The dragonflies are drifting down our road today. They are riding the heat rising from the black asphalt of the county road that runs in front of our house. Autumn is my favorite time of year. However, the season after beloved Autumn, the long, cold dark one whose name I cannot utter, is not as welcomed. Especially after the last long, cold dark one.
On Thursday, January 28, 2010, our lives, powered by electricity, stopped. An ice storm of mythical proportions pounded the southern half of the State of Oklahoma. We held our collective breath and stared out the window at the pouring rain, which, moment by moment, became heavier until it turned into ice. The power lines swayed close to the ground and our television antenna looked like an Ice Beast preparing to attack our home. Accompanying the tremendous amount of rain were high winds that whipped around the corners of our house. Sometimes we could not tell from which direction the wind was coming. If this event had happened in the spring or summer, it would have been a severe thunderstorm.
It was 1:20 p.m. Thursday afternoon when our lives, powered by electricity, stopped. Sitting in the living room we wondered out loud how much longer we would have our lights, central heat, computer and Internet access, television, shower, and the ability to flush our toilets – such an inane thing that looms large once one isn’t able to flush.
“Divorce Court” was airing on the television. Judge Lynn Toler had just said, “Now, tell me your side of the story, Mrs . . .”. Darkness and silence. Everything stopped. We looked at each other, then stared out the window.
To one another, we said, “Sometimes, the electricity comes back on.” Yes, it does, but it didn’t on Thursday, January 28. We waited a little bit. Then I heard a beep coming from upstairs. It was the battery to my computer beeping that I could still use the computer for another 45 minutes before it shut down too. Life support. I climbed up the stairs and turned everything off, unplugging all electrical equipment from their outlets. Still, I hoped. There is always hope.
The ice still fell from the skies, though. The wind whipped the trees into a frenzy until two of the oldest, weakest trees fell from west to east across our road, preventing traffic traveling north and south from getting through.
The first night of darkness, we set up in the living room. We set up battery powered lanterns and lit candles. Earlier last year, Carl purchased a propane powered heater for his workshop in the garage. He brought it over and set it up in the living room. On a full tank of propane, the heater burns for four hours.
We huddled under our blankets. Instead of television, we set up our battery powered tape recorder and listened to audio books. Daniel Pinkwater talked about dogs he had owned, then “Killer Angels” was put in – that great story about the Battle at Gettysburg by Michael Shara. We still had that little glimmer of hope that the electricity might return.
We soon tired of listening to audio books and our battery powered radio. Public radio was hard to pick up and country music or Golden Oldies were the only stations we could receive. Radio station KOMA out of Oklahoma City aired weather breaks from Gary England with television’s KWTV-Channel 9, also out of Oklahoma City, and that helped some. (It was a help until the storm stopped and the station went back to regular programming.) Even though the news was out of Oklahoma City, it helped to make us feel less isolated. (We didn’t have much faith in Lawton’s media coverage. During the Christmas Eve blizzard of 2009, we didn’t lose electricity, but when we switched to KSWO Channel 7, the ABC television affiliate in Lawton, for weather and road updates, the station had switched to a picture of a Yule log burning in the fireplace, while holiday music played in the background.)
Bedtime came. It is funny how early one is willing to go to bed when there are no lights and no television. I piled all the blankets I could find on our bed and we allowed Emma the dog, and the cats, Taylor and Zippy, to sleep with us. The outside air temperature dropped to the teens; we weren’t sure how cold the house would get during the night. It was a long, cold, silent night. There was no light from the digital alarm clock and no white noise from the sound machine. There were only the noises that two humans, one dog, and two cats can make.
And that is as much as I can write about that time, except for this: When there is no power to a community, that means there is no ATM service, no power to the grocery stores and no power to local gasoline stations. NO POWER means no power anywhere. And that is a lesson we have paid attention to. We can read about what to do when a disaster strikes, but it's only until something does happen, that we sit up and take notice.
I did do some filming and have posted a little film about our experience. The only comfort was in knowing that everyone else in southwestern Oklahoma was in the same pickle! And, really, compared to other disasters, manmade and natural, I have no complaints. We made it through and have prepared for this coming “long, cold dark one.”
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