TUESDAY, 2/23/10
On Tuesday, Shirra and I looked at the forecast for that evening and decided that I should stay over in Manhattan after tutoring. I've done this only a few times before, and I hate not seeing her and the kids, but with our road already covered in some snow, slush, and ice, the impending downfall would make our road nearly impassible, and the driving conditions were already getting dangerous. I stayed at my mom's apartment in Manhattan.
I left the New Paltz Fire Department this past December, but I still get the pages on my cel phone when a call comes in. Tuesday night, I saw these text messages
11:31 pm: 22 ROCKY HILL RD. TREE AND WIRES, POWER OUTAGE IN AREA.
11:48 pm: 1 BONTICOU VIEW. FIRE ON THE POWER LINES.
Both of these addresses are quite close to our house, but Shirra told me that we still had power. I went to bed nervously.
12:49 am: 30 N. MANHEIM. WIRES DOWN.
1:43 am: 120 N. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRES DOWN.
2:04 am: 30 N. MANHEIM. WIRES ACROSS ROADWAY.
8:19 AM: 225 S. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRE IN DRIVEWAY.
By then, the house had already lost power. I spoke with Shirra early that Wednesday, and she guessed that we'd lost power before 6:30. We haven't had it restored since.
WEDNESDAY, 2/24/10
Naturally we assumed Central Hudson, the Con Edison of Ulster County and its environs, would quickly be on the scene. After all, it's snowed plenty in the past, and the longest power outage we've endured was no more than half a day. The kids' schools were closed, so they hung out at home, watching DVDs on the computer with whatever power it still had and going about life pretty normally. But the forecast for Wednesday night was even worse than the previous night's. Again, it made sense for me to stay in Manhattan. I spoke with the kids a few times during the day and kept an eye on NOAA, an excellent website for weather forecasts. Things were not exactly looking up, but at least we'd heard that Central Hudson was supposed to restore our power by Thursday afternoon. That would mean we'd be without power for about 36 hours, but Shirra made sure we had plenty of water in the basement and food in the pantry. Meanwhile she walked Jack, our dog, in the backyard.
THURSDAY, 2/25/10
Central Hudson's forecast for our power restoration changed three times this day. First it was pushed back to 8 pm, but later it was bumped up to 1 pm. When those times came and went, Shirra checked the site again and found that our power outage was no longer listed in their computer. She took care of that, and we hoped for the best.
I had to make a big decision, and I took a gamble that didn't pay off. I drove home Thursday evening, leaving Manhattan at 7 pm. I didn't arrive in New Paltz till 10, having driven in the worst conditions I've ever put myself thru for such a lengthy ride. When I made it to our road, I figured I'd leave the Smart Car at the bottom of the private road in the area we call the lollipop. But then I thought that I might even make it the nearly half mile from there to our house. I gamely plowed on, making it nearly to the top of our driveway before backing the car to the bottom and leaving it there.
My reason for heading home in such hostile weather was that I'd done my sister-in-law a favor by keeping her car for two weeks while she visited China. I had to get the car back to her by Friday, so my plan was to take her car back the following day, when the weather forecast called for clear skies. This plan nearly worked.
Unfortunately, these texts came in:
11:12 pm: DUBOIS RD. TREE ON WIRES BURNING
4:08 am: NURSING HOME. ODOR OF NATURAL GAS IN THE STRUCTURE. UNABLE TO EVACUATE
... These were followed by a car accident and a flooded basement. These last three meant that the fire department would be pulled in too many directions at once.
In addition to the texts, a good deal of snow came in, too. Here is what Manhattan cars looked like on Friday morning.
FRIDAY, 2/26/10
I phoned AJ, our plow guy, and he was happy to oblige us by plowing our road that morning. I didn't have to be in Manhattan till 2 pm, but I figured an early start might be a good idea just in case the roads were poor. By 9 am, he was on the scene. By 9:10, he was stuck. His truck, not heavy enough for the work and not equipped with tire chains, had slipped off the road partially. He'd have to be towed. I decided the only way for me to make it into NYC was to schlepp to Route 32 and to hitch a ride to the bus station on Main Street. I had 45 minutes to catch my bus. I made a little sign, packed a few things for the day and for possibly another night, and waded thru snow and slush for a few minutes until I came out on the big road. It was clear that the conditions were fine. If only I'd left the Smart Car in the lollipop! Instead, I started walking toward the Village with my little sign for all to see. Just a few cars later, I was seated beside a lovely older woman who often takes the bus into Manhattan for her work. We chatted amiably, and by 10:30 I had my round-trip ticket.
I decided to walk across the street to check on the condition of our Odyssey. Shirra's car had been damaged when she drove over a boulder on our road after the snow, some time Wednesday morning. She managed to get the car picked up by Triple-A, and it's resided ever since at the Citgo Gas Station and Garage, waiting for the expensive part to arrive (scheduled for this coming Tuesday). I looked at the underbelly of the car, examining the damage, and suddenly realized that I needed to deposit a few checks at the bank before heading to The City. I hitched another ride for the quarter-mile uphill to the bank, and a few minutes later I ran back to the bus, arriving in plenty of time. By 12:30, I was at Port Authority, Manhattan, and a few minutes later, I was in my mom's apartment once more.
Chances of our power getting restored were further diminished as more texts came in.
3:14 am. 43 S. OHIOVILLE RD. TREE AND WIRES DOWN.
5:40 am. 217 N. PUTT RD. TREE AND WIRES.
7:55 am. 182 N. PUTT RD. WIRES DOWN IN FRONT OF RESIDENCE.
12:36 pm. 217 N. PUTT RD. WIRE DOWN.
As the day wore on, Shirra and I had to make some decisions about the kids and pets. Luckily, the kids were pretty easy. Shirra put them on a bus to Manhattan, and at 6:30 that evening, I picked them up after seeing a few students during the day.
The pets proved much trickier. We currently have 3 cages housing 5 pets (including Ambrose, our hedgehog, who was nearly left for dead after he curled into a hibernatory ball to try to keep himself warm). Then there's the dog. Unlike the two cats, he needs a good deal of attention and couldn't be left with friends or at the vet's. Shirra elected to stay in the house with the pets rather than to scramble to find them different homes. It didn't help that the towing of AJ's truck damaged our road a bit, because between the excess unplowed snow and the poor condition of the road, Shirra was unable to get our remaining cars over to Route 32. Essentially she was trapped.
As if this wasn't bad enough in a house with the interior temperature plunging into the 40s, we also depend on an electric pump for our well water. Luckily ours is a propane stove, so it works as long as you have a match to replace the pilot light. This meant that Shirra had to boil snow in order to have water with which to flush the toilets, give liquid to the pets, and, of course, make her tea. She also made use of the snow outside for some of her other needs. This woman is her own reality tv show.
Without the kids to worry about, Shirra could get a few different things done. She managed to trudge thru waist-high white stuff in order to visit our closest neighbors. Tho they're only a tenth of a mile away, they've had power the entire time, leading me to suspect that the outage was caused somewhere in the lines near the lollipop of our road. Shirra had her first shower in days, but her ordeal was far from over since our neighbors have also been relying on AJ for their plowing. As a result, they were trapped, too. So in order for Shirra to put the kids onto the bus that afternoon, she and the kids had to slog thru all the snow and slush until they could catch the cab Shirra had called. The driver took them to the station and then dropped Shirra back home, where she trudged the half-mile home once more. Central Hudson updates were inconsistent and inconclusive.
SATURDAY, 2/27/10
Somehow the hits keep coming:
8:52 am. 70 S. OHIOVILLE RD. WIRE IN DRIVEWAY.
3 pm. 212 PLUTARCH RD. TREE ON WIRES BURNING.
Shirra phoned Central Hudson and heard that we might be getting power restored by late this evening. That time has come and gone. It's still possible that we'll have power, light, water, and heat by morning or at least by afternoon, but I'm not counting on it, and the forecast is calling for a bit more precipitation over the next few days.
In the meantime, I've been living as a virtual single dad in Manhattan. I took the kids to see The Flying Karamazov Brothers in Greenwich Village Saturday afternoon, and we walked two miles up to Times Square afterward in order to check out the disappointing prices of the big Toys R Us store there. Our trek wasn't a total loss, however, as it took us past Madison Square Garden, where Emmett discovered that Fiona's favorite band is playing this Friday. An hour later, we have tickets for her and Shirra. I've also begun planning for various scenarios. Basically, until the power is restored, the kids are living with me and my mom. The kids are getting a great taste of NYC life. We've taken subways, buses, and cabs, walked miles of downtown streets, and done a bit of shopping and restaurant hopping. And I've gotten to spend more time on my own with them that at any other point in our lives. I wouldn't ask for a storm like this again, but I'm glad that some good has come out of it.
SUNDAY, 2/28/10
2:33 pm. 436. N. OHIOVILLE RD. TREE LIMB ON THE WIRES
Luckily that's the only further problem with wires since Saturday, but it gives an idea of what Central Hudson is up against. Early on, they reported having over 150,000 homes without power. By Sunday, that number was below 40,000. Not surprisingly, small roads like ours, where the outage only affects a few homes, are way down the hierarchy of importance, so I wasn't holding my breath when Shirra announced that the most recent forecast was for service to be restored by 10:30 Monday night. This peccable timing meant that I couldn't put the kids on the bus today because if the power was not restored, we wouldn't know about it until it was too late. It's not like the kids couldn't survive another chilly day in New Paltz; rather, the problem is that Shirra isn't ready to take them back if power doesn't come back on. There isn't a clean fork or plate in the house, we're low on food, and she's still boiling snow for water -- she's not in a position to welcome back the hordes. With this in mind, we decided that I'd homeschool the kids on Monday and continue until the force is actually with us.
Having made these decisions with Shirra, I was happy to take the kids around the City some more. We went to the Natural History Museum, where Fiona and Emmett spent some time exploring together while Maeve and I took in the Hall of Biodiversity. Her favorite fish was the Queen Triggerfish, as much for its fascinating colors as for its awesome name.
After an hour at the museum, we ran back to my mom's for a quick bite before all of us walked over to the Green Flea flea market. That's where I met Diego Paz a few years ago, the man who has sold me most of my currency collection since 2003. I bought a Philippines 1-Peso note from 1912. My mom pointed out some attractive diorama-type constructions, one of which showed a small scene of a sewing room, so I picked that up for a certain wife who was at that moment living in Starbucks, New Paltz in order to stay warm and to charge the computer. At 3:15 we cabbed it over to Shirra's folks on the East Side, where we spent the next two hours playing games and eating Chinese food for an early dinner. That night I brought them down for a few minutes to the lobby of my mom's building, which was host to a party celebrating the building's 80th anniversary as a structure. They left early, but I hung out for till nearly 10 pm, hobnobbing with neighbors in a way that few of us get to do in the nearly anonymous city of New York. I put the kids to bed a bit on the late side and made sure to get a decent night's sleep in anticipation of our first day of homeschooling.
MONDAY, 3/1/10
The end of the month came and went, leaving us in the dark. The only good news from home was that the text messages stopped buzzing in.
Homeschooling three children varying in age by 8 years isn't as challenging as some might think, tho it helps that I've taught all three ages in schools and privately for nearly two decades. We had fun. I gave the big kids some reading and math passages from age-level materials that I have while Maeve and I worked on handwriting. I gave all of the kids their own composition books, and we had fun working separately in my mom's dining room.
Later, I took Emmett and Maeve to the playroom in my mom's building, where they spent over an hour playing nicely together. Meanwhile, our good friend Dave Altman ("Uncle Dave") took Fiona to the Apple Store nearby to see about a minor computer glitch with her laptop. By 3 pm, the kids were all back up at my mom's, and Fiona ended up taking the little guys to the playground across the street for an hour or so. I saw my students and the kids mostly kept to themselves, tho the first girl I saw was happy to show the kids the dissected owl pellet that she'd brought from school.
We had a homemade dinner with Grandma, and the kids talked with Shirra while I got them ready for bed. The big moment was fast approaching: Would Central Hudson manage to get the power back to us by the appointed hour, 10:30. At 10:34, Shirra phoned me, unable to check her emotions. I commiserated with her as much as I could, given that she is spending yet another night in the dark and cold and I'm living the life in Manhattan. We confirmed our decision to keep the kids in NYC until the power has been restored in NP, and Shirra later that she'd spoken once more with someone at CH who told her that they're still on the case and that all of their remaining jobs are little ones like ours. We have nothing against the power company, which has done everything it can to ameliorate the situation, including having an operator on hand 24 hours a day to speak with customers even while crews work thru the night to repair downed lines and busted transformer boxes. The latest estimate is for late Wednesday night, but I have a feeling that Shirra could end up seeing the Muse concert on Friday before the juice is flowing thru our wires again.
