Back to the future

We had a freak "derecho" storm here last Friday night that took out power and phone (cell and landline) service for nearly 3 million homes and businesses. Crazy! Apparently a derecho is the next best thing to a hurricane, and the resulting power outage is the "biggest non-hurricane outage in our 100 year history," according to our power utility.

The problems weren't so much the wind or torrential rain directly, but resulting damage caused by old trees breaking and falling. In this part of the country we have deciduous trees everywhere, and it seems the older (and bigger) they are, the harder they fall. I went to visit a family in my ward the next morning (since I couldn't call them) and found an enormous tree (10 ft diameter, at least) had fallen across their road, blocking the road and taking 3 blocks of power/comm. lines down with it. Power poles were snapped like twigs, 1.5 inch cables simply ripped apart. Very impressive. (The family was okay, by the way, other than loss of power.)

Anyway, we "luckily" have power and telephone back now (after only a day and a half), while others are predicted to get power restored after at least a week! In our short powerless/phoneless time we worried about fridge/freezer food going bad (I drove 10 miles unsuccessfully trying to find ice), being too hot (temperatures were over 100 degrees F, with stifling humidity), and keeping kids occupied with indoor activities that don't require power. Things worked out. For the first time in our family's history, we all found it convenient to take a nap on Saturday afternoon. For me, the utter quiet took me back to my childhood in rural Wyoming (which was pretty much always more quiet than here, even with 6 boys). I miss that. And lack of air conditioning wasn't so bad - thankfully we have a basement that stays pretty cool. In some ways, life was better before all the distractions we surround ourselves with.

With everything restored, we're back to the future. Ugh.