Temperature has been slowly dropping to -25F (-29C) here in Alberta since New Years and my husband and I were just saying how thankful we were that we did not have to do any of the things we had planned to if the power went off. We did not have to shut off the water, drain the lines and tank, and retreat to the building with the woodburner. We did not have to heat the water barrels to thaw the ice that they had become, nor did we have to cook over the barrelstove or the barbeque while out in the snow, dressed in multilayers of clothing.

We have had wonderful weather this fall up to Dec 31, but if there was a storm with much snow/ice/wind, we would still be looking at that same scenario we had planned for Dec 31/99. When we moved into our house in Jun/99 the neighbors told us they did not remember the last power outage. Within a month we had two outages lasting 3 hours each and a dead phone for 6 hours. We just never know when potential disaster may hit. And it is not a disaster until it hits you!

For now, we are grateful we only have to go out to take the garbage to the bin and can hide warm and toasty, but if the wind picks up, we will get a little tense until it dies again.

-- Laurane (familyties@rttinc.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

Thanks for sharing!

-- David (Me@mine.edu), January 03, 2000.