Thoughts in a Blackout

Before the charge runs out...

I am writing this, having nothing better to do, at 6:15 PM. It is very dark in my house.

The power went down around 2 with a desultory twitch of the last electrons—and I am now kicking myself that I didn’t run the thermostat up to 78 degrees (instead of a JimmyCarteresque 70) when every voice in the media was making a big deal about the doozy headed our way.

The house is now at 60 degrees.

So that’s maybe a couple of degrees an hour—I’m sure as the heat dissipates it’ll accelerate. Pacific Power, which always seems surprised that these storms happen, says we might be up by 10 PM; their first estimate of recovery was by 4:30…so go figure. As they say: trust but verify. Do any of us trust these behemoths?

The house is dark…very, very dark. I have two flashlights around somewhere, stored for just such an eventuality.

I can’t find them.

I have lit a couple of candles.

That’s it.

When I finally locate the flashlights, they illuminate, grudgingly, dim little circles of weird blue light and I check the thermostat. 58 degrees.

How much lower will it go before I can see my breath?

The phone works, kinda, courtesy of Xfinity and it shows 5G, but it’s really, really slow. The laptop is, amazingly, on my lap and I am in bed under flannel sheets and two layers of comforters, along with two layers of clothing and a pair of fleece-lined jeans, which I now feel very smug about buying on a whim.

I’m in bed because one of the first, most evident problems of a blackout on the coldest day of the year is utter boredom. The router is down, so there’s no computer connection, no cable TV, no streaming, no nuthin’. Videogames? In the damn cloud.

So there’s nothing else to do in a pitch-black, cold-ass house. Except think—always dangerous in a pinch.

I worry about my fish; there are six of them and they really like 78-degree water. I haven’t had the heart to look into their little predator-free paradise with my slowly dimming flashlight which I bought after the blackouts last year. Having grown up in western Michigan and lived in Chicago, I am amazed that Portland—a northern city—just kind of wimps out when winter actually happens. As if the twice-yearly snows/winds/sleet are a complete surprise.

But, still, I have to wonder why the Oregonian printed this piffle…

This is a very dynamic day. We have really high winds and really cold temperatures,” said PGE spokesperson John Farmer. “…The wind is the big culprit right now. That tree branch that people meant to get around to trim comes down and it takes the line with it.”

… when they might remember that the big electric utility in California tried to make this argument about its role in devastating forest fires and got sued to the bejeebers.

Anyone who has lived around here knows that we get snowstorms (depite global warming). And this nonsense always happpens. In other climes, the utilities bury electric lines—not exactly a “build the pyramids” project; but, being Oregon, we are busy saving the planet, as opposed to digging trenches.

Maybe the Public Utilities Commish will ask the two big electric companies what they’re doing to protect their lines when those “untrimmed” limbs start flying. Anyone want to bet they actually will?

Which brings me to that recent jack-up of electric rates (18-percent; you should be so lucky) and how my local utility, Pacific Power, is going to spend that additional dough and if any of it will somehow trickle down to the basic stuff like keeping the damn lights on.

Maybe the CEO, who I’m told makes $6.3-million a year for doing, well…whatever, might consider turning off the power at her home in a little gesture of solidarity and sympathy.

I ponder the easy chatter about “renewables,” which some of the 18-percent will gobble up, and realize that there’s no way solar cells and windmills are operative in this weather…and so there’ll have to be backups available 24/7. Fossil fueled. Am I the only one who thinks this is stupid?

As I listen to the wind howl, I worry about the birdies who are grounded and who depend on my suet and sunflower seeds. Do finches and sparrows and even flickers freeze? Where do they go when it gets really nasty?

Which leads me to wonder about those tents that never seem to get cleaned up and picture them flapping furiously in the wind, with someone balled up like a fetus inside, perhaps too crazy or stoned to know where the “warming shelters” are located.

Even someone who believes the homeless are pandered and pampered and turned into income for nonprofits will agree that a civilization that puts up with this is, well…incompetent. Worse: indifferent. Worst: enabling and co-dependent.

Thanks to Xfinity, those of us in the blackout are still able to exchange ‘“chin up” texts. One imagines shouts across blackwater after a ship has gone down. One pal writes that he and his wife and dogs have found refuge in Parkrose…

One of the poorest neighborhoods HAS power!

Another sent a picture—life on the frontier…

…and golly! Pacific Power says we’ll have to buckle down and not open our refrigerator doors and turn off various circuits to avoid frying appliances when the electrons flow again and…we’re stuck until at least 10 PM.

On the coldest damn day of the year.

Since Xfinity hasn’t gone down I grab my iPhone, keeping a wary eye on the slowly dying battery level, and hit the Amazon website.

I order an…

INIU Portable Charger, Slimmest 10000mAh 5V/3A Power Bank, USB C in&out High-Speed Charging Battery Pack, External Phone Powerbank Compatible with iPhone 15 14 13 12 11 Samsung S22 S21 Google iPad etc

…and a…

RAINBOW Portable Power Station 320W, 298Wh Backup LiFePO4 Battery, 2 x 110V/320W(Peak 640W) AC Outlets, Solar Generator for Outdoor Camping, Quick Charge for Home, Hiking

…which Amazon says it will deliver by Thursday. If that day ever comes.

But then, during the windup to the freezing festivities late last night, they delivered a combination windshield ice-scraper/snow shovel to my front porch.

My motto! It’ll be worse than you think! Be prepared!

Just never enough.

The house is now at 54 degrees.

It’s 6:15.

The lights just came on.

Whoever was out there in the howling wind (and not sitting in an office writing PR releases) gets my vote of thanks and absolute admiration. I picture doing that kind of job—I could layer just about every coat in my closet and still freeze—and I’m glad someone does it. They can’t be paid enough (and probably aren’t).

As I bask in the warm light from my Ikea paper-lanternlike fixture, I’m left to ponder our vulnerability, our technological nakedness. Turn off the juice and we’re back to the 1800s: candles, and a “world lit only by fire.”

They were backward, probably racist, did all sorts of nasty things to our “protected classes”—and yet they knew how to survive. And leave something for us to inherit. And here we are.

I recall, as a kid, watching a Twilight Zone show in which the aliens took over the world by simply switching the power on and off in different neighborhoods and all hell broke loose.

Parkrose HAD power!

Now that the furnace, awakened, is grumbling in the basement, I give a mad moment’s thought to canceling my orders at Amazon.

Nah.

It’ll happen again. Count on it.