Power Outages, Emergency Preparedness, and why I didn't get to watch Outlander last night.

As I settled in, last night, to watch the season premier of Outlander, we had a major power outage. I heard 3 gunshot type sounds, then total darkness. I reached for my cell phone to call the power company and report the outage, then went outside to see if I could see what might have happened. That's when I heard emergency vehicles coming close. Many people in our neighborhood started to get in their cars to see what happened, so my daughter and I did too. Turns out, someone ran into a power pole.

 

Our friends live at the top of the street where this happened. They were having dinner when they thought a bomb had gone off outside their house. They discovered the wreckage. The woman was drunk and she had a child in the car with her. Our friend said she was arrested and child protective services came for the child. It took the power company 4 hours to restore power to 1370 homes. Ours included.

After 2 hours, I got worried. See, in Idaho, Idaho Power is the power company and outages like this only last a max of an hour. They are really on the ball. PGE, here in Oregon, is not so great. Sorry, not sorry to say that. In the winter, power outages can last days to a week. This is unacceptable in my opinion. Now, all that to say, I know that's quite the "first world problem". But when you have $100s of food in your fridge and freezer that could go bad because the power company can't get their shite together...well...that's when I get a wee bit bunchy.

Luckily, we are always prepared for emergencies. We have a generator. We bought it last winter because EVERYTHING in our rental is electric. From the heat to the appliances. Nothing on natural gas at all. We'd had a very bad winter last winter and power outages were a real threat. So we bought a generator that would at least be powerful enough to keep our fridge and freezer going for as long as we needed. As for heat, we had alternative sources too. BUT, there was one problem. My husband went out of town last night and hadn't taught me how to operate the generator. (I know, I know.) So I had him on the phone so he could help me get it operational. I got it going. It was out on the back deck, so I slept on the couch in case it should stop or something. I mean, who knew how long the power would be out? After 2 hours, the generator just stopped. I had a really hard time being able to tell if it was out of gas in the dark. I had flashlight and lantern, but it wasn't enough light to really tell. So I got into the garage for a gas can and started to top it off when the power came on. 

When I woke up this morning, I got to thinking about how I get very comfortable letting my husband be the only person with certain knowledge about certain things. I'm not totally un-self-sufficient. I can be quite resourceful and am able to survive quite nicely without creature comforts. But last night was a clear indication that I can't leave some operations information to only 1 person. It's important that not only I know how to operate certain emergency procedures, but also my kids. In talking to my husband on the phone this morning, we both agree that it's time for some emergency preparedness training for everyone, not just the parents, nor one adult. 

I am happy to say that none of this was life threatening for me and the whole experience showed a great hole in my knowledge base that needs to be filled. So this particular incident was a good one.