No Electricity = No Heat

I just had my power restored less than half an hour ago after it had been off for over 40 hours. This was my second major blackout, and I have to that fun-wise, it was much inferior to my first. This blackout was caused by a winter storm this weekend that dumped wet snow all across the province and downed power lines and major transfer stations across the province. The full story can be found at CBC News. The gist of it is that 100 000 homes across the province were left without power, and full power is not expected to be restored until the end of the week.

I'd like to say that I learned a lot from this trying and somewhat traumatic experience, but I don't think I did. I did learn that I can deal with these unexpected trials and not go crazy (though it was touch and go for a while last night) and I learned how good it feels to get in touch with people that you haven't talked to in a long time, since this is how I passed the time. And, most importantly, calling an old crush is much less scary than total darkness when you live alone. Nothing too life-changing, really.

This is why the blackout last summer in Ontario was more fun than this one:
1. It was much warmer.
2. There were more parties, probably because of point #1.
3. August is a warm month.
4. It was shorter, at least in my area.
5. I lived at home with a generator.
6. It was warm then.
7. The sun sets at 10 in the summer and at 5 in November.

This experience did have some fun times, though. Yesterday, when I did my recon trip and noticed that the entire town was without power, there was that same feeling of relaxed craziness that there was during the Ontario blackout. Once the regular rules no longer apply, there can be a real feeling of freedom. Of course, I also didn't know how serious the problem was at that time, either. It wasn't until I found my tiny battery-powered radio and got the calls from home that I was told that it could be Friday before my power was restored. That made me panic. As I mentioned above, though, since I couldn't see anything I spent most of the evening making calls to people that I hadn't talked to for a while, and that was a lot of fun and made me feel a lot better.

Today was also a lot of fun. My apartment wasn't too cold this morning, and classes were cancelled at school today. When I went on a downtown recon to see if I could secure supplies (since my scented votives were burned most of the way down and I had no bottled water) I found a pleasant variety of stores ready to serve me on a cash-only basis. Luckily, Andrew had paid me back in cash for the laptop I bought for him, so I was all set. After buying 6 litres of water and various foodstuffs, along with a whack of candles and a barbecue lighter, I felt ready to face the rest of the week. The gossip in the Pharmasave was that the power would be out until Wednesday morning at least. Armed with my candles and water, I felt ready for anything.

Five minutes after I got home, Ashley, a fellow grad student, called and asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. She met me at my apartment and we headed out again into the cold, munching on Nutri-Bars that I found in my cupboard. We went back to the Pharmasave, where the gossip now was that there wouldn't be power until Friday. Chasing an elusive cup of coffee, we travelled to the Irving Centre on campus where we had heard there were hot beverages. Our quest came up empty as the coffee there was out, but the Irving Centre was lit and heated, and was full of students charging their laptops. After debating whether or not to bring our laptops to get charged, Ashley and I set out to see if there was coffee anywhere else on campus. We ended up in our TA office, where we sat in relative warmth until Andrea, another grad student, showed up. The three of us went across the street to the Baptist church where Ashley, with her keen power for finding caffeinated beverages, was sure she'd seen a sign advertising coffee. We went in, and sure enough there was a man with a small camping stove boiling water and handing out instant coffee and tea. I cannot describe to you how absolutely wonderful it felt to hold that steaming cup of coffee - to just hold it. It was the most warmth that I had experienced in over 30 hours. While we were there the power came on. It felt like a miracle and we all started praising God, figuring that we were in the right place for it.

I headed for home as soon as I could after finishing my coffee, but found that my apartment was still without power, and now much colder than it had been. However, I was confident that my power would be on soon, since it was across town, and, let's face it, Wolfville is not a very large town. As the evening wore on and my apartment got colder, even with my candles lit, I began to doubt, but Andrea had assured me that she heard that all the power in Wolfville would be on before the end of the night. Clinging to that hope, I crawled into bed with my new batteries for my reading lamp and tried to read.

It actually took until about 10:30pm tonight for the power to be restored so that it actually stayed on. My heat still isn't working properly, but I have a hot cup of tea and a hot water bottle on my lap. Dressed in two pairs of pants, 3 shirts, a sweater and a hat, I feel quite comfy. I have also been assured by Andrea that the school is again closed tomorrow, which means that I can spend the day comfortably in the bathtub doing all the work that I should have done the past two days but couldn't because there was no light. And, the task that I don't even want to think about: cleaning out my fridge.

Moral of this story: Winter blackouts are cold. Really cold. Try to avoid them.