We Want Light! Romance Of Life Without Power Wears Thin, Quickly

August 31, 2011|By Helen Ubiñas

Day 1 was sort of romantic: Eating by candlelight. Playing old school card games. Camping indoors.

Day 2 was more of a chore. There was food to save, water to haul into the house, phones to charge. But people were still game. How long could the power outage really last, right?

By Day 3, people who had been without power since Tropical Storm Irene slammed the state Sunday were "over it." "Fed up." "So done,'' said one woman heading to showers at Kramer School in Willimantic.

Early camaraderie among the powerless showed signs of strain. By Tuesday, there were actually tiers of inconvenience.

If you lost power but still had water, for instance — however cold — it was best to keep the whining to a minimum around those who had no power and no water.

Poutage is the word one witty tweeter coined for the frustration of people who found themselves involuntarily starring in their own version of "Little House on the Prairie" meets "Mad Max."

Admittedly, members of the Life Without Power tribe, of which I've been a member since Sunday morning, know being without power for a few days is trivial when compared to people who've lost their lives, homes, businesses and pets. For a storm that people pooh-poohed as not being that big of a deal, Irene took its toll.

"It could be much worse," Coventry resident Sue Kenefick said with that unspoken "but" that only a fellow LWP tribe member can pick up on.

And here is that big, unbathed, BUT: Yes, it absolutely could have been worse. Yes, we are grateful we are safe and our homes were unharmed. But life without power isn't just draining coveted D batteries. It's starting to fray nerves, will, relationships — and the image many of us have of ourselves as hearty New Englanders.

Guess what? We're not. We want our lights back. We want to flush our toilets without having to fill the bowl with water from the tub or the pool. Or, if you didn't plan ahead, from the overpriced bottles of water that were the only thing left by the time you got your eye-rolling self to the picked-over supermarket.

And yes, as shallow as it sounds, we want our TVs back. Who won "America's Got Talent"? How were those "Video Music Awards"? Will I ever be able to catch up on "True Blood"?

We are lashing out, mostly, at CL&P. In town after East of the River town, folks seemed to have the same question: Have you seen CL&P? Utility trucks were becoming as elusive as Bigfoot or the mythical chupacabra.

Outside a Coventry fire station, someone put up a sign that read: "CL&P Where are u?" There is talk of an anti-rural bias when it comes to restoring power.

People are stressed: How many more days of playing camp can moms with small children take before losing it. By the sound of a mom in the Coventry High School shower, not long. "I'm sorry," she apologizes to her kids after snapping. "Mommy's just a little stressed."

How many games of Go Fish, Rummy and Crazy 8's can a family be expected to endure. If I never see another set of cards it'll be too soon, one teenage girl said.

How many more scavenger hunts for gas and ice and batteries can a person make before filing for bankruptcy?

At the Coventry Citgo Tuesday afternoon, the clerk said they'd run out of gas in 24 hours. And they were running low on ice. The deliveryman said he usually delivers 300 bags a week to the store. Monday he delivered 500, and people were grabbing them off hand truck as he was bringing them in. Tuesday he was back, delivering 500 more bags.

As many are learning, living without power means getting creative — especially for the people who didn't heed warnings that this time, warnings weren't just media hype.

And even if you did plan, it means finding yourself way out of your comfort zone. Irene, if you hadn't heard, was a feminist. Don't believe me? In just a few days, she turned a self-proclaimed chauvinist Dan Hickey into a renaissance man.

Outside Coventry Laundromat, Hickey sat on his truck sipping on a cup of coffee. This was the first time the retiree had done laundry on his own in years. His wife, who was at work, called to walk him through.

So far, so good. "I don't see any suds rushing out of the building," he said, with a smile.

Hickey counted on losing power with Irene; if there's a flashlight he doesn't own, he'd like to see it. What he didn't count on is courting his wife of 40 years again.

As happily married as they are, he said, they're used to going to their separate sides of the house and watching shows of their choice. Those days seem so far away now.

"So," he asked his wife the other night, "What do you want to talk about?"

His daughter, who also has been without power since Sunday, stopped by to check on him. With three small children, she said, it's getting challenging to feed and bathe them and keep them occupied.

The biggest challenge, she said, was the financial burden of eating out.

From the back seat a small voice begged to differ. "No … Wii,'' her 5-year-old son corrected.



Hartford Courant Articles
Hartford Courant, 285 Broad Street, Hartford, CT 06115