Historic Weather Event Feb. 15 and 16

We were so happy when it started snowing late in the evening on February 14th.  Everyone was outside their houses even at 11pm!  BUT, little did we know how hard things were going to get.

How it looked outside the morning of February 15th.

Where we spent most of our day on February 15, since the power kept going on and off all day long.  It never stayed on long enough to get any good heat going.  We decided to just turn off our central heat because it didn't seem good for it to be going on and off so much.  There was nothing we could do about our refrigerator.  Thank goodness for our gas fireplace.  We at least had a relatively warm place where we could hang out.  

This wouldn't have been bad at all except most of the time we had no internet - not even data on our phones.  We could text, but not much more.  Sometimes we were lucky to catch a time when it seemed data was working but that was rare.

Dinner on February 15th

Power was now coming on a lot less and for way less time.  It went off for good at 10 that night so we had no heat all night - on one of the coldest nights ever.  It was maddening.

How it looked outside on February 16th

There was still no power when we got up this morning.  We turned the fireplace back on and warmed up there a little before venturing into the ice cold kitchen to get some breakfast.  After breakfast, we basically just vegged on the blanket (which was now on top of a gymnastics mat) in front of the fire.  I was down now to wearing a jacket and a cap when away from the fire.  At 12:20, the power came back on.  We SCRAMBLED!!  Not sure how long they'd be giving us, we rushed to make coffee/tea and heat something up for lunch. We also scrambled to get one of our cars out of the garage because the garage door wouldn't work without electricity.  Once getting a car out, we discovered that the garage door wouldn't close back up.  We learned today, after being out there in the ice cold weather for longer than we cared for, that we can manually open and close the garage.  So, that was good.  Finally, we got the garage door closed again.   After lunch, amazingly enough, the power was still on so we risked taking a shower.  Got our showers in!  On this day, we moved the couch to in front of the fireplace.  Excellent move because we were higher off the floor and the back of the couch walled in a lot of the heat around us.  So it was even more comfy.  The power went back off at 5:30 and didn't come on again the rest of the night.

We got a good five hour block of power on February 16th between 12:30 pm and 5:30 pm. but that was all.  The rest of the time we were in the dark and cold.  Guillermo said the power came on for about an hour and a half during the night.

Today is February 17th and we currently are in a block of power. (10:21 am) 

When we got up, it was freezing cold in the house again.  There had been no power since 5:30pm the day before (except for that hour and a half during the night).  We lit the fireplace again and just sat there before deciding again to brave the cold and get something to eat.  While we were eating there on the couch, the power came on (around 9am) so we did the scramble again.  The hardest thing is not knowing how much time you are going to get.  We decided to risk it and also wash a load of clothes.  We got the clothes washed and then they only got 20 minutes in the dryer.  But that's ok.  We have good racks to hang clothes up on.  It reminded me of living in Spain.  I remember those days of washing a load of clothes, hanging them up outside to dry and then 20 minutes later having to bring them back in because it got cloudy outside.  Clothes just didn't dry there if they weren't in the sun.  So, it felt the same.  Little bit of time in the dryer, then take them out and hang them on a clothes drying rack.  

So, it ended up that our power went off at 1:30.  We just hung around on the couch in front of the fireplace after it went off.  We had NO idea if we were going to be allotted an additional amount of time later in the day or not.  We scrambled like happy kids on Christmas morning when the power came back on at 6:30pm.  We were going to try to get a hot dinner in!  So, we had a good dinner in front of the TV in a warm room.  We couldn't believe it when it was time to go to bed and the power was still on.  We decided to even risk taking a shower!  We got our showers in and the power was still on.  Amazingly enough, the power stayed on all night.