Powerless
It's been very windy for the past two weeks with occasional heavy rain passing through. The weather has been more like September than October or November. Being Alaskans, we have been complaining about the lack of snow because frozen and cold we can handle better than cold and wet.
A strong flow from the southeast rattled windows and tarps on the bluff last night and I fielded a few calls during my evening shift from folks wondering how strong the winds were at the airport. (Official peak wind was 36 knots yesterday.) The callers told me that the winds up on the bluff and out the Old Sterling Highway were at least ten knots higher than that.
One fellow told me he had just driven down from Anchorage and the winds were howling along Turnagain Arm. (The weather station at Portage was reporting gusts to sixty when I checked...) He also said it was snowing pretty heavily in the pass all the way from Summit Lake to Cooper Landing. I perked up my ears at that because Denny had to get up at two to drive to Anchorage this morning.
But there was no sign of snow as I made my way home after work--just howling winds that drove the rain in sheets across the road. I told Denny what I had heard about conditions to the north of us--he was pretty fatalistic. It doesn't matter if the water is warm or cold if you are going to have to wade through it anyway: that sums up his outlook toward driving back and forth to Anchorage. If you have to do it, no sense worrying about the weather.
Still, I hoped the weather might have blown through before he had to leave.
No such luck--wind-driven rain greeted us as the truck was loaded and our good-byes were said. I stood on the porch as he pulled out of the driveway and hoped his journey would be safe.
While I was out there, I unplugged the plastic jack-o-lantern and pluged in the Christmas lights on the cat run. Except for one burnt-out bulbs, the lights worked, bathing the porch area with a suffuse light.
The seasons change...
The wind died out by the time I woke up. What woke me up at 7:30 was the peeping of the CO detector and the UPS as the power cycled off and on. And off again.
I couldn't hear any wind to explain why the power should be fluctuating so I looked outside. It was strangely light. I took the flashlight and looked more closely. Snow. Definitely snow. Three inches of heavy, wet stuff. That would explain the power outage.
I quieted the electronic alarms, lit the back-up lights in the shop and the back room for the cats and went back to bed. Because it was still dark and there wasn't much I could do anyway.
I wrote once that all it takes is a power outage to take us back to the nineteenth century. That isn't quite true. So many of our modern conveniences run on battery power that losing the grid is bothersome but not catastrophic. When it finally began to grow light outside, I got up, checked the wood stove, and put some water on the range to boil for coffee. With the oil lamps giving a soft glow and the radios playing the local AM station, I sat downstairs while I drank my coffee, working on a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table.
We were off the grid but still very cozy
The snow gives even our utilitarian back yard a certain beauty.
A strong flow from the southeast rattled windows and tarps on the bluff last night and I fielded a few calls during my evening shift from folks wondering how strong the winds were at the airport. (Official peak wind was 36 knots yesterday.) The callers told me that the winds up on the bluff and out the Old Sterling Highway were at least ten knots higher than that.
One fellow told me he had just driven down from Anchorage and the winds were howling along Turnagain Arm. (The weather station at Portage was reporting gusts to sixty when I checked...) He also said it was snowing pretty heavily in the pass all the way from Summit Lake to Cooper Landing. I perked up my ears at that because Denny had to get up at two to drive to Anchorage this morning.
But there was no sign of snow as I made my way home after work--just howling winds that drove the rain in sheets across the road. I told Denny what I had heard about conditions to the north of us--he was pretty fatalistic. It doesn't matter if the water is warm or cold if you are going to have to wade through it anyway: that sums up his outlook toward driving back and forth to Anchorage. If you have to do it, no sense worrying about the weather.
Still, I hoped the weather might have blown through before he had to leave.
No such luck--wind-driven rain greeted us as the truck was loaded and our good-byes were said. I stood on the porch as he pulled out of the driveway and hoped his journey would be safe.
While I was out there, I unplugged the plastic jack-o-lantern and pluged in the Christmas lights on the cat run. Except for one burnt-out bulbs, the lights worked, bathing the porch area with a suffuse light.
The seasons change...
The wind died out by the time I woke up. What woke me up at 7:30 was the peeping of the CO detector and the UPS as the power cycled off and on. And off again.
I couldn't hear any wind to explain why the power should be fluctuating so I looked outside. It was strangely light. I took the flashlight and looked more closely. Snow. Definitely snow. Three inches of heavy, wet stuff. That would explain the power outage.
I quieted the electronic alarms, lit the back-up lights in the shop and the back room for the cats and went back to bed. Because it was still dark and there wasn't much I could do anyway.
I wrote once that all it takes is a power outage to take us back to the nineteenth century. That isn't quite true. So many of our modern conveniences run on battery power that losing the grid is bothersome but not catastrophic. When it finally began to grow light outside, I got up, checked the wood stove, and put some water on the range to boil for coffee. With the oil lamps giving a soft glow and the radios playing the local AM station, I sat downstairs while I drank my coffee, working on a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table.
We were off the grid but still very cozy
The snow gives even our utilitarian back yard a certain beauty.
Comments