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After Ike: Life without power

Mike Mitchell - 9/20/2008

Life without electricity is more than a minor inconvenience. It means being cutoff from normal communication sources (fortunately we had a battery-powered television). It also means that you cannot easily get ice to preserve food (rather than toss it out, I grilled up 10 pounds of chicken that had thawed out and handed it out to neighbors – they seemed to prefer the tequila chicken to the barbeque breasts).  Thank heavens I’m a good Texan and almost always have a full tank on my grill, because there’s no power to pump propane right now either.

It also means there’s no power to pump gas, so when you see a random station that has power, a line around the block means they have gas. If you don’t see a line, it means they’re out. On Monday after the storm we saw a Chevron station open not far from our house. There were actually two police squad cars and a handful of officers on site to ensure order. I had heard from a neighbor that the police were enforcing rationing. Unless you were leaving town, they limited cars to 10 gallons and SUVs and trucks to 15.

One amenity we had during this was hot showers. We have a natural gas water heater so my wife could do dishes and try to keep things relatively clean in the house.  Of course, without the air conditioning, I mostly took cold showers to keep from overheating. Thank heavens we also had two battery-operated fans – those really helped us keep our cool.

The weather was one of the few blessings throughout all of this. We had a cold snap after the storm and the temperatures were unseasonably cool.  Truth be told, it stays warm down here until around the last week of October. Around Halloween we usually get some nice, cool autumnal weather (but we also know we’ll get at least one or two more heat waves before the calendar page is flipped for November).  The weather that week was actually pleasant, dropping to about 59 degrees a few nights.  We actually needed a blanket to cover up with once or twice. 

Another nice thing was that we did make more of an effort to meet our neighbors, and to help them out.  My brother-in-law drove 250 miles into Houston to get my brother and his wife (she’s ill and the conditions there were not conducive to her health). On his long drive, he stopped to bring in 50 pounds of ice, which was a blessing to us and our neighbor who needed some to keep her insulin chilled. I fully expect that we’ll be a lot friendlier on our block, even after things return to normal.

Right now I’m in East Texas and tomorrow morning we’re driving back to Houston… and uncertain conditions. The big tree has been removed from where it leaned against the house, so that’s good.  However, my neighbors tell us we still don’t have power, and neither do my wife’s parents. So we plan to grab as much ice as we can before we get back there. We’ll also grab a few batteries for our flashlights, TV, and fans.  I’ll also probably go back to work and try to balance rebuilding with a job and Hawgleg.

Although I expect things to get back to normal, I’m also aware that it could take some time before “normal” is what it used to be.

By the way, as a gamer I can't help but imagine what this situation would be like if you threw a horde of zombies into the mix.  It keeps crossing my mind...

SCENARIO ONE: There you are, on an island that's flooding from a hurricane (idiot that you are, you stayed to ride it out), and the graves wash open and the dead rise from the swollen tide and begin to hunt down the people who stayed behind.  Now, these are a fairly hearty lot, and resourceful... but could even they survive the storm and the walking dead?

SCNEARIO TWO: The storm is over, city services are all but decimated. No food, no ice, no water, no fuel... and here come the dead, ready to feast on you!

As I said... just some random thoughts from a gamer!

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