We lost power in our house in CT last Friday around 1 PM. I expected this when I heard that the storm coming our way was packed with 50-60 mph winds. Friday morning, I was going to check the propane tank that feeds our fireplace to make sure that it had enough fuel and start it when we had electricity. Also, the winds arrived in the morning, but the electricity was OK and when I checked the weather forecast, the winds in CT were not as high as I had thought. So, I neglected to do it. And around 1 PM, just as were getting ready to eat lunch, the power went out. When it is windy and the power goes, sometimes it comes back within a few seconds. No such luck.

Waited for a couple of minutes and no luck. We went to Middletown (the next town) to grab lunch. We could have stopped at Dino’s in our neighborhood, but were not sure if they would be open. Apparently they were. I made a turn to go the usual way and saw that cars were turning back. Yup, a big tree had fallen and the road was blocked. So we turned back and went the only other way out of our street into the rest of the world.

Both my wife and I were talking about options while eating lunch. We both had planned a ton of work on Friday and the rest of the weekend and all of this is now in jeopardy. I was pretty upset that I couldn’t get all the work done. The Indian restaurant tried to distract us by showing some tidbits on TV, mostly about a beloved Bollywood actress who had died a few days ago. I felt sad to see someone so young die, but these tidbits were not enough to distract me from my worry that I am going to let a lot of work slip.

I told my wife that I can always go to Wesleyan and connect using eduroam and work. But she said she had already contacted our friend who lives in Middletown and we can go there. Our friend was to report back if she has electricity and we can go, work and stay there if needed. Great, so we returned back and I was so optimistic about the Eversource crew fixing the problem and getting us the power back. No luck. We were diverted on Rt 81, which remained closed. Except, there was a problem!

The only other route to our street was also closed! The good volunteer folks of our town were thoughtful about letting people know early on not to come down to the closed road that they put a block with a detour sign without thinking about those of us who lived in between. We were stuck! Despite howling winds and pouring rain, I was tempted to get down and move the barrier and drive in, But I was worried that I may be violating the law by moving the barrier and imagined a police waiting to catch me in action. So, I drove for another 5 minutes to find a volunteer fireman and asked him what to do. He said casually “Just move the cones and drive through and if anyone asked, tell them I said so!”. Frankly, they should have had an opening and put a sign saying “No through traffic”. It would so happen that I had to get down and move the cones some 8 times during the next few hours!

We waited while using the phone to be in touch with the rest of the world! Thank you AT&T for the signals inside the house. I would periodically go to the car to start it and charge my phone. Then our friend called to say we are welcome and she had power. Woohoo! So, we went.

But then, there was another problem. Her cat and dog were freely roaming the house (usually they are sent to the basement when we have a get together in her house). And I am very nervous in the presence of pets. I found out that the cat and dog were most interested in hanging around people who are most nervous about them. My allergies kicked in (No, I was NOT pretending!!!) too. My friend assured me that they won’t wander into our bedroom in the night. Not so sure, I didn’t sleep that well in the night.

After we got up, I was constantly checking the Comcast status for both our house in CT and condo in Framingham. The latter had connectivity. i called the condo to confirm everything was ok, also texted a colleague to make sure Framingham had power. And our house in CT did not have connectivity. We made the trek to our home to pick up a few things and I saw what had happened. A fairly large tree had fallen and ripped apart a lot of wires and knocked out a pole. Major damage. I was glad to see a lot of crew starting work on Saturday morning, when the winds had subsided. Hopeful that we can get back later in the day (and therefore deciding not to go to Framingham), we went back to my friend’s house and started working.

We had directly typed the WiFi password into our phones the previous night and didn’t remember it and our friend at work was not reachable. No problem. I hacked into her router and looked up the WiFi password!

I went to the bedroom upstairs, locked myself away from the cat and the dog and started working. Or so I thought. I suddenly heard some noise and before I knew, the door opened and the cat was inside the room. I desperately called my wife who came to the rescue. I would check the door multiple times after that!

Around 4 or 5 PM I checked the Comcast status and it said that the connectivity was back in our house. Awesome! We headed back, but the crew were still working and the alternate route still had the cones and I would remove them for the 8th and last time. Things were not looking great! Comcast lied again! We reached home and no electricity and it was cold. The refrigerator was leaking because of the thawing.

As if on cue, around 6 pm all three fire alarms started beeping! My wife thought it was the candles she had lit and put them out. We went underneath them and fanned a bit and they stopped, only to start the music a few minutes later. It turns out that the batteries had lost juice, so I needed to remove them and I didn’t have replacement. Here is a vulnerability I should guard against the next time!

In desperation I called Eversource and the system said “Based on past experiences like this, we expect you to have power back around 7 PM”. Hmmm, is this AI at work? I said to myself, first Comcast screwed us and now Eversource? Wait, did Eversource say 7 PM tonight? So I called back and yup, tonight. We lit the candles and started playing Scrabble and at 6:40 PM we got the power back. Oh, that feeling, is priceless! 30+ hours of not having electricity is a huge disruption.

Lessons learned: Electricity and running water are precious, and the feeling you get when you don’t have them is horrible; emergency preparedness is essential – have spare batteries for the fire alarms, start the fire place before you lose power, no matter what, store some water or buy bottled water before the supermarket runs out of them; it is perfectly fine not to work for a few hours and everything will be just fine; if possible, find a friend who has electricity and no pets 🙂 and willing to host you!

On a serious note, with all the talk about cybercriminals having the ability to take down your electrical grid, imagine losing control of such a precious commodity to them!