power and privilege, of a sort

[cellio]

We lost power around 1 or 2 AM. (Having a UPS means never having to oversleep your no-longer-powered alarm clock...) We've just gotten our first snow of the season -- only an inch or so, but it came with a lot of ice, I'm told, causing downed tree limbs affecting power lines. We powered down our computers, turned off the chirping UPSs, and went back to sleep, expecting to be awakened by a blinking clock before morning.

That didn't happen. This morning after a quick shower (the water heater is gas-powered, but the decider-to-cue-heat is apparently electrical) I checked the freezer -- surprisingly warm but the meat was all still frozen. (Why did we lose fridge effectiveness more quickly in November, when the environment should help, than in July when we lost power for about 10 hours?) Duquesne Light had no estimates for restoration; they said 30,000 customers lost power and that's obviously going to take some time. Whee.

So I put the crock pot of stew for Shabbat on the back porch where it'll stay cooler than in the fridge, packed up all the frozen meat and fish, and headed to work -- where we have a fridge, the freezer of which only holds ice cubes. I think I get some brownie points for thinking of that before caffeine. :-) I'm glad we have that fridge at work; never expected to use it this way.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

That was very sensible of you. Also, this whole experience is weird.