7.24.06
Without lights, but not without power
It's an understatement to say St. Louis had an outage. Over half a million homes and businesses were in the dark. I was going to write about it, but my heart just wasn't up for it.
It's been interesting to say the least. I'm sure I could have said something humorous about the ordeal. In retrospect, I guess I'm sad that over. Sure I had to get by with losing food in the refrigerator, no TV/land line/Internet, lights, air conditioning, ect...During this outage, though, I had a chance to see some of the best of what St. Louis offers. Aside from some unnecessary high strung emotions, the city has been pleasantly peaceful and orderly.
It's been years since I simply sat with my neighbors and just talked. All too often, words are spoken in passing. Even worse, quality time with the family improved. Worse?!? Yeah, it took two massive storms bringing the StL to its knees for us to huddle into a bedroom together with the window open to renew our appreciation of having each other.
My perspective has been skewed for far too long. The result of all this has greatly empowered me to look at my personal life from a more macro perspective...and the view is wonderful, seeing all I have to be thankful for!
On a lighter note (get it, light...yeah, we have lights!) I realized there are two things I thought I could get by without:
1) Big candles, lanterns if possible.
-- Sometimes the electricity doesn't come back within 8 hours.
2) Car charger for a mobile phone.
-- I only found out the blackout exceeded 400k from Wednesday's storm by checking KSDK's WAP site. Also, Charter's telephone service failed...(remember cable services rely on inline amplifiers to get the signal to your house...and those are powered by the electric company)
11:23 pm in life | 1 person viewing0 ramblings so far