy.
For a guy who unfortunately tends to assume the worst in his fellow humans (a feeling that is intensified by working in the auto industry), it was very rewarding to see that people generally kept calm and rational during this whole incident. Well...except for treating a downed intersection as a four way stop. Do not believe what they said about how well that worked out during rush hour. It was still tricky navigation, but it was a major miracle that no real road rage seemed to flare up.
Power restoration varied by community, but I'm reasonably sure that my neighborhood was the absolute last place to get it back. We would end up experiencing two nights without electricity. At least we had running water, which was more than some places did.
The first night was a clear night with no moon out. On a normal night, you'd have light from porches, streetlights or simply coming from the neighbor's windows as well as the faint illumination from the adjacent communities and cities. On this night, it was totally black, like being in a closet with the door closed. And quiet. Eerily quiet. No people on the street, no cars driving...nothing.
But the quiet and darkness actually created a sort of serene atmosphere. And because of the darkness, you could see stars that you'd normally never see. The sheer number of visible stars seemed overwhelming. When I was in grade school, I used to be able to pick out all the different constellations. On this particular night, there were so many stars that all I could reasonably pick out was the Big Dipper.
Day number 2 became one big cookout. The refrigerator was rapidly warming up, and it was likely that we were going to have to trash all of our food. So we decided that instead of wasting it, we'd throw it all on the gas grill. I felt better throwing out cooked food that we couldn't finish rather than raw food that went bad. We ended up with a lunchtime feast: steak, pork chops and salmon along with sides of noodles and rolls. With so much food, we tried to see if we could get some people over for an impromptu cook out, but only Paul was able to stop by (no, you are not a mooch!). But as Herkie would point out, this meant more food for the dog. I'd swear I saw a huge smile on his face as he sucked down bits of steak and pork.
By now, news was spreading that DTE Energy was getting many communities back online, but the progress was slow and none of these communities were very close to us. We were fairly sure that the power was going to be back, but based on the timeframe they were saying, we figured it would be at least one more day. Faced with another night of darkness and, more importantly, no internet, I decided to reacquaint myself with some friends. On my way back from Windsor earlier in the week, I was able to pick up some grappa and limoncello. This night seemed to be a very good time to recall just how much I enjoyed their company.
Christie did very well with the blackout. Occasionally, she would ask if the power had come back and tried the TV or a light switch just to be sure. As night fell, she'd ask for a flashlight and run around with it. To her, the blackout was a whole new environment to play in.
At 1:30 AM, the power came back online in our area. The blackout was over. Now all that's left is the grocery shopping.
posted by Jon at
12:29 AM
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