Georgia Storm

I laid wide awake after an exhausting day and quickly realized the bedtime tea I drank wasn't herbal.  Feeling perky I called an old friend for a chat, only peripherally aware of the storm flailing wildly outside my cozy apartment.  There was lightening, thunder, gusts of wind billowing out my curtains.  I was describing the thrill of the lightening to my friend when the lights flickered.  "Ooohhh!"  I nearly shouted at her, "the lights almost went out!" my eyes were wide, I was smiling.  Then, as if it had heard me, there was more lightening, the lights flickered again, then darkness.  "Oohhhhh" I squealed and began scrounging for candles.  If my hands had been free I'm sure I would have clapped.  Soft light flickered behind curtains of nearby apartments.  I saw the shoosh of a flashlight sweep back and forth across windows.  My neighbors were awake too!  I felt a comforting sense of community, sitting in the dark listening to the storm, seeing those soft lights barely discernible in the night. 

After hanging up the phone I sat in my screened in porch and watched the lightening light up the white petals on the dogwood trees, bleaching out the pale green buds.  The rain poured hard and the wind splashed droplets across my arms and legs.  We were completely submerged in darkness, no street lamps, no ambient light from other homes or apartments.  Nothing but the occasional lightening.   I always feel a reverence in that kind of darkness, a deep calm, something that makes me more alert, aware, grateful.  Around 2am the tea was still going strong.  I realized I needed to take things into my own hands.  Tearing myself away from the lightening show, I crawled into bed, popped half a melatonin and eventually fell asleep.

I felt surprised when the electricity was still out in the morning.  Life outside my building was eerily quiet.  Now that spring has arrived a chorus of birds sing unabashedly each morning, but not that morning.  I could hear muted distant traffic.  The reality of the electricity truly being out struck me when I tried to take a hot shower.  No power = no water heater = no hot water.  That was one of the quickest showers I've ever taken.  

The true nature of the storm didn't hit me until I drove out of my apartment and arrived at  the light in front of my apartment.  Briarcliff Road is a main two lane thoroughfare.  It was blocked off by barricades and plastic police tape to the south, luckily I was going north.  I was confused though and still waking up from the long night and the double dose of caffeine and sedative.  I noticed through my light haze there was a massive tree laying across the road not far from the front of my building.  Then I took notice, there was almost no traffic and the traffic light was not working.  From that point on all the remaining lights were out, each one treated as a stop sign, nearly five lights in all.  The ghost town became a snake of humanity once I passed Clifton Rd.  Traffic was backed up for miles, all of us slithering along slowly, with each light being treated as a stop sign in the middle of a rush hour.

In the end I was without power for three days.  The storm snapped five power lines in front of my house alone.  I saw a tree knocked over into a house, completely destroying the side of the home.  Main roads, side roads, small neighborhood roads were all blocked with fallen trees.  Yet it was exciting.  On the second night without electricity I felt nostalgic for my Peace Corps days.  I heated my dinner on my gas stove and afterward read by candle light in my small office.  On the third day I was ready for the power to be back.  I was ready to celebrate modern technology.

This tree fell through the living room, snapped and fell across the length of the back part of the roof.  The photo I took showing the damage to the house didn't show up, sadly.  It was shocking.

This was in front of my apartment and the reason we didn't have power.  They had finished cutting and clearning the tree from the road, but the power company needed to come to get the lines back up.  See the dark piece of wood suspended in air (on the left) attached to the wires?  That is the remnants of the power line pole (what is that called?).

Another view of the lines down in front of my building.  That red brick building is my home.