Last week we had some fun weather.  Just a little wind and rain.

Just a little.  60+ mph gusts.  Trees down everywhere,  I guess all those greenbelts that the cities insist on having have a consequence eh?  That’s irony for ya.  If we paved the forests we wouldn’t have trees taking out substations.

So when it was over, we lost Cable TV, then we lost electricity.  Then we lost our minds.

When the power went, so did everything fun.  No TV’s.  No DVDs.  No Espresso.  No Internet.

My god…no blogging. 

Oh, no work either.  But on the other hand, no work is no paycheck.  No work and no pay makes Jack a homeless boy.

We had it easy really, we have a gas fireplace, a gas stove and a gas hotwater heater.  We could still function at a basic level.  A coworker woke up to a tree on her house.  We were spared that.

We stayed without power for 69 hours, almost to the minute.  Amazing how in 3 short days we fall apart.  We had company, initially over a million homes were out.

Not to be flippant, but it reminds me of a quote from a favorite movie of mine, which says "…that we really are the most desperate lot of under-achievers."  Never mind the context, the fact is that I felt practically useless during the windstorm and the subsequent power outage.

69 hours without electricity.  We had candles, and flashlights, but it was really difficult for us in some ways and it makes me wonder.  Are we that useless?  My god if Laura Ingalls could see us now…Are we that married to our technology?  Here we had hot running water, a warm fire place, and the ability to cook safely and yet we felt really primitive.

Shut down Costco for a few days and the world ends. 

I also had to reflect on our relative luck.  People have died during this storm and the related outages.

It’s been 48 hours since our power was restored, and still some people I know are facing the real prospect of having a Christmas with no power.  That means 10 days plus without electricity.

I find myself reflecting on what seemed like an ordeal to me, but frankly was just a minor inconvenience, and comparing it to those people who have had their houses destroyed by falling trees or fire, or have died from Carbon Monoxide poisoning because they lost their common sense and brought unsafe devices into their houses.

No, not stupid, desperate.  It is easy to sit here warm in front of my computer, and point a fat finger at those in real dire straights who made mistakes that cost them their lives, or came close to it.  More then a 100 have suffered Carbon Monoxide poisoning for things like generators in enclosed garages, or bbq’s in the dining room.

The question that comes to me is this:  What happens to us in the event of a natural disaster that continues beyond a few days?  What if terrorists struck, and the power grid was really seriously damaged?  Would our country collapse just because we lot our fridges?  Because the local Starbucks goes down?

Has our dependency on technology made us so soft that we have lost our survival skills.

The local ad campaign says 3 days 3 ways:

Welcome to 3 Days, 3 Ways, Are You Ready? a public motivation campaign urging you, your family, and the community to prepare for emergencies and disasters. 3 Days, 3 Ways is more than a campaign; it’s a message relying on the participation and action steps each of us takes today.

The message is simple, be ready to survive on your own for a minimum of 3 Days following a disaster. For large disasters, you may not receive any government assistance for up to 7 Days.

Become prepared in 3 Ways – make a plan, build a kit, and get involved. Any step we take today will put us in a greater position for resiliency, whether from a major earthquake, a winter storm, a terrorist act or a pandemic flu outbreak.

We got handed a test last week and frankly we failed.

The only bright spot I saw was the fact that despite huge gas lines in some areas, there was no apparent price gouging.

I guess that says something positive about the area.  No one took advantage of need to make a few bucks.

It’s a start I guess.

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