Hundreds of people I care about have no power. As it turns out my two block road did not succumb to the thousands of tree limbs that grabbed black wires as they tumbled down. We have plenty of branches in our yard, enough that when I let the chickens out briefly one got stuck in two feet deep debris trying to get to the buried compost pile. The
cracking sounds high in the eighty foot pines woke us up many times in the night and we hurried to assess the damage. A few shingles, small gashes, and one log pierced the coop, though thankfully no hens. But the lines are still intact and my lights turn on.
There sprang up a support system on Facebook. People with generators shared them. Folks with electricity strung extension cords or offered a warm living room and freezer space. One neighbor took in ten college
students and another opened her warm home to eleven house guests. People made funny comments, like "Hey I don't need to put the food back in the refrigerator since the whole house is cold!" but as she said, it is only day one of what could be a long haul.
We have lost power a bunch of times over the years. Once it went on for days even past when my neighbors were again enjoying hot showers, until a friend called PECO. She mentioned that there was a live wire in
our yard and we have two young children plus a kid with special needs. Funny how fast we made it to the top of the queue.
Last night at prayer time I included one for the people without heat.
"When the power goes out you don't have heat?" Hope was surprised. Apparently she will not be going to therapy in twenty years for the sporadic episodes of a childhood in a house where you can see your
breath.
Emergencies are a time when couples can band together. Annoyances become irrelevant when you have a hefty problem on your hands. As John and Zack worked to extract the unwelcome branch from the coop I scurried to fetch tools and scrape out snow from the nesting box. I even held my tongue when they left the clippers in the snow. Gratitude trumps nitpicking every time.
I actually have a soft spot for some of our catastrophes:
camping in a torrential downpour, the Northridge Earthquake, my appendectomy at the Grand Canyon, even my mother's final manic episode. I do not want to minimize the pain of more tragic events, but a medium sized mishap actually ups our game.
