Powerless

Shirra and I awoke on Friday morning to the sound of our eldest walking into the bedroom. She was carrying a flashlight, and the house was eerily dark. Despite my stupor, I realized that we were experiencing a power outage due, no doubt, to downed power lines. I was not at all surprised that 3 seconds later, my fire pager went off. In fact, I was already getting out of bed and putting on my clothes, ready to drive to the scene.

It turned out that a power line had been severed near the Freihoffer's on N. Putt. By 7 am I was crawling back into bed for a few minutes of relaxation; I took Fiona to school a few minutes later and didn't get to take a nap until the other two kids were at school a few hours later. Power came on at 8.

It was strange driving around New Paltz during the power outage. There were whole areas that were blacked out, and then I'd pass a house that must have had a back-up generator because all of their Christmas lights were blazing away merrily. It was also weird trying to walk around my house when it was so dark. The only lights I could see were the tiny battery-operated blinkers of my cell phone and the smoke alarms.