The Lights Went Out

It was a dark and stormy night. Just as the natives were dancing and chanting "Kong, Kong", the lights went out. Wait, it wasn't dark or stormy while the natives were dancing. They were dancing in broad daylight. Never mind.

It was pouring. The rain made a din on the sun room roof. We were having trouble hearing King Kong, the movie we were watching. Just as we got to the part where the natives stopped their dancing and chanting because they were interrupted by the crew of the tramp steamer, the lights went out.

I chanted a string of phrases. We waited a few minutes to see if the electricity would come back on. I grabbed the iPad and went to the National Grid site to report the outage. It took forever to get  a 3G signal from Verizon. Verizon boasts the largest coverage, except for the dead zone where I live. And they want me to upgrade to 4G and they can't even provide 3G service, but I digress.

National Grid has a pretty good way for customers to keep up with status updates during outages. After  you sign in at the site, there's a display that lets you know how many in your area are without power and a time estimation when power will be back.

Ten. There were only ten customers in my area without power and power would be restored by midnight.

While I was reporting the outage and making status updates, Himself set out the lanterns and went to the basement to hook up a portable pump to a battery generator to take over sump pump duties. In the time it took him to accomplish this feat, a puddle of water accumulated in the basement. Himself came upstairs and we settled in the sun room to wait for the magic hour.

A short time later I noticed flashing lights in front of a neighbor's house. It was an electric company truck. I could have almost cried with relief. We watched the flashing lights and could make out the cherry picker ascending the heights. I thought what a crappy job the line dudes have. Miserable weather, so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face, and there they are heroically restoring electricity so the rest of us can be comfortable. We cheered when the power was restored.

We got between 2.5 inches and 3.0 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Andrea and a small puddle of water in the basement. It could have been so much worse. So here's to the electric company dudes for their speedy and efficient service and a hope that this year's hurricane season fizzles out.