H Two Whoa! (Woe?)

Well....
Woke up on Monday with no running water, no cable, no Internet connection and hence no phone. Since I work out of my house, that put a bit of a cramp on my business. Managed to get some work done over cell phone.

Not sure how much rain actually fell, but it was a lot, with high winds easily gusting over 40 mph. Started Sunday, kept up overnight. The rain woke me up twice during the night. The rain! Monday it was full on non-stop. Heard that Mt. Washington saw winds over 150 mph. The big problem is that they came from the NE. The observatory was built for high winds but from the NW. This meant that they had one heckuva time closing the doors after each observation.

We were much better off then many of our neighbors. Next door a tree tore down a power line that was draped across their drive. The evacuated for a few days. I think the power line is still there. The local school was closed with no electricity, as was large portions of the town. Driving more than 8 miles in any direction led to detours around washed out roads. Evidence of multiple downed trees everywhere. We had no water as the pump station that pumps water from our community well was out of power. We did have electricity though. Thank God for small favors.

This morning I made that shift from expecting to be rescued to realizing that it could be a while and we'd better start making adjustments. First order of business - drinking water. So a trip to the closest grocery store got us 9 gallons of potable water. Next item - let's see about flushing the toilets. I grabbed a 5 gallon bucket and started making trips across the street to a small (now not so small) stream to haul water to fill the tanks. Dang. You don't really realize how much water you need to run an American house for a family of four until you have to haul it into the house in 5 gallon buckets. Next item - how 'bout washin' them dishes. More 5 gallon buckets to heat on the stove.

This afternoon all was restored. It was a good experience all in all. Very instructive for the girls. Makes me appreciate running water and septic even more. One could argue that civilization has been built on water and sewer. What is one of the central things that separates the developed from the undeveloped world? Easy access to clean water. Try running a country without it.