Stormy Weather, Part II

Electrical power is back on after about 36 hours of none. After another dark and stormy night, a few minutes of gale force winds (or so they say) from the ocean whipped across Humboldt Bay, Eureka and Arcata here on the extreme northern coast of California, on Saturday morning at 9:30 or so. Trees were downed, and so were power lines. The central transmission capacity for the entire county was damaged. Suddenly something like 60,000 people over an area close to the size of Connecticut didn't have power. In addition to the basic transmission, many substations and power lines to neighborhoods and individual buildings were damaged as well.

In the meantime, there was some flooding--some quite dramatic, as a storm surge happened at high tide and brought in wave ten feet high. That flooding was the most temporary. There was river and creek flooding, but not as severe here and in Napa and Sonoma counties to our south.

But the downed trees, the mudslides, closed most roads for awhile. New Years Eve was a bad day to try to get in or out of Humboldt. By today most of the major roads were open (and we use "major" loosely up here.) Power was gradually restored to parts of Eureka and Arcata. As what wan sunlight there was disappeared for the second day, we watched the lights go on just a block away. So close and yet so far. But an hour or so later, they came back on here, went off again, and so far have stayed with us. It's pretty calm out there right now, with only showers predicted for the next few days, while southern CA gets hammered.

However there are small mountain communities and more isolated places in the county that are unlikely to get power for days and perhaps weeks. Many small communities had problems with water because of electricity needed for pumps. We at least had both water and a gas water heater. The telephone also worked (the only time in recent months I wished for dial-up again) but again, some rural areas didn't have phone service either.

So we had a candlelit New Year's Eve, seated around the fire, just like we hadn't planned it. Some folks apparently went on with their parties, but don't know much more than that---I'll have to wait for the local newspapers to catch up (their power being out, too.)

We found we were not well prepared but not badly either. We had plenty of candles and flashlights. Enough food in the refrigerator to concentrate on eating before it might spoil, but the insulating properties of the fridge kept things pretty well. The load of firewood we got this year came in handy; we usually don't use enough to warrant a new supply but every few years. The oak burns fast, but the slower burning madrone was still not dried out. Once the fire got hot enough, we could dry a madrone log on the edge of it, and then it would burn.

I've been more than skeptical about our culture's headlong rush into dependence on very vulnerable technologies and their fuel, however wondrous they may be. Making your entire econony and communications system dependent on microwave technologies that can be totally disrupted fairly easily seems like madness. Now they're talking about moving just about everything on the computer hard drive---including word processing and the operating system itself--onto the Internet. That's nuts.

But through my own laziness, I got my share of rude surprises about our vulnerabilities. Even though my laptop could function minimally and for an unknown amount of time on battery, it turned out that to use the DSL connection required electricity for the router. Though there's some backup there, it's very little. So I was completely offline.

Because our gas furnace uses electric motors for the fans, it shut down. Even the gas oven couldn't be operated without the electric sparker, though the stovetop burners could, with the help of a match and fast hands. In my apartment in Pittsburgh just about a decade ago, when the electricity went out, it meant no lights. The gas range (made in the 1950s or perhaps earlier) worked perfectly. The gas radiators kept heating the apartment (it was worse in the summer, with no fans or a.c.).

Plus, I could count on at least a half dozen if not a full dozen of local radio stations to keep me informed of what was going on, why and when, with a simple transistor battery operated radio. Hereabouts, there are no local stations---I mean NO local stations--with regularly scheduled local newscasts. There are a few public radio stations that try to pass on information. We could pull in one, but there was no telling when they'd have something to say. Another local station (commercial one) had a news update on the storm at the top of the hour---exactly the same one, which by the time I heard it, seemed to be 12 to 24 hours old. But that was never disclosed; the time was never mentioned. All of our "local" commercial stations are completely canned, as automated as a robot infested auto factory. The only thing local about them are guess what the commercials.

Apparently there were emergency broadcasts (a state of emergency for the county was declared Saturday) but I never found any, except the Caltrans station with continuously repeating road reports.

This is an earthquake prone area. Sooner or later we're going to get a major quake. It's going to be a real mess.

People were helpful, however, and shared whatever they knew. A few stores in Arcata stayed open on Saturday with their own generators: notably the hardware store and the food Co-op. I got the only substantive information on what happened Saturday from other customers at the Co-op.

We also had another New Year's Eve adventure, but another time...