A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system.
It hit us around 3:30, Saturday afternoon, moving at 80mph/130kph. It only lasted for what seemed like 10 minutes, give or take, but it affected us for 76 hours from the time that power went out until it came back on again.
I had two posts in the queue for Sunday and Monday, so it probably seemed to you that I wasn't MIA, but in point of fact, I just got back to the computer last evening – Tuesday – after the power went out on Saturday afternoon..
After our almost-cold pizza supper (brought to us from Perth by Shauna), we received a text from Ontario Hydro advising us that we'd be without power for another two days. This was not good news, to say the least, but when I came upstairs, I saw that Alexa's lights were spinning into action. I called her name, lovingly, and she began to reply. I looked around me and rejoiced to the fans commencing their dance.
I kind of danced too. Since I only have one good leg at the moment, I moved the other foot around and told Sue that this was the sight of one foot dancing, as in the more famous sound of one hand clapping saying.
It is rather a pity that I shortly must drag 3 heavy bags of spoiled food to the curb for our impending weekly garbage collection. Our rough estimate is that we've suffered about $250 worth of food waste. That's on top of the $150 to replace 8 roof shingles.
It could have been worse. As we drove around in the past few days, we passed houses with big trees on their roofs. Indeed, fences and trees were felled all over the place. A little outside of town, we passed a barn with its roof torn asunder.
The power outage lasted for a goodly portion of 4 separate days. Our town was hit harder than all of the surrounding towns, which pretty much had their power restored within a day or so. Perhaps I am wrong to say that the town itself was hit harder, but the route that the power lines take to get here bore very heavy damages. Apparently, up to70 poles along that power corridor to Carleton Place were knocked down, and at least one tower was toppled.
I will close for now by writing that it was quite a pleasure to awaken at 4 this morning and then be able to hit the light switch and see ... um ... light. I can't tell you how many times I have wandered into a room in the past 4 days and clicked a non-functioning light switch. Such is behavioural conditioning.
After turning on the light, there followed a second miracle – coffee – but more about that later when I will relate about living in the blackout, but that's enough for now, for I will be off for a medical appointment in short order. Before that, though. I must gas-up the car, which is yet another thing not to be taken for granted.
Oh yeah, and a warm shower too. It turns out that it is the little things which are really quite big things in life.
22 comments:
I'm glad you're safe. We've had straight line winds and they're terrifying. Glad your power is finally back, too.
AC!!!! Oh my gosh! I hadn't heard anything about this. Glad you've got power again. The food waste would have been sickening to me.
Glad you & Sue are safe. WOW that is a lot of food ruined. For us, it was a few hours of a very scary storm, winds clocked in our region of 130-132/k & thankfully we were without power for only 8 hours.
You have my sympathies. I’m still working on cleaning up the tree debris from our derecho last fall and it will be winter before I get the last of the debris burned. We were fortunate though and only lost power for a few hours.
I figured you'd been hit when I didn't hear from you!
We went room to room trying to turn on lights!
The first things the kids did when they arrived was to shower!
That was definitely a storm to remember. And without snow! Somehow I think snow when I think of you. So sorry you lost all that food too, and it certainly sounds like you had to "rough it for several days." Glad you're back here and sharing grumpy words, for which you have every right!
So I wasn't wrong when I wondered if you'd been hit by that storm. You just couldn't answer that you had been. What a hassle to be without power that long. I hope you post more on how you handled it food wise.
I wondered if you were hit, AC, and hoped you were both okay as well as your daughter and the grandchildren. Glad it wasn’t any worse.
Glad you are safe. The Ice Storm of 98 taught us a lot of lessons. Having lived through a massive tree hitting the roof and our vehicle in 02, it's not something one soon forgets. We dodged this one thank goodness.
Oh boy! I hope you found gas. Competition was fierce where we were and I have never been more grateful for our hybrid.
Weirdly enough, we did not lose power out here for long, but did lose the telephone. But. We only lost one tree close to the house, but the trails in our bush are badly impacted. Worse than the ice storm because the trees that toppled were mostly big ones. We think that the moist soil did not hold the root balls. It is going to be a long, long haul to get the trails opened up again, and the firewood will probably last us the rest of our lives.
Sorry to think of you without coffee, but glad that Perth came through.
I didn't hear about your storm. It must have been torture. You are right about not taking things for granted. Hoo-boy! What a waste of all that food.
Oh, WOW! I didn't realize what had been going on. What an unpleasant adventure! Coping with high winds and no power is challenging and does require letting go of things like showers, coffee and internet. :( Since I have very few paper books these days, I would suffer from lack of reading. Glad you're OK and came through the derecho without too much damage.
Goodness! Four days is a long time in this technological era! I still remember being out of electricity for days (can't remember how many) after the tornadoes went through Minneapolis on May 6, 1965. We lived in Fridley/suburb and were lucky to have minor damage, too. Everything you mentioned plus more--except that I didn't drink coffee yet as I was only 14 years old. My mom and dad really missed it. Was the first thing they did in the morning--plug in the coffee pot--and the last thing they did at night--unplug the coffee pot--LOL! I do remember we got to eat up all the ice cream right away, but then...yup! For a day or two your food can survive IF you don't open the frig or freezer--but after that...
We are even more electrically attached to the world now than we were then. So glad you didn't have any more damage than you did.
No power outage here. I was home when it blasted through.
There was no power outage here.
Nothing like electricity.
We were without power for four days a few years ago. It was hard but we were able to visit the coffee shops to get wifi, which is what I missed most. :-)
Power outages affect much more than we think. I'm happy that all of you are safe.
I grip about the weather here, nothing like your having.
Coffee is on and stay safe
Wow! That was fierce. I hate it about the food loss but am glad you all are okay.
Yikes. That's a lot of food thrown, a lot of days dark. I'm so glad you are both all right. And yes, it could have been worse -- but it still wasn't good. I've not heard the word "Derecho" before -- that's a new one. Thanks.
Wow! I've never heard of a derecho, but I'm glad you survived it OK. I had posts lined up for the duration of our being gone on our cruise so if something happened to us, nobody would know for several weeks, too.
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