TheFranciscos.Net

Storms and Power Outages



It’s a wonder how much of our lives center around the existence of electricity. When the huge “mini-storm” hit our area last Friday, and I found that we didn’t have electricity at home, my first reaction was “Aw shit!”. I had plans to watch the two NBA playoff games (Nets and Lakers won as I found out the next day), finish watching the rest of the Sex & The City Season 3 episodes, and watch Howard Stern’s Stuttering John vs. Crazy Cabbie fight on E!. Needless to say, doing these things involved having the use of a TV, which in turn needed electricity which we DIDN’T have. I was pissed! On top of all that, I couldn’t cook my dinner because we were using an ELECTRIC stove. I ended up eating some Skyflakes crackers with peanut butter. On top of all that, I didn’t even know where I could find candles to light up our place!

After pouting about having my night ruined because of the blackout, Aileen called me up. She was on duty last Friday night when the storm hit. She told me that they were on alert because there was a disaster at Kennywood, a local amusement park. The roof of one of their attractions collapsed due to the strong winds and landed on the riders. There was a person killed and dozens injured (many of them children) and Aileen and the rest of the hospital’s residents were to take care of some of them. All over the city, many people were hurt, and several of them lost their homes. Suddenly, missing a couple of TV shows and not eating a proper dinner didn’t seem so bad.

It wasn’t even a big storm…. the day started out as very nice and sunny. People at work were saying that there was supposed to be a storm that day, but I didn’t really get involved with those conversations because frankly, talking about the weather bores the hell out of me. The only time when it looked like it was gonna be raining a bit was at about 4 in the afternoon, when everybody was preparing to go home. After work, I drove home towards the Pittsburgh area. Sometime during my regular 1 1/2 hour drive, the storm came and went. It was very localized, hitting a small section east of Pitt the hardest. By the time I got home, the storm had already passed. In the span of about 30 minutes, $10 million in damages was done and many people were hurt.

Anyway, we got our power back on late on Saturday night (some hard-hit areas won’t have any electricity until tomorrow). We still have a roof over our heads. Some other people aren’t so lucky. Although it still pisses me off that I missed the fight on Howard Stern (Stuttering John won the fight by the way), it’s times like these that make you thankful for the basic things in life.