Hey, the power’s back on.
So as you may have heard, there were massive windstorms in my neck of the woods, causing about 250,000 people (according to BC Hydro) to go without power. I was one of those people. Starting some time Thursday night to around noonish Friday, my appartment building (and indeed, my entire neighbourhood) had zero electricity. Then we had partial power in the building. The lights kind of worked—noticeably dimmer than usual, but good enough to read by—and we had some heat. But no elevators, no hot water, no major appliances and no cable. It could have been worse. As of last night there were still chunks of my neighborhood without any power at all.
It’s been an interesting day and a half. I walked to the mall yesterday, partly to shop and partly to soak in as much sunlight as I could. It was sunny but cold, and the wind was still really strong—what my forebears might call «un vent à écorner les bœufs.» Still, I was grateful for the sun, since I knew it’d get dark very soon. And man, without streetlights it really gets dark.
In hindsight, I really wasn’t prepared for a longer power failure. I had very little food that I could eat without a microwave (thank gawd the nearby Quizno’s had power by Friday evening—mmm, Teriyaki barbecue sub), not enough blankets, and no flashlight. On the plus side, without the TV and computer to distract me (they weren’t getting enough juice), I was free to get most of the way through Foucault’s Pendulum.