Day Six Without Power

Okay, this one's for the boys. On the way out I took a few photos around the neighborhood. (Thought Dad might find this interesting.)

Dan and Linda let us borrow their generator since they are back to full power. Dan and David chained it to the back patio so no one would run off with it. (One of the ladies I work with had someone come and try to steal theirs. Fortunately her husband ran the thief off. Who would do that??) Anyway ... it runs on gasoline. There are so many kinds and sizes (as I am learning at work).

Here's to my knowledge how it works - not sure it's 100% accurate, but I think it's close: There are big ones that can run the whole house ($6,000 and up) and tiny ones that you just plug into. But the average size ($2,500 - $4,000) needs a technician to come out and set up a box. Then you can choose what you want to run ... for example, the fridge, the tv, a few lamps, the microwave, a pump ... things like that. Everything is somehow "wired" or connected to the box and you just plug in the generator when you need it and flip a switch and you are good to go. You can't have full access really to things like the dishwasher or the washer and dryer because that's too much power. 

For our purposes, we have two extension cords that can run into the house from the generator. Dan and Linda came over yesterday (while David was at fantasy football draft) and plugged in a lamp downstairs with one cord and a lamp upstairs with the other so I could get around and read and whatnot. This morning I plugged in my hair curlers to one while David plugged in the iron and then the hair dryer into another one.

It's pretty expensive to run all the time. It eats up the gasoline! And it's loud, so unless you REALLY need it, people turn them off at night. You can get one with a water cooler and they run quiet like a car engine, but they are more expensive obviously. They are really handy and make life a lot more bearable in an outage.

Our little neigborhood has well water. We pay the city for it, but it still comes out of the well. We didn't have running water when the power first went off, but the water company went and got a huge generator that runs all day and all night so we can at least flush the toilets and things. It annoys some people, but I don't mind the humming sound at night. It's like sleeping with a fan on.

We got a notice yesterday that we don't have to boil our water anymore, so that's something positive. But with the holiday weekend coming up, I'm expecting power Tuesday to Thursday.

And that's Day 6 without power.