Power FAILURE!!!

This past week has turned me into a new person.  Where once I despised generators, I am now the proud owner of a new crazy-quiet Honda eu2000 generator.  I used to enjoy the power outages, and the peace that came with them.  But this storm and the subsequent five days of no power or phone has broken me.

I am no longer the girl who loves a few power-less days to live a simpler life.  I am also no longer the girl who trusts that our utility will restore power to us in a timely manner.  No longer do I want to be reliant on PSE's power grid for our power.  I'd like some solar panels, a generator, a windmill--whatever we can do.  (This may tie closely into my wish for chickens, and is probably a backward slide of some sort.)  What can I say, it's been a long week.

We lost power shortly after my snow post, and though the snow was pretty and we had fun sledding and playing in it, trying to live 'Little House on the Prairie' in a modern house has its limits. Thanks to our stove, we stayed reasonably warm, and our gas cooktop served us well, but things got very cold and dark in our home.  On Wednesday morning we woke to a freezing 46 degree house!  Not surprising since it got down to 17 degrees that night.

Losing power doesn't frustrate me so much, but dealing with the local utility was very frustrating.  Kitsap County got hit pretty hard with power outages and I've heard that Bainbridge Island probably had it the worst, but our neighborhood was completely forgotten.  I understand the need to restore power to the most people first, and I completely agree with this approach.  And we are frequently some of the last people back on line.  BUT, this time we had a spaghetti tangle of power lines down across our easement road, and laying over several of our neighbors driveways and trees.  The only way in and out of our neighborhood was to drive over the power lines--not a particularly good idea.

I could write pages about our attempts to get help from the customer service reps, but I don't think it would make for pleasant reading.  My 9 year old reads my blog and I don't want to add to her vocabulary with my choice of words.  She heard plenty when we woke up Thanksgiving morning to another cold and dark house after we were promised power no later than late Wednesday night.  With the assurance they gave, and knowing that most of the island was back with power, I charged ahead with Thanksgiving plans, brining the turkey, making the jello (in the snow!) and getting the table cloths and silverware ready.

All of that committed us to Thanksgiving dinner.  So when we woke to no power, we were in the worst of moods, and thinking we would need to cancel Thanksgiving.  Fortunately our guests rallied us, and insisted that a "no power" Thanksgiving could be fun, and if nothing else, memorable.  We cooked our turkey on the BBQ (it was delicious), and used the cooktop and wood stove to prepare the casseroles.  We used paper plates and plastic glasses and it all worked.  The kids even played a huge game of Risk by lantern light.  And it will indeed probably be our most memorable Thanksgiving.

So after Brian talked with our utility again (he may have been more 'assertive' this time), we finally got our power back on around 2 AM Friday morning. It was so nice to wake up to a warm house.  With lights.  And internet.  It was good to be back.

The bathroom after we pulled up wet, ruined floor

Until I went upstairs to grab some laundry and discovered that we had a major problem.

The garage ceiling after Brian pulled out the wet insulation and sheet rock

Our house had been very cold during the week.  We kept our main living area warm, but didn't venture upstairs to the family room above the garage.  Little did we know that the water heater fittings in the bathroom got partly frozen during so many cold days. When the power came on, the relief valve was frozen open and hot water poured out of the tank in the wee hours of Friday morning.  LOTS of water poured.  All over.  In fact, I cannot believe how far water can travel and how much damage it can do.

I can tell you that right now, we have a house that sits partly in ruin.  The bathroom, Em's bedroom, our family room and storage closet are all going to need new floors.  Brian is amazing at demolition (totally a firefighter thing!) and pulled up sopping wet carpets, and ruined pieces of wood floor in record time.  We hauled out damaged artwork, clothing and things we were saving for I don't know what, from the storage closet.  It looks like Emily will be bunking with Sophie for quite some time.

So, now we are embarking on an unplanned remodel project.  Having built our house and remodeled parts of it through the years, we are comfortable with stud walls and carpet-less rooms.  And we know that in the end, we will have a more organized, comfortable space.  The shock, anger, and utter paralysis that overcame me on Friday have subsided.  And now we get to rebuild and move forward, as always.