The warnings came in that it was a fast and intense storm, capable of producing 70+ MPH winds, and if you were outside, to get the hell inside. Luckily by then, I had returned from Baltimore and I was just sitting in my apartment doing some E-mailing and such to catch up from the weekend.
A little after 4:15, the sky grew very dark, and we were subjected to this:
http://youtu.be/dRdksDcfTes
http://youtu.be/naJLZIsTCbs
http://youtu.be/MvgKVU7vV9I
http://youtu.be/AbDwI_HXeSk
These were videos I took from my phone as it happened. The storms raced through, and in the middle of it my power started to blink, and then the power went out. Soon after, the rain stopped, I grabbed my cell phone and went outside to witness this:
If you click you can see the rest, but there were quite a few trees and tree branches down in my neighborhood. I called into Pepco to let them know of the power outage, and then I waited. Around 6 PM I got bored and since I had recycling to get rid of, I decided to take a drive over to drop stuff off. As I left my street, I discovered a tree had come crashing down across Crescent Road so we had to detour around it. Fine, that can be dealt with, so I went, dropped off my stuff, and then came back. From there, it was eat whatever I could dig out of my pantry that did not need to be cooked, take cool showers to keep from overheating, and eventually when it became dark, go to bed since there was nothing else to do.
Monday was supposed to be my day off. I woke up and there was still no power, so I decided rather than sit around all day hoping it would come back on, I'd just go to work instead. A cold shower later and I was on my way into the office. I used the day to get the work needed done, and also monitor and see if I would have my power back on when I got home. It did not look good, because those 70+ MPH winds took down a lot of tree branches and trees in the area, which took down wires as well.
I got home that night after stopping to have dinner along the way, and there is still no power at my apartment. I had read up earlier on guidelines to when food had to be tossed, and since it was now 26 hours since my power had gone out, the fridge food was toast, the freezer food had another 22 hours, provided I didn't open the door to it. So I took everything out of my fridge, save for a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly that I did move to the freezer, and some bread that moved to the pantry, and the rest went into the trash. I wasn't happy to lose it, but food poisoning sucks and is way more expensive. After that, the fridge was cleaned.
I did put it out there that I might need a place to stay, but soon after I did that, my "don't be a pussy, you've been through worse and you're not in danger at this point" part of my brain kicked in and I ended up staying put. Once again, when it got dark, I feel asleep. I was awoken by one more offer of a place to stay, but I was so groggy I did not want to get off my couch. I then texted with CW before falling asleep again.
Got up the next morning, and since I found out the night before that the nearby gym had electricity, I went over there and used their showers so I could actually have hot water. It still did not look good for having electric at my apartment, so I started to make a contingency plan, especially after I called Pepco and they estimated it would take until Friday to fix my power. I got home expecting that my street would still have no electricity and I was screwed. Lo and behold, I walked in and the ceiling fans are flying at high speed. I think my landlord came in and checked to see I had electric and all that. So now it was time to check the freezer. Most of my food was still frozen so it was okay, except for some bags of beef stock and spaghetti sauce I had saved. One of the stock bags leaked, so I pulled everything out of the freezer, washed it off, wiped out the freezer, and put it all back. The one thing that did have to be cooked was the bag of chicken nuggets in my freezer because they had completely defrosted.
I went to the store and picked up a few fridge items to restock the fridge since there was almost nothing left. It will be stocked up as I need things, but it shall take a while, because once you have butter, milk, eggs, kool-aid, water, and some condiments in there, what else do you really need at that moment?
So that was my crazy storm story, almost 3 days without power, though I am so glad it is back on now. Surprisingly enough, that is not the worst crises I have dealt with, though I will have to dig that story up from a long ago archive.
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