One more cup of coffee

Cold inside, cold outside.

"Cold inside. Cold outside." (pointing to the open shed) "Warm other house?"

That was what Nathan said rather sadly yesterday morning, about 36 hours after we lost power in the giant wind storm. The storm had gusts of over 60 MPH, toppling trees around the region, often into power lines. At its peak, about 1.5 million people in western Washington and Oregon had lost power. About 380,000 customers in King County had lost power.

Nathan had a terrible time going to sleep Thursday with all the wind. He and I finally wound up going to sleep together in his bed, where I was then trapped when I woke up and realized that with no power, we had no baby monitor.

We woke up Friday morning with our house at about 62°F. We have a gas furnace, but no electricity to run the blowers. We have a gas hot water heater, but the thermostat for that is electronic -- so no hot water, either. Puget Sound Energy was warning that outages for some might last a week or more, so we went out to the grocery store and waited in a line of about 30 people buying canned goods and other food that could last without refrigeration. (Nathan was singularly unimpressed by the results of powdered milk.) In a sign of where we live, the hand-written sign on QFC's door read: "We are open. Sorry, no coffee."

For dinner, we grilled the chicken that was in the refrigerator (hot food!), then all got to bed around 9.

Saturday morning, the temperature inside had dropped to 52, prompting Nathan's comment about it being cold everywhere. Melissa called around to various places for us and figured out that Bellevue Square was open with power, so we went there to hang out for a while. We tried to watch Happy Feet, but Nathan was too scared by the dark, big screen, and loud noises.

We spent the afternoon at Patrik, Linda, and Markus's house, who never lost power. Their neighbor two houses down had a tree go through their dining room, though. For dinner, we went up to Shoreline and spent the night with Christina and her son Ashland, who had lost power for a while on Friday but had it back by that night.

Finally, today, power to our house (in the Highlands neighborhood of Kirkland) was back. A neighbor told us it came back on at 11 PM last night, meaning that we were out for about 47 hours. The thermometer in our bedroom recorded the low as 47°F. Lots of areas are still without power, though. The power crews are doing an amazing job in horrible conditions. They really deserve our thanks.

But Nathan, who turns two today, at least gets the gift of electricity and heat.

Posted by Mike at December 17, 2006 05:10 PM