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You never really understand how much we rely on electricity till you have to face a blackout. It was a really unprecedented one. The afternoon started as any other day: I was working at my computer, and we had some guys pouring some concrete in the backyard. As I was getting ready to pick up Keegan at school, I realized we did not have any power. I thought, at  first, that the guys did something to cut the power off. I then realized that the whole house was out, and as I called Sharon next door, that the whole neighborhood was out. During my whole drive to Keegan’s school, I did not see one traffic light working.My cell phone was working intermittently, but my land line, and corded phone, worked great. So I guess it was worth keeping a relic hanging on the wall.

At school, we exchanged stories about the black out and listened to the radio. This being San Diego, there were comparisons to horrible catastrophes, like hurricanes and tornadoes, but, all exaggerations aside, we did find out that the black out was extensive, stretching from western Arizona to the coast and from Orange County all the way to Baja California, Mexico. WOW, this is more than 7 millions people without power. Cars were stalled, and traffic jams were horrendous, so a few of us decided to wait it out a little, and have our kids play outside school for a while.

Fortunately, the roads we were driving were pretty open, so both Matt and I made it home quickly. We gathered candles and powerful LED flashlights and got ready for the night. I was mainly worried about the food, since I had been grocery shopping the previous day. Keegan, while amused by the novelty, was not too happy because he could not see his many little toy cars and therefore play with them, and proclaimed “I don’t want another blackout ever again”.

enjoying watching his huge shadow on the wall

After Keegan went to bed, we settled in, had a nice candlelit dinner (how romantic) and started watching a movie on the portable DVD player….before we both crashed. Fortunately the power came back on around 2am, so it has only been 11 hours, but what was more disturbing was the cause: while inquiries are underway, it looks like ONE guy, in Arizona, changing a malfunctioning part on a transmission line, had cause all this, including the shutting down of the nuclear reactors in San Onofre. Pretty scary thought…ONE guy cuts power to 7 million people, and none of the safeguards worked…

the dramatic headline the following day

The next day, we hoped for a return to normal…no suck luck. Keegan’s school was closed, and so was mine, as it turns out. Don’t ask me why: they are both private schools. So that meant scrambling to find something entertaining to do, but also that my last day of work and end of class, had to be postponed to Monday. Not fun. At least we managed to spend a good, if tiring, day together. We played and we went to the Science Museum. It was not as crowded as I thought, especially considering the two for one  offer and we had a great time playing around the different exhibits.

following his daddy’s footsteps…will it be a water resources engineer?

In the afternoon we got our flue shots and obligatory ice cream and finished the day reading stories, deeply grateful for the bright light that was illuminating the words. Of course we all made plans to stock up our emergency kit, for real this time, and of course nothing has been done… YET. But with fire season just around the corner, it may not be a bad idea.