Well what an adventure the past 12 days have been.
It all began on Dec. 11 with an ice storm which took us by surprise. My town and many surrounding towns in Central Massachusetts were devastated by this storm. Many hard wood trees were....well the best way to say it is...decapitated, many other old trees were completely broken in half or fell over completely...roots and all.
Roads were blocked, power lines and poles were taken down completely. Some poles broken in half, precariously hanging by the wires and laden with ice.
My family was without power for 9 days from Dec. 11 - 20th. Some people on my street are just getting their power back on today. I do consider myself one of the lucky ones because my husband is a genius when it comes to fixing things. He is a master electrician by trade but has the ability to make anything work. He had a small generator which he immediately hooked up to our house to give us heat and one or two other items (fridge or ONE light). He also took our generator over to two of our neighbors homes to get their heat running for a bit to get their homes a little warmer. All three homes in our area have fireplaces but the house temp. can still fall, even with the fireplace constantly being tended.
Water was another huge issue. We have well water so if you don't have power you don't have water. Which meant we were running around daily to find water to keep us fed and dishes somewhat cleaned. We couldn't flush our toilets either. Thankfully the weather was on the warm side and our pool hadn't frozen over yet. We were hauling 5 and 10 gallon buckets of pool water up to the house so we could flush toilets. A shower was completely out of the question.
We survived this way for 4 days and then we were incredibly surprised when our two fantastic neighbors pitched in and PURCHASED a generator for us. This new generator is substantially larger than the one we had which meant we could run multiple items at the same time. My hubby hooked up the heat, the well and hot water, and one room with electricity. Life was much easier after this. What a blessing to have running water and a hot shower. It truly made all the difference.
On late Friday night (late) or early Saturday AM our power came back on. And then came 3 days of snow....over 2 feet of snow. But that is a story for another day. Now we count our blessings because we faired better than some and prepare for Christmas.
I would be a miss if I did not send out an extremely heartfelt THANK YOU to the utility crews who traveled from all over the country to help us restore our power. The road has been a long one for all of us. We in Central Mass. are extremely grateful for without them many of us would clearly still be in the cold and dark. My wish for these workers is that they will be able to be home to celebrate their holiday with their family.
