Blog

Our power went out recently after a bad wind storm which kept Shreya up at night. I slept somewhat soundly except for when she woke me up by asking, “what was that boom?” (To which I mumbled something and pulled my covers tighter).

When we woke in the morning to a bad power outage and a large tree blocking our driveway – well, that answered that question. We weren’t alone. Around 500,000 homes had no power. And since we live in a rural area, we know we are lower on the list to get things restored after the cities.

It wasn’t too bad though at first. We have a back up power source to run the essentials (meat freezer/refrigerator/coffee maker) and some battery-powered lights and candles. On day two, though, the novelty wore off and things got worse. Our water supply ran out since the well pump was out of action.

Facing the annoyances of no running water, two days in, the power company said we’d have to wait three more days to get service back. We gave up and booked a hotel.

I was hesitant to book, hollering out to Shreya that “As soon as I pay for the hotel, you know that the power will come back on.” And “I just don’t want to waste money!” I clicked confirm anyway.
Sure enough, less than five minutes after I booked the room, the power came back on.

A couple hundred bucks was gone, but I sure was happy to be able to stay home. I was happy I wouldn’t have to live in a hotel down the road for a few days. I was happy our quarter cow wouldn’t spoil as the backup power ran out and the freezer shut off.

Yes, the money was “wasted” but for those 5 minutes, I was grateful to have a back up plan.