Tag: tranquility

4:13 p.m. Clickety-click. Click. The lights pop off. Back on. Then off again. Click, clickety-click, say the electronics as juice reaches their systems again. I shut off the treadmill’s main switch and turn off the small light in the living room. The lights flicker on and off and on again until, in the end, they stay off.

I should have guessed that today there would be electricity problems. I first noticed the rain mid morning. The sound of it on the snow was a relaxing susurration, but icicles had already started forming around the base of my truck and along the underside of telephone and power wires.

Rain should not be falling in December in Alaska, especially after a week and a half of regular snowfall. The man who plows my driveway was here on the 8th, 11th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 23rd, and even early on Christmas Day! That was only yesterday.

The snow kept on falling. I woke up at about 2 a.m. this morning because his son was shoveling snow off my stoop while he plowed the drive. I was surprised to hear him here so early (and again), but there was enough snow to warrant yet another visit. He must also have known about the predicted rainfall. My driveway is thick once again with white and with the rain on top… Plowing a thick snow layer with a hardened crust must tear up snowplow equipment. I hope he’s staying at home and off the roads today. They must be sheathed in ice.

Just like everything else — including the power lines and the spindly spruce trees.

The last time there was winter rain was about five or six years ago. I cannot remember the exact year, but I do recall that it happened just before Thanksgiving and the trees bent under the weight of the ice and pulled down power lines. A couple of coworkers who lived further out of town had no electricity for up to two weeks(!) that time.

Today, by the light of my hurricane lamp, I pull my headlamp from my backpack and locate the phone book to look up the number for the power company. When there is no internet, an “old-fashioned” book will never let me down. I call in my personal power outage and pull on a sweater. 

Friends and I text to check in on who has power and who is safe. One friend is cozying under blankets. One friend, with power, says I can come over if I feel safe enough to drive. Another friend, also with power, tells me that the official outage map shows 14,000 homes without electricity from Healy to Fairbanks in one direction and to Harding Lake in the other. A lot more than 14,000 people live in that number of homes, including her daughter’s and nieces’ families (and me).

As I sit here typing I realize that many people who are ensconced in their own, full-electricity, worlds may not understand the dangers of living in Alaska without power.

The boiler will not flame on until the electricity is restored, and the water pump will not work either, which will perhaps work to my advantage because if the electricity does not come on before the outdoor temperature starts to drop this evening, I may need to drain the water out through the pipes so if my house freezes there will be less risk of bursting pipes. Of course, I will shut off the pump’s breaker on the panelboard anyway if I have to take that step.

Most, like me, do not have a built-in alternate source of heat. I would love a fireplace or wood stove, but installing one would be too time- and cost-intensive for the kind of home I have. If the indoor temperature becomes too low I will dig a path into the shed to pull out the space heater and the tank of propane so I can stay warm enough this evening to monitor the house and get a restless sleep.

My Internet service is of course down at home, so I cannot access news on the computer. I have no Internet access through my phone, other than Wi-Fi services, which of course are currently reacting as if they were never invented. I opted not to install a landline in this house once I learned that all of the telephone company’s services are fully digital, meaning that when power goes out, so does my landline. Thus, once my cell phone dies I will have no way to call if I need emergency services — and I won’t be able to know if friends will need help either.

The radio also naturally does not work. My mother sent me my 1990s ‘boom box’ last summer so I do have its battery-operated option for the radio if I need it, but I’m kind of enjoying the quiet without a backdrop of an electric hum.

The benefit of the rain — if I put a positive spin on it — is that the temperature is relatively warm. The thermometer outside my front door reads 32ºF, which makes sense because the sky air temperature must be above freezing for it to even rain. The house will hold its temperature so much better than it would have done eleven days ago when there was a negative sign (-) in front of that number.

I mull over the idea of driving to my friend’s house, or to see if a coffee shop is open so I can plug in my phone and have a warm meal. The rain is still sprinkling. The rain has soaked through, making the snow too wet to sweep, as I would normally have done. So, I shovel it off instead. The most recent snowfall has created a ground layer as deep as the bottom step is tall.

Water is dripping down the side of my truck, from the rain as much as from the warming-up truck. I do like autostart. The thick blanket of snow, heavy now with moisture, has started to slide off of the hood in broken-off slabs.

The crusted snow crunches loudly under my feet. I can still push the long snow brush along the top of the truck, and the loose snow falls off the other side. The hardened crust is a roof to the hollowed out snow tunnel I have made. 

After the truck is cleaned off and the windows and headlights scraped clean of ice and slush, it’s time to shovel out the wheels. I do this already knowing that I’m not going to head over to my friend’s. The icy layer atop the driveway’s snow glistens too prettily for a safe drive.

A conical pile has developed around the fill pipe to my heating oil tank. If more snow falls, or falls from the roof above, the pipe might be buried, and if the wet snow freezes over night, I wonder if the fuel truck driver, slated to arrive tomorrow, will be able to access it. Plus, I want to reduce the chance for snow and water to dribble inside. I punch through the iciness around the pipe and smoothly brush away the light snow beneath.

5:30 p.m. My cell phone’s battery just died.

What time will the electricity come back on?

What to do for dinner…? I’m a little peckish, but I’m sure that I don’t actually need to eat. In 2020, 66.7% of adult Americans were overweight or obese to some degree, and surely that number hasn’t reduced much since then. I can go without food until breakfast. Then, again, there is a sense of exciting adventure to having to cook dinner at home on a camp stove.

I set everything up outside, in part because I hear tales of people who perished because they used propanes stoves indoors (although most likely in smaller square footage and more than just one meal), but mostly because I don’t often get to to sit out on the deck in winter — certainly not at these warm temperatures! It’s too bad the clouds block the starlight.

While I stare into the night and listen to its silence, the water starts to heat up in pot. Bundled up in the camp chair the only sounds are the steady whooshing of the blue flames and the intensifying, but muted roil of the liquid.

6:47 p.m. The blue tinted landscape turns a dirty golden as the light on the house across the road bursts on. I can hear the purr of the boiler from the back of my house. I reenter, turn on the stove to boil water for tea, and plug in the phone, which lights up showing 69%. Replying to texts is the next thing I do in case people were worried about why I had stopped in the midst of conversations. A wise friend asked if I have a charger in my truck. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? 

Probably because I was not too concerned at that moment about being device-less. It’s nice to enjoy the view without the hum or beeps of electricity.

Clickety-click. Click.

Two straining flickers and the lights shut off again. The boiler is silent. The cell phone rings.

The power company’s automated services asks if I have had my power restored, and I press 2 for no.

6:51 p.m. I start the truck’s engine and use the charger to boost the phone’s battery up to 100% before returning to the porch and its camp chair. I eat the yummy re-hydrated chicken breast and mashed potatoes with a bread knife and a long-handled spoon while I try to soak up the grey night.

7:23 p.m.  The bulbs brighten and the lights stay on this time, and while I am relieved that I don’t have to worry about the house, I am a little disappointed that I cannot continue enjoying the quiet of the true world. Someone opens a front door and I hear the chatter of a television show through the night. I retreat indoors, closing my own door behind me, and in a matter of minutes, I can, regrettably, barely remember the feel of a natural nightfall.