When will it end?
I am so ready for the end of summer. Last night about six, just as I was coming home from work, we had a summer thunderstorm move through the area wiping out power to portions of the District, Maryland, and Virginia. Our power was still out when I left for work this morning. I can’t remember the last time I spent a more miserable night of sleeplessness and sweating.
The storm hit as I was waiting for the bus at the Metro station. On the ride home, it was obvious that power was knocked out in some places but not others. It just happened that my street was one of those without power. The streets on either side of mine all had electricity; my street was dark.
All evening, I kept expecting the power to return at any moment. I waited until seven to eat a cold dinner. I watched episodes of the Simpsons on DVD on my iBook until the battery died around ten o’clock. Then I lay down on the loveseat to sleep. It was too hot to sleep upstairs in bed, so we just scattered around the downstairs wherever we could find a place near a window. Not a breath of air creeped in through the windows, however. It was an absolutely miserable night.
These power outages happen at least once, if not two or three times a year. The power was out in some areas last week as well, though we missed that one, fortunately. When hurricane Isabel struck back in 2003, there were portions of D.C. and its suburbs without power for a month or more. However, it doesn’t even take a hurricane to knock out power around here, as witnessed last night.
Having lived most of my life in rural areas, I don’t know if this normal for cities or not. Is it normal in urban areas for ordinary thunderstorms to knock out power for days at a time? Is it normal for some streets to have power while neighboring streets are without power? Why does it take so frigging long to restore the electricity?
After Isabel, people in the District were practically rioting in the streets because of the inadequate response from PepCo, the local power comany, and justifiably so. Everywhere I’ve ever lived, it is unheard of for electricty to be out for days at a time following ordinary thunderstorms. In my opinion, these power outages are a worse drawback to living in D.C. than the traffic and the crime.
Meanwhile, as I wait for power to be restored, I am also waiting anxiously for the end of summer. I am looking forward to those cool Fall days. Even a frigid November day is preferable to this heat. I really hate summer. I hate getting out of a cold shower feeling cool and refreshed, only to feel dirty and sweaty within minutes. I hate not feeling comfortable outdoors, even at five in the morning before the sun has risen. I hate riding the bus from Union Station to Capitol Hill because it is too hot to walk. I am hoping for an early Fall.
Incidentally, for those of you following news about the boy scout jamboree here in Northern Virginia, the heat is apparently too much for them, too. Hundreds of boy scouts fell ill yesterday as they waited in smothering heat for President Bush to speak at their jamboree. He never showed up.
6 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
I couldn’t find an email address so I’ll leave a comment here. I just finished reading about your Ontario trip and enjoyed it very much. My grandparents have passed on along with the traditions we used to enjoy with them (mostly due to cousins who are too good for them now). I was moved by the story and it made me both happy and sad to remember the times I had with my grandparents who I miss so very much.
Comment by WebmasterMama — Thursday, 28 July 2005 @ 9:05 am
Thank you. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading my stuff. I tend to write lengthier pieces than most bloggers, which I think tends to be a disadvantage. I violate just about every cardinal rule of writing for the web, in fact. I emphasize the word over multimedia, and I write too much for our short attention spans! So it’s nice to know someone takes the time to read this stuff.
I’ve been to your site before as well, though I can’t remember how I got there. I’m sure I probably visited your site via a link from some other blog. Your graphic is striking, which is how I know I’ve been to your site before.
Comment by Matthew — Thursday, 28 July 2005 @ 9:28 am
I wish we could have storms here during the summer! But I keep going on and on about it.
It’s been a very bad time to be a Boy Scout. Our paper has a story (which I can’t link, because it hasn’t hit the streets as I’m writing this) about a Scout troop in Sequoia National Park that was hit by lighting. One guy died.
Getting back to power… it seems like when I lived in Michigan, we had storms a lot, but that my power never seemed to more than flicker. And I lived out in the country. In contrast, my dad, who lived in the city, and had a city-run utility company, lost power more often, and for longer.
As long as I didn’t have a tree and power lines in my yard (which I had last year,) I was usually fine.
There were some prolonged outages, but I always seemed to come out on top.
Now here, in my new home, we’re having outages based on weather of another sort. Because it’s so hot here, people are running their air all the time (wimps) and stressing the grid. My neighborhood has lost power a couple of times (not for long, and it’s always been back when I get home). There’s another neighborhood that is consistently losing power, sometimes for several hours. This is apparently nothing compared to the rolling blackouts of a few years back.
I want to tell the whiny Californians to stop running all their appliances while they freeze in 65-degree houses.
Comment by Mel B. — Friday, 29 July 2005 @ 2:49 am
Oh, power outages, one of the banes of my existence. In my old apartment in the Midwest, power would go out seemingly all the time. Nothing like coming home and the entire complex is pitch black, or, at least my half, and you have to aim your car headlights at your entrance, then try to memorize and follow the path to the door. and that’s not even talking about what you have to do to make it inside, when you can’t see a thing. better for the power to go out in the snow–at least the moon would reflect against it, making it easier to see. of course, that means no heat…
power was out all the time. thunderstorm. ice storm. snow storm. no apparent reasson at all. could expect outage probably every couple of months, and a near-day to a multiple-day outage at least once a year.
my mom, though, had it worse. she and a house next door to hers were built in the 40s; a subdivision was then built around them in the 60s or 70s. so my mom and the house next door are the only two houses on a really old circuit. and their power goes out way more often than mine. one time, an ice storm knocked out my power for three days–hers was out for five. five. it was january and below zero. everyone else had power before i did, so i suppose theirs was out only a day or so. but anyway, any thunderstorm at all, and she would be like you: expecting the power to go.
we had nothing like the month in dc, but we had no hurricanes, either. however, the night of the afore-mentioned ice storm, i watched in my window in as transformers blew throughout the city. had an eerie emerald beauty to it, the individual explosions against the night sky.
so yeah, anyway, in my experience, municipal power companies suck. they give the reason that “well, it was a storm blah blah blah.” well, it storms EVERY FRICKIN year and you charge out the nose for your service–at least provide the service. tornado? OK, that’s fine. but two raindrops? you’re kidding me.
Comment by Heather — Saturday, 30 July 2005 @ 2:34 pm
I dread thunderstorms now. Used to be, I loved them. Now I just watch them tense with the anticipation that the power is going to go out any moment.
You’re right about the municipal power companies. Storms are nothing new. Every year there are storms. So why can’t PepCo be prepared? Why do they always act so surprised or put upon when a storm hits?
Power was not restored until Saturday, by which time the freezer and fridge had to be cleaned out.
Comment by Matthew — Monday, 1 August 2005 @ 6:54 am
play party poker for funPlease check out some information in the field of party poker signup bonus
Comment by play party poker for fun — Thursday, 1 September 2005 @ 10:55 pm