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I was in the basement with the boys having Quinn practice laying down next to Liam so that I could lay on top of them, should the need arise. It was that bad.
Mike was on his way home. Luckily, he was on North Ave., which was the dividing line between a really bad storm and just a storm. All he felt/saw was a very windy period that last about 5 minutes and 2 minutes of hard rain. He was shocked when he turned south from North Ave. and saw all the destruction.
Our house was within the area of the really bad storm, which meant lots of trees down and lots of power lines down. We were without power for three days. During which I made the following list:
Things You Cannot Do Without Power:
vaccuum
laundry
load the dishwasher (well, you can load it, you just can't use it)
turn the bathroom light on
microwave leftovers
turn the basement light on
charge your cell phone
watch a movie (poor Quinn!)
turn the fan on
turn the bedroom light on
What's funny about not having power (and there's not much that is funny about it), is that every time I went into a room I'd turn the switch, as if that would work. And I would actually think, "Oh, I can vaccuum." or "Maybe I should throw some laundry in." I ended up going to my mom's to do some laundry, because ComEd wasn't giving us any sign of being done anytime soon. It was a little crazy because Toledo Edison trucks and workers were out here working in our neighborhood. And today, there are still 100,000 people without power in the Chicagoland area. It was kind of like camping, but with comfy beds, a shower, and a fridge. (Our neighbor was awesome and let us hook up our fridge to his generator - which mean all my frozen breast milk and all of Mike's grass-fed/free range meat was fine.)
Here's a few pictures from After the Storm. Part of our fence came down and half of our tree (that we just had trimmed).
Things You Can Do Without Power:
- Read bedtime stories by flashlight.
- Watch a movie on the laptop (we were able to get two movies to play until the battery died).
- Watch fire from the candles.
- Shower.
- Use the gas stove to make hotdogs, soup, and pasta.
- Watch all the work trucks right out our window. Our neighbor across the street had a power line down in his backyard - so there was lots of action - fire trucks, Toledo Edison trucks, the village trucks, and tree removal companies.
2 comments:
My first thought - With power lines down can you still call for takeout pizza? Doh!
Glad to hear you were able to use the gas to feed the family and the batteries to keep the brain occupied (reading) and not occupied (movie watching).
How did the boys hold up? Was there a sense of this being an adventure?
We could have ordered pizza - since the south part of town had power and was totally up and running! Quinn did enjoy some aspects of the storm - helping pick up tree pieces, playing with the neighbors, and using flashlights. He was, however, so excited Sunday morning when we told him the power was back on. He smiled, clapped, and said, "Let's go watch Dumbo." Just gives you an idea of the summer we've had with a new baby in the house. =)
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