I know many of you were worried about reports of our nor’easter and the snow and wind that caused so many problems. They were not exaggerated. We had a nasty, slushy snowstorm a week ago today that caused the worst driving conditions I’ve seen this winter. Then, Sunday night, the nor’easter arrived. We didn’t get the snow; it stayed too warm for that, but there was lots of rain, and the wind was horrendous. Coming from a tornado state, I’ve seen winds and many trees down, but never so many as I saw here on Monday. Apparently we don’t get enough high winds here, because every feeble tree in Vermont fell over on Monday. We were almost closed into our neighborhood by fallen trees; at some point or other throughout the storm, ALL of our exit roads were blocked. Just not all at the same time. The Waterford town crew did a fantastic job of keeping the felled trees off the roads, but they couldn’t do anything about the ones that knocked over power lines.
Our power went out at about 9 AM Monday morning, and was out until around 4 PM Tuesday afternoon. Fortunately it wasn’t all that cold out (40 degrees), and we have a propane heater in the basement that doesn’t require any electricity. However, for those of you unfamiliar with rural life, we have our own drilled well in our yard that supplies all of our household water. Wells require a pump to get the water up from the ground into your house, and of course, our pump is electrically operated. No water at all if there’s no power. No water means no flushing toilets. With 2 very toilet-dependent adults and a toddler, that becomes a big problem. I was collecting snow melt and rain to get the toilet flushed from all the times we used it before we decided to pack up and go to the clinic for the night.
Littleton was without power for only a short time on Monday afternoon, and the power was restored by evening, so Anna and I packed up while it was still light and headed back out into the teeth of the storm. We arrived at the clinic, went and got a bite at Quiznos, then holed up and waited for Baba to join us. Anna was a trooper. Slept just fine in the strange place. As long as Mama and Baba are there, it can’t be all bad, huh?
Tuesday, when our power was still out, and reports of power outages through most of the state of Vermont, and no promise of restoration until the weekend, we decided to start looking for a generator. None available locally, of course. Joe finally tracked one down in Tilton (an hour away) so when I finished morning appointments, we headed down and picked it up. I was figuring out how I was going to rewire our water pump with the right kind of plug for the generator on the way home, but as we drove up to the house, our porch light was on!!!! Yea!!!! The whole town of Waterford has me to thank for the quick restoration of our power. As one of my on-line friends asked, why didn’t we just go get the generator in the first hour the power was off? We would have gotten our power back much sooner that way! I figured I’m not really responsible for it, because if I were, they would have waited until I had made at least 3 trips back and forth to the hardware store and spent another $100 on supplies to rewire the water pump, and probably ruined the pump in the process.
In any case, we’re all home, all safe and sound. I don’t think we really lost any food in the fridge or freezer. Many places still don’t have power, though, so we’re grateful. And, our power still goes out a couple of times a day as they continue to clear trees leaning on power lines, and repair other lines. So, we’re not totally out of the woods. But, it’s 60 degrees out today, it’s bright and sunny, and there are predictions of 70 degree days this weekend, AND I’m not on call until next weekend, so life should be fine for a while!
