After 8 cold dark days I finally have my power back.
On Thursday December 11th New Hampshire was hit with an Ice Storm that knocked out the power to over 400,000 homes. Many of those people continued to live in cold homes and managed the best they could without running water. They always thought the power would go back on any minute. It never did. Some bought generators and tried their best to function. Others went to hotels or stayed with friends.
During that time my main vehicle of communication was my cell phone and Twitter.com. Those affected by the storm used the hash-tag #icestorm2008 or #icestorm08 on Twitter to keep track of what was happening around them. Even the power company @PSNH twittered.
Many of us felt isolated from the rest of the world as other people went about daily life, shopping for the holidays, we sat huddled and cold worrying about how to flush the toilet and how to take a shower. The simple things that we all take for granted we suddenly had to worry about. It certainly made you look at life a little differently.
Ice Storm 2008 is one I won't soon forget! The tree you hear cracking in this video finally split in half... I was safely out of the way.
Moni - I am so happy to hear you finally have your power back - I had to endure without running water & electric for 4 days and I was going out of my mind - you and Jay are true survivors.
Monika... I'm so glad to hear you have power back. Any news on how many are still without? Hopefully they'll have it restored for everyone, if they don't already. Thank God for the MH! :)
YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!
When I got Jay's email earlier, I wanted to jump up and down for you both. I know you are just elated to now have some warmth, some light, some hot water, some running water....what an unbelieveable ordeal.
Ann
Good news -- I am glad you are empowered again! I hope this snow storm doesn't make our power go out again! I know there are still people in Milford and Mont Vernon without power! I hope everyone has power in time for x-mas. Winter is off to one heck of a start! I am already hearing people say ENOUGH!
We lost our power for 4 days in Sept when Hurricane Ike went through. Weather was OK - didn't need the furnace. All I could think about was how awful it would be to not have power AND be cold. It must have been AWFUL for you!!!!
Glad to hear that you and Jay are comfortably back in your home! I saw a lot of icestorm activity on Twitter. It was great seeing people retweet latest info, requests for help, etc. Hope you have a relaxing Christmas and an early spring!
Hey Monika!
This is a funny story. I've been keeping track of your power status on Twitter, but tonight I was looking through my google alerts.
Under this alert: Google Alert - Jennifer Rathbun, Caroline County Real Estate....
This blog post of yours came up! I just thought it was too funny! So glad you got it abck before the next storm!
Monika- Well now AR is going to have to figure out a way for AR to work well on our Blackberries for our power outages. We are like SOOOO used to what you went through that we down here in Florida are pros at being without power except that we are hot and sweating with fans trying to cool off instead of freezing. Since I went through the whole boy scout thing with my boys and my X was a camper pro- we are very good at improvising and roughing it. I would go camping with tents not trailors with 5 kids under the age of 12 many times.
Tip for the toilet: If you have a pool get buckets of water from the pool water and use that to fill up the toilet tanks and then flush. Of course, up north, pools are not as common place as they are down here. The other tip is to use water from water beds for those who have them. And of course send the men and boys outside to go pee:)
For baths, we heated up large pots of water on our grill again from our pool and then poured that into the tub and took baths like that. We were clean every day!
We certainly take all these things for granted and we rarely realize that in most of the world people do not have electricity and sometimes only for 2 hours a day and no running water!
Monika, I am here on the CA coast and we are having a cold spell too! It's 56 degrees and I'm freezing cold. But after reading your post, and seeing your photo, I realize how blessed I really am. And how much we all have to be thankful for.
I guess we haven't ever gone more than a day or so without power, and that was tough. I can't even imagine what 8 days would be like. Good to hear/see that you're okay!
Monika~ I think we all tend to take some things for granted such as electricity, heat, water, etc.... until it is gone for a while. It is a eye opener when we have our "everyday" luxuries taken away!
I am from Southern California but was visiting my in-laws in 2002 when a snow storm took out power for 3 days. To me electricity means lights and fridge. I know some people have electric heat, but I'm used to gas. Also, it never occurred to me that water/plumbing was effected by electrical outages until then. We had a generator, but had to constantly switch it around to do anything. It was a very cold experience for this So. Cal girl.
Monika.... 8 full days? Wow... and I just learned about hash-tags the other day... yippie... lol Overall, glad to hear things are better. How is Jay doing?
Wow Monika! I'm thinking this Christmas you'll have some things to be thankful for that you might not have even thought of a few weeks back! I'm so glad the power is back now - and that you're o.k.!w
Glad you're back in the land of the living. We had something similar happen here in North Texas a few years ago. Trees were snapping under the weight of the ice. They sounded like shot-gun blasts. It took 4 days to get us back. I can't imagine 8!
I guess in those situations you determine who gets the daily shower by rank. The most rank gets the shower. LOL!
I can't imagine what that must of been like, glad to hear you have power back and are posting once again. Glad you weren't near that cracking tree....Holy Mackeral is right!! Happy Holidays. Tell Jay I said hi. :-)
Wow, Even though I had seen the news I had no idea how long you all suffered and how pervasive the damage was/is. I am so glad are safe and in good spirits.
Monika.....oh such memories you bring. We had a similar storm in Atlanta in the late 90's....There were trees down everywhere, and it was especially bad as we have lots of pine trees, and the ice built up in the pines, and down they came. My neighbor was in his driveway and a pine came down and smashed him right up against his house. Lucky, he was not hurt.
Shower's were a problem, but we did have running water? The loss of power did not effect the toilet or running water. This is also when I was glad I had a gas stove and a fireplace. So we huddled by the fire, and at least we could cook, make expresso. We were 4 days, and were about ready to head to a hotel when we got our power back.
Makes you appreciate what you don't have....but glad to hear things are starting to get back to normal and in time for Santa to arrive! How WOULD he find you without lights?
Monika, did you all stay in the house. I can't even imagine that. I was following your updates on Twitter and thankful the whole ordeal is over. I had to endure that in Aug 2007 when we had a terrible storm but it was summmer and we were just hot.
Monika, sorry to hear about your situation - glad you're back up and running though. I have always admired ice storms from a distance. I find them fascinating, but now I will realize the problems associated with them.
So glad to hear that your power has finally came back on and that you don't have to worry about the things that we seem to take for granted. We've been without power for hours, and even a couple days, but it's never been during the cold months.
Monika, OMG I can't imagine all that time without power. Did you have a woodstove to keep warm at least? Thank God it's over! We were without power for almost 3 days in NY, but that was during an heavy Ocotober wind/rainstorm. It was cold & inconvenient..but 8 days in an icestorm! Yikes. What did you do for food? glad you are safe now.
Monika- Thanks for the first-hand account and the video of this ice storm that we've been hearing so much about. I've had friends around me complaining about the cold, it's 43 degrees right now in Northern California - and I tell them to be thankful we don't live back east. We're so spoiled out here, I know we've got it good. I'm glad that you have your power back as I can't imagine what it'd be like to be without it for 8 days! I'll remind the people around me about that when they start to complain again. Have a great holiday and wishing you uninterrupted power for the rest of the year! Emma
Moni, welcome back to civilization. Glad you have things back to normal. We lost power for 17 days a few years back with one of the hurricanes, but I applaud you. I think having to put up with the cold is much worse than the inconvenience of being hot and sweaty like we were.
Wishing you lovely Christmas and may the rest of the season be gentle on you.
Hi Monika! I had no idea that you were going through such an ordeal! I know that recently Ann had a similar experience but, didn't know you were in a pickle too. I am so happy for you that you've gotten your power back and can get on with the holidays!
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