State of emergency

The last time my region was under a state of emergency, I almost felt guilty about how little I was affected by the situation. This time, the situation has been quite a challenge for us.

We temporarily own two houses--neither had power when we woke up, cold, before sunrise. With temperatures predicted in the low teens tonight, we were operating pretty low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs today--mostly focused on plumbing and a warm place to sleep.

We're in pretty good shape tonight--a result of luck, neighborly assistance, and the payoff from years of overpreparedness.

The first priority was getting out of our new house--we spent a couple of hours shoveling snow off our steep new driveway for the first time.

The second priority was making decisions. This, I think, contributes a lot to making disasters so stressful. It felt like we were being tested and it took awhile to convince ourselves that there wasn't one correct answer--we had to make some choice and act on it.

Third priority, after that process, turned out to be to get the generator going in the old house and wire up the furnace. With the help of a young neighbor, an electrician, we accomplished that by early afternoon. The generator, which we have rarely used and mostly as an amusement, made a big difference to us today.

Fourth priority was an emergency assist to get my brother out of his garage so they could go to a hotel.

With protected plumbing and a place to sleep, if needed, we turned our attention to the fifth priority--turning off the water in the new house and draining the pipes as much as possible to minimize the risk and damage from frozen pipes. The luck came when the power turned on before we got very far in that process.

So, we're feeling fortunate at the moment, even if we will be spending a very cold night going back and forth to check on both houses--at least, both have heat.

Needless to say, I didn't go to work today. Wash U was up and running, but my boss was cool with me taking a vacation day to take care of things at home as needed.

And more good news, my brother just called and they are safely checked into a hotel about 40 miles south of here.

Labels: real life

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