It was Wednesday, March 8th, I had a dentist appointment that morning and then was meeting Terry for lunch at the Red Lobster in Henrietta. I didn't really notice the winds being that strong on my drive there but I did notice that some traffic lights were out.
During lunch Larry called to say that our power was out. I guess I didn't think too much of it until we left and I got in my car. The wind was howling. The traffic lights were swaying back and forth and as I sat in my car without even turning it on, I felt like I would be whisked off to Oz just like Dorothy.
I called Larry and he was on the phone with me for most of my drive home. The intersection of Jefferson and E. Henrietta Rd didn't have any traffic lights working but all the drivers were very good at taking turns. I was glad to get on the expressway before I had to come to anymore traffic lights. It wasn't until I got close to home that I could see where the problems were in our neighborhood. I had to detour 3 times because trees were down across the road and I couldn't get through. The trees took wires down with them too.
This was the first tree that I saw down on Raphael, roots and all as were most of the downed trees.
Oops, not going to get through this way so I turned around and went the other way on Stony Point Trail.
but when I tried to go that way, I wasn't going to get through there either and as I turned my car around
I watched this tree go down right next to me in slow motion.
Of course, now that we didn't have any power the temperature started to drop too. We went out and took a walk around the neighborhood and when we realized the extent of the damage we didn't think we'd get it back right away. The first night was fun. We had wine and appetizers in front of the fireplace and my leftovers from lunch for dinner.
The next day Larry and I both had breakfast plans and both wound up coming home without having breakfast. It seems like everyone in town without power decided to go out for breakfast too and the lines were really long everywhere. I was in Irondequoit and Larry was in Pittsford. I saw that Wegmans had power so I took my devices and power cords and headed over there. It was packed and the people at Wegmans were wonderful installing additional power cords and extensions in the food court to help out everyone and there was food too. I spent the day there and Larry came over for awhile too.
At night it was wine and appetizers in front of the fire again. I got my Coleman propane little stove up from the basement and cooked soup that we had in the freezer out on the deck. I bought that stove in 2003 when we had the last ice storm so that if I lost power again I would at least be able to boil water for coffee.
Friday morning we used that little camp stove to boil water in the garage and then make some camp style drip coffee. The coffee pot and drip were never used before either.
John brought over their generator that morning since he and Karen got their power back on Thursday and we got our refrigerator and microwave plugged in and hooked up a bunch of extension cords.
I was hoping for some light and heat because I needed to pack and it was colder and darker in the downstairs bedroom where all my clothes were. The next day he was going to install something to do the furnace. Our gas fireplace was keeping the upstairs warm in the meantime. It turns out we couldn't do the furnace after all because it was relatively new and had a lot of safety features.
Saturday as we were camped out again in front of the fire with our wine I get a text from Betty saying how great it was to have power again. We never would have known since we had the generator running unless we would have noticed lights from the outside. We shut off the generator and flipped the switch and kept our fingers crossed. YEA!!!! We had power and HEAT!!!!! What a great day!
Next up, a blizzard was on the way.
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