I am back on the internet again
After 15 hours without power and 24 hours without phone service; I am back on the internet blogging and flickering. Power was lost to numerous individuals in New York State due to strong winds and heavy rain taking down many high voltage power lines. The phone service was lost from a very large Beech Tree that fell on the lines not far from where my owl mist nets were set up. This photo below was taken of the windstream crew working on restoring my phone service. I don’t think they were having an easy time repairing it but its working perfectly now.
After reflecting the evening, I continued to think about the 200,000 people that lost their power in Buffalo almost two months ago. It was only 15 hours but those from Buffalo had to survive over a week without electricity or phones. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before the power was restored but how could I not be concerned about my food in the refrigerator. A few things ended up in the back of my pickup (in the snow) and I just gorged myself with soft ice cream. (Now I need to pull out the treadmill since the power has been restored.)
Backpacking and or going camping, you find yourself prepared for all essentials to be gone. You actually leave to get away from those important daily gadgets that take over your life. I found this to be such bad timing for the numerous wonderful things about to happen. The bird club canceled our field trip to Niagara Falls looking for Gulls (will reschedule this here soon), had to cancel my haircut (starting to look like a shaggy dog) and I almost missed jennimi blogging this site!! Jennimi is a librarian at the University at Buffalo and she also loves her music, teaching, family, nature, and blogging! Please take the time to visit her blog at http://jennimi.wordpress.com.
What I learned is to always be prepared for the worse and I am glad that things are starting to get back to normal. I plan on doing some birding tomorrow and then wait out the next wave of weather that should be hitting us in the evening. – uggg
No power brings me to an early night’s sleep
Around noon yesterday there were numerous Severe Thunderstorm warnings issued by the National Weather Service! Once I got the report; I jumped right onto NEXRAD radar to see what was going on. There were numerous green, yellow and red images moving directly towards Allegany State Park. We started to prepare to notify everyone what was about to hit.
We witnessed rain like I have never seen before! With the ground over saturated, water started to puddle up everywhere!! A fellow worker called me over to her window to show me how the rain was moving sideways. I was just amazed at how the wind was pushing the puddles on the roads like waves on the beach. In just over an hour the rain had stopped with sunny and clear sky. I knew at this point this was truly a goofy day. The sun didn’t last long before the rain started up again but this time it didn’t come down as hard. Streams were rising quickly and we are all concerned that there could be some flooding.
About 3pm the lights started flickering and then you guess it, everything became dark. Things started to became hectic, phones ringing, people talking, ect..!! Didn’t take long before we realized that the power outage stretched further than just the park! Preliminary talk by police was that National Grid is expecting to get everything going again by 8pm (ya right). I needed to reschedule my haircut appointment and then decided to join my parents (who also didn’t have power) for a fish fry at my uncle’s restaurant (who did have power). I truly enjoyed seeing everyone and we had a wonderful meal. But we had no clue what to expect once we got home.
I saw my boss at the police office and decided to stop in to see what was going on. I learned that they had just got the emergency generator hooked up to the Administration Building and that there was a fire going in the fire place. The earliest the power will be turned back on is around 5am in the morning. I quickly went back home and spent a little time with the kitties. I figured that I would grab my laptop and return to the Administration Building to pass the time with power.
Back at the Administration Building there were a few families there who were also trying to get out of the darkness and stay warm. Last October they had experienced the week long power outage up in Buffalo. I pulled the TV out for the kids and we all watched the “Christmas Vacation” movie!! A few employees and myself had some wonderful conversations about what we had experienced throughout the day. I really enjoyed myself and glad that I decided to spend my evening with everyone (and with electricity). I was unable to connect to the internet (to update the blog) due to my phone service being out. So, I decided to head to bed early for once.
I noticed that my furnace started working again around 5:30 in the morning. I woke up with snow on the ground and found temps inside got as low as 48 degrees F. My phone service still isn’t working but now that the state of emergency and the driving ban has been lifted; I plan on going into town to find some phone service to upload this blog.
Update: I called windstream and they told me that someone will check my house by 5pm Monday evening (maybe sooner). I am not sure when I will be able to update the blog again (yes still have dial up).
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 