emergency preparedness | nichepoetryandprose

poetry and prose about place

Posts Tagged ‘emergency preparedness’

Arthur – after the storm

Over a week after Tropical Storm Arthur, I am thinking about the new pattern of life we adopted during our six days without electricity. Without our usual electric lights, stove, refrigerator, computer and television, we adjusted our days.

First there were candles. I have lots of candles, but three pillars in the living room sent enough light into the main part of the house for navigation. We also had our small flashlights. They lit the darker rooms and made us safe on the stairs.

The next ‘necessity’ was gasoline for the truck and for our small generator (2000 watt). Although we began the storm with very little gasoline (we were not well prepared), we waited a couple of days to fill up, to avoid the long lineups for gas at the few stations open after the storm. Since most all of Fredericton was without power for the first two days, so open gas stations, fast food places and grocery stores were hard to find!

Once we had our generator working, we had a hot meal at supper time each evening, on our small electric hotplate. By the end of the six days, we were using our generator for fans to keep the house cool and to watch DVDs on our television.

Water, of course, is always a concern. We had lots of water on hand, about 22 4-liter jugs I keep for emergencies. We were able to buy drinking water and ice for our cooler, although these items were flying from the shelves!!! By the end of our adventure, we had filled our jugs a couple of times, once at my son’s home (in the city, they had no power, but they did have water), and once from the Oromocto Fire Department who were so kind to us.

On Day 6, workers from NB Power and Hydro-Quebec, and a tree trimming crew from Maine arrived to remove the trees from the downed lines on our road. They worked all day to re-establish power to about 500 customers who depended on this particular line. We were so grateful to them, knowing they had worked since the storm hit. We were just one group among many waiting for power. On Sunday, July 13, there were still 5000 customers without power in Fredericton. By the time of this post, NB Power says most power will be restored. It is certainly the longest power outage we have ever experienced in this province.