 | | | Subject: Four hours without heat and light
Posted Jan 12, 2011 by paulh. I'm a fool, but please think of me as a jester
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 | | A little before noon today my neighborhood lost its electricity.
Definitely a result of the heavy snowstorm we got starting last night. The weight of snow knocked a tree down, breaking an electrical wire as it fell. To while away the time waiting for the repair crews to arrive and restore power, I drove down the road to the next town to see if any restaurants were open. At the deluxe mall three miles away, I was told that the entire mall was closed, but the Whole Foods Supermarket on the edge of it was open. They have a buffet, so that was my lunch. I got to try stuff I wouldn't ordinarily make a meal of. When I got home again, the power was still off, but the workmen were fixing the downed wire. I walked around the neighborhood for half an hour, and when I got back inside the power was back, and my furnace was working to bring the tmeperature back up.
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| | | Subject: Four hours without heat and light
Posted Jan 12, 2011 by Rev Nick
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 | | Very pleased that you have power back, Paul. Some nights on the south shore of Nova Scotia, it could run 4 to 20 hours before the electricity found us again. Without options of a fire-place or any portable and indoor-safe sources of heat, often several households would get together. Share body and friend warmth. And what-ever meals were readily warmed by tinned heat or the brave man that controlled the BBQ
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| | | Subject: Four hours without heat and light
Posted Jan 14, 2011 by ITIWBS
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| | We get 2 - 12 hour power outages here every year at the beginning of the torrid season. (No air conditioning! Temperatures that never drop below 32C/90F and frequently go over 43C/110F) and at the beginning of the cold season, temperatures that rarely drop below 10C/50F but occasionally drop as low -18C/0F.
The worst cold weather emergency I can recall, living in a remote mountain community, exact temperature unknown, my brothers and I sharing an unheated loft over a garage, shivering, teeth chattering, we finally resorted to putting all the bedclothes on one single bed, three quilts, six blankets, five bedsheets and piling in together. We were still shivering, so I threw one of the mattresses on top. Still cold, but the shivering stopped.
Next time we had a predicted freeze, we stayed with a neighbor who heated his place in the winter by means of filling the basement with green manure and piling it around the foundations of his house, him, his wife and their eight kids. I slept without a blanket on an uncarpeted wooden floor, it stank, the air was stifling, but it was warm, even uncomfortably hot. I felt almost delirious the following morning but it beat hell out of freezing.
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