It's a good day...

So....here I am, coming home from work early Friday morning. I get off of the Rocky Neck Connector off I-95 and roll past Rocky Neck State Park. All is lit up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I turn onto Giants Neck Road and damn.....no street lights. Looks like another day in the dark. As I come thru the S-curve, I see an oncoming vehicle. But it is not moving. It has these pretty yellow strobe lights on it. Lo and behold....it's an honest-to-goodness Connecticut Light & Power line crew....2 of them!! I stop and look up at the one lineman in the bucket finishing up on some wires. I look at one of the linemen on the ground and after saying "good morning" I asked, "Will Giants Neck Heights be getting its power back this morning??" And he answers, "It's a good possibility." I say, "Thank you for your efforts. Good to see you this morning." As I head home, I stopped at the 3 locations where trees had taken some wires down. The trees are all cleared out but the wires still dangle in place. I think, "Well, maybe later today." I get home and try to go to sleep, occasionally looking at my alarm clock to see if it is lit. I'm like a kid on Christmas morning, anticipating the great event. I finally zonk out.

At about 6:15am, nature calls and I wake up. Soon as I figure out my orientation in the bed, I turn over and look at my alarm clock. The time is blinking. I turn on my lamp on my bedside table. It comes to life. A very happy feeling comes over me and life is back to normal. And then in the same breath, I feel guilty because my 2 brothers in Glastonbury won't have power back until Tuesday evening. Well, maybe if they are lucky, it'll come back sooner.

So I take care of nature and crawl back into bed. I think of that nice hot shower I will have later in he day. And then start to think of what I need to get to restock the fridge. But all in due time. Sleep beckons.

Electricity. An amazing phenomenon whose absence has pretty much led in the news both in print and media this past week. May the rest of the hurricane season be a quiet one.

Thanks to the crew from CL&P for getting my lights back on. Many thanks to all of the crews from out-of-state for your help. I’m sure we’ll return the favor down the road.

The Aftermath

So, for the first time in 20 years, we had a hurricane. Irene. At first, it seemed like we were gonna get wacked pretty good. A Cat 2 storm marked down to a Cat 1. Some people were thinking the winds weren't all that much. But looks can be deceiving.

I was told to report to the TV station for Sunday afternoon. But considering that the storm was picking up some forward speed, I decided to come in on Saturday night. And at 10:30pm, I went on the clock and by the time I left at 5am, Irene was making her presence known.

Very strong winds. Curtails of rain. The rainy version of the big snow storm that hit last winter. Got totally drenched going from my car to the hotel room. And the hotel lost power over night.

Sunday morning, it is still quite windy as Irene is now heading into northern New England and the backside of the storm brings the winds back up. I'm back at the TV station at 2pm for 9 1/2 hours and by the time I left at 11:45pm, things were a lot calmer but not by much. Still no power at the hotel but that didn't matter. All I needed was sleep. And that I got.

Monday morning brings abundant sushine and I could not get home fast enough. I turn onto Oakwood Road and there's my house...still standing and lots of small branches and leaves littering the yard and driveway. Found one large branch that came down and took out my 2 ham radio wire antennas. Checked Mom and Dad's beach house and pretty much the same thing minus the big tree branch.

So when the tally was done, there was no electricity, no landline phone, no cable TV, no Internet. Just city water. And enough hot water for at least 2 days of showers. The contents of the fridge will be a loss. Connecticut Light & Power and AT&T say service will be back on Wednesday. Metrocast says cable TV and Internet will be back hopefully by Thursday. It amazing how spoiled we are with these modern conveniences. Too spoiled if you ask me.

So it's cleanup time for most of the week. I'll post some of the pictures here so you can see what transpired.

Anyway, check out the pictures. And say a prayer for those who lost loved ones.