Powerless

I awoke around 4:00 am this morning and checked the clock. It wasn’t there. It took me a moment to register what I wasn’t seeing. It was there; the power was off. Today is a normal schedule for everyone. Oversleeping was not an option. I made my way downstairs to find my cellphone to set its alarm to wake me up.

It’s amazing how much light there is in a house at night. LEDs are everywhere; microwave displays, DVD-players, clocks, battery chargers, electric razors, and on and on. A thousand reference-points of light. It’s difficult to navigate the house at night without them.

We were right on the edge of the outage. The neighborhood on the other side of the street our property backs to had power, but most of the streetlights along the separating street were out. A little farther down there was power, but only one streetlight was close enough to provide much illumination. The street in front of our house was dark, but a block north or east there was power. The animatronic sign at the high school still beamed its outdated messages to the neighborhood.

I didn’t sleep very soundly from then on. Part of me was listening for that sudden surge of white noise from a dozen appliances regaining power, part of me was afraid I’d still manage to oversleep, and part of me was afraid I wouldn’t get back to sleep in the first place. I did get some more sleep, but not sleep of much quality.

Walking the dog was a little eerie. I could see well enough; we live in a large city, and the air is hazy, so the sky itself provided significant illumination. But I’ve grown rather accustomed to the pools of orange light that gather around the streetlights. I had my cellphone with me, which I had to use as a flashlight in order to see to clean up after Sofie’s deposits. A utility truck–city or power company, I couldn’t tell–slowly cruised the neighborhood.

Half the family was up when I returned home. Usually no one is. Everyone was unnerved by the outage. Would we even be able to get out of our garage to get to where we needed to be today? I assured them there’s a manual release on the garage door opener, but in my mind I wasn’t so positive. I knew there was one, but I’d never tried it. Would it turn out to be yet another one of the unpleasant surprises our house has to offer?

Showering by flashlight wasn’t as difficult as I would have expected, and as soon as I was dressed I decided to resolve the garage door question. It worked. The door is heavy, but not difficult to get up. It stays up, too. I backed both vehicles out into the driveway and closed the door again. We would at least be able to get on with our day. My electric razor retained enough charge to get the job done.

The power was still out when I left for work. In this day of ubiquitous automation I’m sure the power company knew about the outage the instant it failed. And yet part of me always wonders, “What if they don’t know? What if everyone assumes they know and no one tells them?” I checked their website when I got to work. They only list outages and status when it impacts more then 500 customers. Our area isn’t that big. No news to be had.

Ironically, tonight we will be talking with our cub scouts about energy.