The Biggest Blackout in American History

When the power went out, I was in the kitchen, on the laptop, watching myself on the webcam. I like sitting in there because of the ceiling fan. The A/C was on. The daycare kiddies were downstairs because it was too hot to play outside. I calmly continued typing the emails I was working on and then put the computer to sleep. I went out to the car to listen to the radio. NPR wasn't giving me enough information so I switched over to WWJ and was frustrated to find that there just wasn't any information to be had yet.

My mom filled up some pots with water and sent me out for bottled water. I wasn't even trying to get to the Kmart across the street because on a good day, at any time of day, there's a minimum 20-minute wait at the checkout line. So I ventured towards a nearby Kroger, only to find out it was closed. I continued up the road which was actually pretty empty and stopped at the first party store I saw. They were all out of ice but I snagged some bottled water.

We borrowed an oil lamp from the neighbor and sat it in the kitchen. Mom had lit candles in her room. Dad hung out in the basement with ... I don't know what he had. Some flashlight variety. I went back out to the car to listen some more. I fell asleep out there after a while, so I got up and went inside and lay down. Next thing I know, dinner was ready. Mom grilled hamburgers and corn, so we ate out on the patio. Not too many mosquitos, fortunately. I think I only got one bite on my ankle.

I went back to the car to listen again and then grabbed my MagLite out of the trunk and went inside and went to bed. Not to sleep though because I'd been sleeping all evening and it was too damn hot. I think I eventually just drifted off out of sheer boredom.

Got up this morning to water, but still no electricity. I wandered aimlessly around the house, then gathered up my stacks and stacks of magazines and headed back out the car. I sat with the windows open and the radio on, until it started to rain. After about 20 minutes of rain, my dad came out with an umbrella, and then he was at my window saying the power was back on. That was at about 4:30 or so. I had only gotten through one magazine, an Us Weekly from the end of May. I waited out the storm, then went back inside. I took a nice cool shower.

On the news they were reporting sections of highway that were flooded. The lack of electricity meant no sewer pumps, so cars were forced to either side of the road at some low-lying underpasses. Some trucks and SUVs were plowing through the middle of the puddles which were reportedly about 1.5 feet deep. I kinda wanted to drive out there to see if I could plow through it, but I didn't. Trying to conserve gas and all that.

Then I figured if we had electricity and phone, we must have DSL. I fired up the laptop and was dismayed to see no signal, so I went downstairs and found that the power strip for the computer, modem, and router hadn't been plugged back in, so I fiddled with those for a minute and voila, internet access. I turned my cell phone back on and was finally getting a signal but couldn't keep it long enough to check my voicemail or complete any calls until a couple hours later. We still hadn't run the A/C. Then I left for Ann Arbor because my friend is running his A/C and I had to get up butt early to be at his house Saturday morning anyway.

And here I am, in a nice cool house, up way too late, full of Slurpee, smelling a baking cake, trying to catch up on blogs. I guess there were some unfortunate looting incidents and unrest and gas stations when people tried to cut the hours-long lines or when stations simply ran out of gas. As far as I know no seniors have died from the heat. Local restaurants are giving away food (since they have to get rid of it anyway). I think we got lucky. I was expecting to be one of the last places to get power back since we were in the city. They're predicting everyone will have their power back by the end of the weekend. Let's hope.