Our town got hit pretty hard in the recent ice storm. Power was knocked out throughout the region as ice-covered trees and branches pulled down power lines for miles around. The storm came in on Thursday night and we work up to a dark house on Friday morning. Not only was most our town without power, but the power cables had been pulled from our house as well. I went to work on Friday and I managed to contact an electrician who came out over the weekend to re-attached the electricity service entrance to the house where it had been pull loose.
Friday night we drove to Maine and stayed with Dorothy's Mom, and on Saturday through Sunday we stayed with Dorothy's Dad for a weekend we had already planned. They both had power at their houses, though Maine had not gone unaffected. I had spoken to one of my brothers on Saturday and he updated me on the rest of the family. All five siblings were without power, and my sister and her family had moved in with another brother who was running on a generator. The rest of us were making due with candles and wood stoves. Sunday we drove home to Massachusetts, ever hopeful that service had been restored.
So we got lucky, at least for one day. Power was on when we got home on Sunday, and even the Internet came back not long after our arrival. Considering many of our neighbors were still without, and all of my family in NH was (is) still without, we felt pretty lucky to be back with heat, water, lights... all those good things. Well, apparently that was just a teaser. Monday afternoon Dorothy came home to find the house dark again! Our street has power, but we and our two adjacent neighbors do not. To make things worse, the town has been notified by the
power company that they are pulling out of Westford to focus on areas where they can have a bigger impact. Our little stretch of three houses is not going to be a priority and it will be at least the end of the week before we see the crews again. So we have a fireplace and some wood, some bottled water, and a car battery with an inverter to power some lights. Still, the kids love watching the candles, and we even roasted marshmallows in the fireplace the other night. We're a little lacking on the conveniences but we're going to make it through just fine.
Today I surveyed the branches in the yard. Besides the pile of branches that took down the power, and one large branch that narrowly missed our shed and fence, things don't look too bad. There is plenty of timber on the ground, most of which was the pines and not the maples. I'll be having some fun with the chainsaw this week, but at least there was no real damage to our property. So we camp indoors in for a few more days and spend time together as a family. It's going to be nice.
-Josh
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