...except for the generators!

October has morphed into November without the punctuation of Halloween. The ‘holiday’ was bumped by the Nor’easter that dumped heavy wet snow on the fall display of leaves. The overloaded branches bent the trees over the power lines. The power lines and falling branches and trunks bowed to the ground and snapped. The power went out in a million homes. One more example of Nature’s utter lack of concern for the made-up holidays, daily routine, and puffed up self-importance of mankind. Following the storm Nature brought weather magnificently Autumnal and temperate. Some will see that as a sign of disdain. I stick to my theory that Nature is devoid of emotion and logic, reasonable or otherwise.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the dark, cool houses dealt with the lack of electricity in a variety of ways. There were some people who found somewhere else to go. Someplace where the coffee maker still worked and hot water came out of the shower head when one turned the knob. The power went out in ‘pockets’ and it was possible that a friend, relative, or neighbor who still had juice and might take you in. Calling around to my friends I found there was a great deal of that sort of shifting.

Some people stayed at home and used the Home Depot approach to survival. It is well known that almost any disaster or natural ‘situation’ can be overcome with a gasoline engine. Why use a rake when a leaf blower is available? A shovel or hoe when a roto tiller is only a few dollars away? Lawn mowers, weed wackers, power washers, etc. all take the place of some quieter way to get the work done. I have noticed that many of the homes in our neighborhood have two car garages that are so filled with these types of petrol-powered tools that there is no room for cars. The eighteen horsepower riding mower with the power-take-off and leaf bagger sits inside while the BMW 325i sits outside. And in the very back of the garage sits the ultimate security blanket…the back-up generator!

The back-up generator can be an elaborate built-in unit that has a complex control panel (automatic transfer switch- that will automatically change over from permanent to temp power mode) or, it can be something more akin to a lawnmower without a blade that has a couple of receptacles to plug extension cords into. More expensive installations are quiet and have wonderful sound attenuation insulation. The cheapo lawnmower types have poor exhaust mufflers and no sound insulation. Needless to say most people own the latter type and when the power goes down the crappy generators go on.

In principle these little bangers are great to plug your refrigerator or freezer into for a few hours a day, or to allow you to run the heating system and warm up the house, or have the lights on so the family can read for a few hours before bedtime. But that is not the way they are used. Most people crank them up and run them 24 hours a day until the power comes back on. All night. All day. This essentially turns a minor electrical inconvenience into a disturbing noise fest. Instead of enjoying the quiet of the pre-industrial world (with an additional bonus that includes a brilliant, undiluted display of the stars and the night sky) you get to see your neighbor’s dimly lit homes and experience the irritation of listening to the cacophony of dozens of lawnmowers all night long.

I am sure there are codes that are in place to deal with this, but who is going to be out there enforcing them? No one. And who will be the one to drop a dime on all of their neighbors? The only ones who would do that are the same ones who are uninformed, unreflective and uncaring enough to use these ‘petro-tools’ in this disturbing manner.

How did I deal with the outage, you ask? I work through it. The snow itself was a key element in my survival. I packed up and compacted a dozen buckets of snow and used it to keep my refrigerator and freezer cold for five days. I lost some ice cream but nothing else. I also piled up some snow in a shady place in the driveway as a ‘back up’ supply. The melting snow was also a supply of water to flush the toilets. I set up a rain barrel and the melting snow off of my roof furnished me with a hundred plus gallons in a few hours. We used candles for light and we had flashlights/head light style for reading, and a supply of books is always around this house. My wife’s little transistor radio gave us NPR and some music. I was very happy with the arrangement and would have thoroughly enjoyed the calm five days—except for the sound of the generators.