Clean at last!

[LiberalEsto]

The power went off in our neighborhood 48 hours ago during our area's first major snowstorm of the winter. I'm in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC.

It came down 2 to 3 inches an hour, dumping 10 inches of heavy wet snow. That morning we had light snow, followed by freezing rain. The roads were horrible. Biggest commuting mess ever - the federal Office of Personnel Management sent out notice of permission federal employees to leave early, but didn't stagger the departure times like they do every day to help prevent commuter gridlock.

There was utter gridlock. It took some people as long as 14 hours to get home. Trees were falling from the weight of the snow, pulling down power lines. When my husband rode home from work on Metro he found more than 200 people waiting as long as 45 minutes for buses that never came. About 90 buses got stuck in the snow. He walked to a local road and caught a bus, but it went 500 yards and got stuck. He started walking the 3 miles, stopping to help push stuck cars and help 8 other men lift a big tree that fell across the road. He finally got home to a dark, cold house but he was lucky - it only took him 3 hours.

The first night wasn't too bad, since the house stayed around 60 degrees, and we had two cuddly dogs in the bed. We used matches to light the gas stove. Dave stayed home Thursday to shovel out the driveway and help an elderly neighbor with his driveway.

Last night the inside temp dropped to 50. Our local utility, PEPCO, is rated one of the worst in the U.S. for outages and response, and it wasn't giving out any information except canned messages that most people would have power by 11 pm Friday. The local radio station was getting hundreds of angry calls about PEPCO, which was hours slower than other electric companies in the region to make snow plans and call in repair crews from nearby states. Local elected officials were raising hell with PEPCO too, because this was the third major outage in about the past year that they had messed up.

BUT the power came back around 1:30 this afternoon, as I was sitting in the car with the heat blasting so I could thaw out.

And half an hour ago it finally got warm enough to shower. So after walking around bundled up like an Inuit I have finally shed my grungy clothes and HOORAY I'M CLEAN!

[Howler]

1. WOW!!!

You have been through the ringer LiberalEsto!
Welcome back to civilization.
Thank goodness for Pups on a two dog night.:hi:

[japple]

2. Been there. When I lived in the NC mountains, we would routinely lose

power during blizzard, sometimes as long as 3 days. We had a kerosene backup heater so we didn't freeze, but not having water was the biggest problem. We were on the town sewer system, but got our water from a well, so we always to keep 30 gal. in case of emergency. My husband made coffee amd cooked simple things on the BBQ grill and I even tried once to make oatmeal over a candle (chaffing dish).

That squeaky clean feeling is the best! That and when your house finally gets warmed, the snow melts and you start to see crocus coming up in your yard.

Glad you're back to normal.

[Kookaburra]

3. Nothing like nice warm shower when you've been

cold and dirty. I'm glad your power is back on, and I'm glad you're warm again.

[elleng]

4. Hey, LibEst, left Silver Spring Thurs. after 18 hours w/o power,

found nice warm motel in Laurel, will try to return today (Saturday.) Fingers crossed!

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Oooooh.....

being without a warm shower is no fun at all. :( Previous ice storms and hurricane aftermaths made me realize I would not have done good in the pioneer days.

:hippie:

A warm shower is what I missed most, so I'm so glad you got to take one and feel clean again. Yay!!! :bounce:

Every day when I shower I express gratitude and say blessings, wishing other souls who want such a thing (a nice warm shower and other basics we take for granted) can experience it.

Stay warm. :hug: