Dodging Bullets

Yesterday, thanks to the worst ice storm in ten years, half of Maine's population was without power, even as night fell. Now, Maine isn't the most populous state even in this region, but that's still a lot of people. Plus, our state's population is spread out more evenly than, say, Georgia, where pretty much everyone lives in Atlanta. With temperatures expected to dip into the teens, officials were telling everyone without a heat source that didn't rely on electricity to hightail it to a public shelter for the night.

At school, I thanked my lucky stars that our house still had power. Some of my students lived in houses with wells, which mean the outage shut down their water supply, as well. I figured since we live in downtown Westbrook, near a mill and a hospital, we'd be unlikely to lose power and quick to get it back if we did.

The electricity went out around 6 p.m. I headed out to get some food, and with the eerie, moonlit darkness I began thinking about how feasible it would be to spend the night at home without heat. Over the radio, officials from the power company said to expect to spend "at least" one night without power. Now, Watoosa and I could easily camp out in a high school gym on a cot for a night, but having a baby changes the equation completely. I honestly don't know how it would work, and with the widespread outages, I figured the hotels would be full.

Fortunately, the power came back on after an hour, and it hasn't cut out since. There are still well over 100,00 people who don't have electricity, and my heart goes out to them. But I'm thankful we didn't have to leave the house.

It's a shame that ice storms are so destructive and disruptive, because they make the trees look so beautiful, especially when the sun comes out in full force, like it did today. Everything looks like it's encased in glass. But I guess it's hard to enjoy that when you're effectively homeless or huddled under every single blanket you own.