The start of day number two without power.
Being without power and being inconvenienced by a lack of electricity is admittedly a first world problem. However, when you live in the first world, electricity is an expectation. So, being without electricity generally sucks.
One option is buying a generator–Mary and I have talked about it–but it would likely change the dynamic, and the appreciation we have of something as amazing as electricity.
Battery power-5:30 am on Nov. 28.
I’m guessing that CMP will get our power back on today. Even if it’s later in the day, it won’t be bad–daylight isn’t bad at all–especially if you don’t require gadgetry to make you happy.
The wood stove has been keeping us warm, the sun offers abundant light, and we have leftovers from yesterday’s feast at Aunt Tomato’s.
Mary and I will be fine until darkness descends once again. Then, maintaining an optimistic outlook becomes harder with night fall and no electricity.
12:39 pm–Powered restored after being off for just about 33 hours.
While power outages aren’t abnormal where we live in Durham, 6 miles form Lisbon Falls, 9 miles from Freeport, and 12 miles from Auburn, the frequency of outages have increased. On this occasion, half the road we live on Hallowell Road/Route 9, remained without power, while the other half (near the school and fire station) had power back late yesterday. This has never happened in 25 years, without something like a downed line, pole, or some other element along the circuit triggered this. I patrolled the entire line and couldn’t see anything that could have caused the power to stop arbitrarily along the main road. Possible thought: a failed transformer.
I worked for the power company (CMP) for almost 10 years, leaving in the mid-1990s. One thought I had is that the multinational that now owns CMP, Iberdola, might be differing maintenance and as transmission equipment ages, it’s less reliable and more likely to be affected by wind, branches falling on the lines, etc. This is merely conjecture on my part, as I have no proof that this is the case–it may nothing to do with the increased frequency and longer outages we’ve experienced the last 4-5 years. Perhaps it’s the severe weather that is taxing the power grid.
Anyways, we’re back on, the company’s lineworkers, all dedicated and working long hours, many of them missing Thanksgiving dinner with their families, are doing their darned-well-best to make sure everyone else has their electricity back sooner, rather than later. On Twitter, CMP tweeted that their hope was that 90 percent of the remaining customers that began today in the dark would have their power back by the end of the day.