The One of Mind Inferno

 

This is most likely TMI, but old man that I am, I was up at 1:40 am last night, standing at the toilet urinating when the lights suddenly went out.

In the quiet of the dead of night, I could hear the sound,  by now so familiar to me, of a blown transformer somewhere outside. After a second or two, there was a brief flicker of light, and then another pop from another transformer, followed by pitch black.

In the dark, all I could do was keep on peeing, relying on the sound of the stream hitting the water to guide my aim. In any event, I swift-mopped the bathroom floor this morning (okay, now that is definitely TMI).   

It was about a month ago, the last Sunday of January (Day of Drifts), that the lights went out around the same time of night. 

It didn't really matter - I had nowhere to be in the morning and no need for electricity in the middle of the night. I flushed and walked to the front door to look out and make sure there was no immediate danger, at least in the front year. I walked into a door once and then a wall - I didn't do any damage to myself (or the house), but I thought I was better at navigating around in the dark than that.

I slept poorly and restlessly, and the power came back on at 6:40 (I know because it woke me up from a brief spell of sleep). A young mother reported to our neighborhood text-message group that from the time the power went until 4:00 am, she had to hold a screaming two-year old in her arms. Another mom reported that she had a kid puking in the dark all night, so my sleeplessness wasn't all that bad in comparison.

I learned that the outage was caused by yet another fallen tree knocking down power lines, about a block down from where the tree fell back in January.  The local news reported that about 220 homes were impacted by the outage and although power is restored, the main road in my neighborhood is still blocked off as crews remove the fallen tree.  

I have long ago lost count of the number of trees that have fallen around here. Power losses from a few hours to several days are not uncommon. What's disturbing about these most recent events is they weren't associated with high winds or bad weather - trees just drop over willy-nilly, at their own leisure and in accordance with their own schedule. Not exactly a comforting thought to a homeowner with a yard full of old trees.