Coping in Aftermath of October's Freak Nor'easter

We thought Irene was bad. And really it was. Not for us, personally, since we were fortunate to have only lost power for a day rather than days on end. 

This time around, our neighborhood didn’t fare so well, it looked like a war zone.  On Saturday afternoon, the roads were so bad my husband had to come get me and when we tried to get to our house there was a large tree lying crosswise over the road with power lines decorating it like lights on a Christmas tree. We knew then we were in trouble and got home to no power. We ordered pizza, started a fire and enjoyed the company of our neighbors.

On Sunday morning my husband had to drive me to work. Nurses don’t get the day off due to snow storms and there was no way I was going to try and navigate my way. And good thing it took him an hour and a half to get me about 15 miles from home. Route 17 was a veritable obstacle course. All I could think of was “where does CL&P start with all this mess?”

On Sunday afternoon, we drove around looking for bottled water, since we are on a well and have no running water when we lose power. I would like to tell you that after Irene I had stocked up on flashlights, batteries, bottled water so we could flush our toilets and wash dishes not to mention drink, and other essentials but then I would be lying. I was not prepared for a freak snowstorm in October. Of course I cannot pretend I would have been prepared for a blizzard in January either. I would have made a terrible Girl Scout.

We needed gas as well, so we pulled into a gas station and waited in the very long line. It reminded me of 1979 when there was the oil crisis and the small gas station on New Britain Road in Kensington had lines a mile long. I was only 9 then but I remember that feeling in the pit of my stomach of what is happening with my world?  Being older now, by a few years, I wasn’t really panicking. I wish I could same the same of others. 

My husband and I watched wide eyed as a man got out of his car and started screaming at a man who had pulled up to a pump he was trying to back up to. The man who had, allegedly stolen the space was clearly not in the mood for a fight and quickly threw up his hands and pulled back only to find the other man still screaming at him.

By the end of the week, I was hearing stories of people attacking crews who were trying to work on power lines. That people were truly expending their energy to hit people who were just doing their job and trying to help. I don’t know but I guess it never occurred to these brighter members of our species that the people working in the field didn’t have much to do with the decisions of where they were to go. And I suppose it didn’t occur to them that perhaps the person they were pounding on came from another state and left their own family and warm home behind to help us.

I am proud to say the people I know did not partake in such acts of barbarism. The people I know opened their homes to friends and family if they had power or a generator. The people I know did their best in a stressful and entirely unplanned for event. My husband tried to give the workers on our road a six pack, which they refused so he went out and bought them coffee. 

This, in retrospect, was certainly the better choice for all involved seeing as they were working with electricity. My husband defended himself saying it was for when they were done working. And, of course, considering the number of hours the workers were probably putting in and adding in that they were probably being verbally and physically accosted, a cold beer might have seemed like a pretty good offer.

I had read some posts over the week, most were people complaining about CL&P and their lack of being prepared, their lack of paying other companies who helped us during Irene and their overall lack of helping people in “poor” cities versus getting the "richer" towns back up and running. When I looked at the CL&P grid on Saturday, Avon, Simsbury and West Hartford were still mostly without power while Meriden, one of towns complaining about the lack of response to their needs was down to about 10 percent without power.  

Think of the logistics of getting close to one million customers without power up and running again. Where do you start? I have trouble figuring out what disaster zone in my own house to tackle first let alone a geographic area spanning hundreds of miles. I think they did a pretty decent job. I think they have probably learned a few lessons in the last two months and like any company are reviewing what worked and more important what didn’t.

And perhaps if more people spent less time complaining and more time thinking of way to help the time would go by faster and they might be warm from the inside out and forget about their cold toes and the fact that they haven’t showered for days.

Our friends in West Hartford hosted friends all week thanks to their generator and on Saturday evening were feeding dinner to fourteen people when their power, thankfully, was restored. Our neighbors and some friends had generators as well and called us to make sure we didn’t need anything. I am thankful for them and for the people who worked hard to get our state back up and running. 

Others can spend their time complaining I am just happy I can flush my toilet again.

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