So I wake up this morning at 5AM to the sound of my garbage cans being whipped into the chain-link fence on the side of my house, and winds so strong that the micro-drafts coming through the windows are powerful enough to shake the drapes.
The power flickers on and off repeatedly for the next few minutes. I get up and unplug all the electronic goodies, and turn off the 3 battery backups throughout the house.
I look out the bedroom window and see electricity arcing from the electrical poles. Against the night sky, it’s possible to see that some of the lines are down, the wooden arms broken in twain.
My girlfriend and I look outside and see police cars and neighbors, so we throw our coats on over our pajamas and go outside. Two fire trucks are positioned about 5 or 6 houses down from us, and a third zips by.
From our backyard, we can see the flames rising as one of our neighbor’s garages goes up in flames.
A firefighter knocks on our door and tells us not to go into our backyards, the chainlink fences are electrified due to the downed wires. They string caution tape between our house and the houses 3 doors down on either side to keep people out of the backyards.
We manage to go back to sleep despite the excitement, and finally wake up at 9:20am. I put on the coffeemaker and make a phone call. It’s up to the ‘4’ on the pot and the power cuts off, this time for good. At 10:00am, cellular service via AT&T goes down. Not like, “oh, a tower lost power,” it goes down regionally. Zero signal for miles and miles. Calling a number doesn’t go to voicemail, it goes to a “this number is disconnected or no longer in service” message.
It’s 7pm, the house is 60F, and the DTE truck is on our street. We’re giving it another 90 minutes or so before we grab our overnight bags and head to relatives’ houses.
God bless battery backups and laptops, though. At least I have a few minutes of Internet to enable me to gripe online!