Power restored

We suffered through the 71 hour power outage! So fortunate to have it back before we left for vacation.

To back track, last blog left off Saturday evening. Sunday we awoke to no power, duh. We had set frozen muffins out to have for breakfast and we had milk from our cooler. Had breakfast then Isaac wanted to play. I don't blame him after all the traveling Saturday. And we had plans to go to a friends for a BBQ which was almost an hour away so less car time the better. So I ventured out with Harpo to go pick up coffee. 

Brought lunch and coffee home as we slept it so noon crept up on us. Isaac had a good nap, it wasn't too hot in the house. Over nap we figured something had to be done with the laundry. It'd been locked in the washer for over 24 hours. The manual stated there was no way to unlock the door without power. So I searched for an outlet plug in adaptor I had for my car. Ran some extension cords out the house to my car and got the washer enough power to get the door lock to release. So we hand rinsed the laundry and put our clothesline to good use. Okay one more thing taken care of. 

After nap we loaded up some more items from the fridge and cleaned out the freezer. We decided to take our coolers to the BBQ to see what we could get eaten. I also had a diaper load of laundry that was full. We had switched over to sposies on Saturday when we realized doing laundry was becoming out of the equation. I had rinsed them all in the tub but every hour was an hour closer to thinking we were going to be in the "power to be restored by Wednesday at noon" crowd. I brought the diaper load to our friends (who also cloth diapers). She was generous to let us do a loa and get that marked off our list. 

It was a nice evening to relax and Isaac had fun playing. He's clotheless here due to getting himself soaked at the water table. 

I started stressing again at the end of the evening because our power was not back. I had checked by calling the house. Our phone line is through Internet/power and if it was out I knew our power was out. 

We got home and the house was hot, the fridge was leaking from the ice that we had in there and the stress level was high. I had planned to take the remainder of the food over to a friend's the next day, but I began to think the sooner the better. It was about 9 at this point, a little light left in the sky but getting dark. I texted my friend and the plan was to come over after I got Isaac down and the food loaded. So we cleaned out the rest of the deep freeze. Things were still good and cold, but starting to thaw. And cleaned out the fridge, most of it got pitched but we kept a little bit to store at our friends. Ran that over and got back, the house was still hot. Since we sleep on the top story we decided to go sleep in the basement where it was cool. 

Monday Kyle had to go to work, luckily he pays for the gym there and can utilize the shower room. So he was able to take his shaving stuff to work (it was too dark in the bathroom so he wasn't able to shave all weekend). Isaac and I worked on getting laundry done. We took one load to a friend's and left it there to finish. Then went to another nearby friend to do another load and stayed while the boys all played. We have been very fortnuate in all the great friends we have that have opened up their homes, freezer space, and laundry facilities! I normally wouldn't have cared about laundry but since we were in the process of packing there were clothes we wanted clean for our vacation. After that was completed I felt a little better and the stress was decreasing. 

We came home and Isaac napped. The house was pretty warm, but not horrible. Any other day the fans would have kept us cool, but they don't really work in a power outage. Monday morning a friend on Zarthan (7 blocks east) got her power back, so I had a little hope. But as the day went on I just got discouraged. Isaac woke up and was sweating like crazy. His ceiling fan works the best and his room is usually the coolest so I don't blame him for being hot. 

We decided to go for a wagon ride over to our friends to pick up the load of laundry we had dropped off that morning. Here are some pictures of a tree along the way. They hadn't cut this one up (all three pics the same tree): 

And this was just across the street from that one it had been cut up and placed along the road waiting to get picked up. I guess the city is coming through at the end of the week or next to pick up all the brush. I also think the city is only cutting up the ones in the street, the tree's in people's yards is up to the homeowner. That's my understanding.

We played over at our friend's house for a bit while I let my phone and iPad charge up (we wanted the iPad charged for distraction at Isaac's haircut the next day and for the airport of course). Then we started back once Kyle was off work. He met us half way to walk home with us. On our walk home we saw the Xcel trucks working in various Alley's. They went up ours but didn't stop, but they were in the next one over. We were getting excited, they were so close!!! We dropped off the laundry and headed out to eat for supper. 

While eating I just wanted to see if perhaps our power was on, so I tried the house... it was RINGING!!! Then the answering machine picked up!!! WOOHOO!! Power had been restored!!! We were so relieved! We finished dinner and came home. 

Once we got home it almost felt like were had been gone for a long time. We closed all the windows and immediately turned the air on. It wasn't blasting hot, but it was super muggy and humid. And the fridge STUNK!  There was a horrible smell coming from behind the fridge. We got Isaac in a bath then investigated. The water had mixed with the dust that was under and behind the fridge, taking on the appearance of a dead cat! There was so much fluffy dust back there Kyle asked "was that a cat!?!" lol. We got that cleaned up and then today (Tuesday) I worked on cleaning the inside of the fridge/freezer. Not really something we had planned as we prepared to leave for a vacation, but glad it's done. 

And that is our story of the 71 hour power outage.... maybe next time we will look into getting a generator hooked up after the first 12 hours. Like a few of our neighbors/friends did.  

The Great Storm of '13

Friday evening they were calling for storms. We got Isaac down at his normal time about 7:00 and he was sound asleep. We went downstairs to watch a movie I had reserved from the library. I finished up some stuff on the computer and Kyle popped the movie into the play station. The storm started so we decided to go upstairs and watch it. There was some heavy rain and high winds. We heard lots of popping then the electricity flickered. I went back downstairs to put something away and the power went off. It was 7:45pm at this point. Came back up and looked out the door and we watched the light rays of a transformer blow in the distance. 

Well since watching our movie was off the agenda we just decided to go to bed and read by the light of book lights. It was still fairly light out. I was off and on Facebook and had heard possibly two hours for power restore. I wasn't too believing of this since it was still lightening outside. But a friend had asked if there were many trees down. I replied "not really a few branches in our yard and more in our neighbors" then I looked out our upstairs window and saw trees down and lots of people out and about on the next block over. So we decided to get out and take a walk for ourselves. 

We had about 60mph winds and that mixed with super wet soil from all the rain we've had in the past month, so many of the trees just uprooted and fell over. Pretty crazy. 

One tree fell on both this lady's cars! 

This is just 9 houses down on the same block and side of the road as us. Just from the high winds. 

 

We visited with some neighbors and made our way back as the sky grew darker. 

The next morning, still no power. We wanted to keep our freezer and fridge shut so we went out for breakfast. At this point we heard rumors that power could be out until Monday afternoon! We got to the garage then I realized after hitting the garage door opener twice that "duh, the electricity is out". So we had to manually snap the power line off the door to open it ourselves. Luckily this is easy and quick  but just an inconvenience. 

Our fav breakfast place doesn't open til 9 so we tried another. Since Isaac decided to get up at 6. We drove through the neighborhood first seeing more of the damage. 

We past a Perkins on the way to our destination and it was closed due to no power. The place we went had an hour and a half wait so we decided I try our second go to in uptown: Bryant Lake Bowl. We hit some detours and closed roads along the way and finally got in there about 9. It was busy for 9 o'clock but only had about a 20 min wait. Ate our breakfast and was on our way. 

We've been scouting out a couch at a local weekend outlet place for the past few months so decided to drop in since it opens at 10. And what do you know we found our couch! It's a sleeper sofa for the basement and will get delivered in a couple weeks. 

On the way home we drove around our neighborhood again hitting new roads. It was about 11:30 and we could already tell they had been busy clearing the trees from the roads. 

Our neighbor friends were out of town so I checked her house and alley. This is their alley and that tree is on their neighbor's house. Luckily no damage to theirs. 

Well they didn't clear this one on Idaho. 

Isaac took a good nap. And we learned of some other friends in a few towns over (closer to our old apartment) had a tree fall on their house. They were also saying now restore might not be til Tuesday at noon. 

So we drove up north to take a look at it. All the while debating what to do about our fridge and freezers. And if we should eat out for lunch or not. 

We decide to get some ice and head home. I was hopeful to see the street lights on Louisiana were up and running but no power at our house yet. We had some leftovers to eat, which I warmed up on the gas stove. We tried to eat a few more things. Placed ice in the fridge and freezer; moved our milk, eggs, cheese, cottage cheese, and whatever else fit into a small cooler and filled with ice. We were surprised to find the milk was warm (not hot, still chilled but not cold) and some freezer items had started to thaw. So we were worried about our deep freeze which we had heard: going unopened could stay cool anywhere from 48hrs-4 days. A friend had offered some of their freezer space up so I gave her a call to see what we could bring over. 

We loaded up a laundry basket filled with frozen meat and such. Happy to find that the deep freeze was still very cold and all items were frozen solid. On our way to drop off the goods, a friend who lives 10 blocks west announced she had power! This gave me hope that we might come home later to power. 

We then headed to another friend's house for a pizza party. They had power so it was nice of them to share their A/C with us. We brought over some fridge items to share and eat up and had a nice evening not focused on lost power. We have been keeping up with news/electricity updates via Facebook and twitter and the time frame now said everyone should be powered up by Wednesday! 

We headed home about 9, still light enough to be able to put Isaac down. He was exited to be playing late and went down easy. I took Minnetonka home as I wanted to check Dakota's street light as if it was on then we'd have to have power. As we traveled east toward our house lights were on everywhere. We were so hopeful... But already knew this since my friend who lives west of us already told me her's was on. We got to Hampshire and the street light was on! People's houses were lite up, we got excited. We turned down the next street, our street, and black.... No lights, no hope. So another night without power. But it's close. Very close. 

We took Isaac into bed, put the lock back in the garage door and sat on the front patio to write this blog (on my phone). 

Hour 27 of no power......