On February 21st, about 2:30 in the afternoon, I was getting ready to make supper. We were eating earlier, partially because it was easier to cook before the sun went down and partially because we found we were going to bed earlier. We finally did find a used generator to purchase and Hubby got a second one running at his folks house. Everyone finally had power for their freezers, a lamp or two and, at our house, we were taking turns running a little heater and a heating pad for the cats that don’t come downstairs for the warmth of the fire. Most people in our area had their electricity restored which seemed to take the pressure off of the cellular network so we could check the news and the weather without staying up half of the night. Hubby was going into Portland to teach during the days because we didn’t have electricity to run the modem for his job distance teaching during a pandemic. We had taken to wearing hats, gloves and headlamps in the house but, all-in-all, things were chugging along – just slowly. Then I saw it.

There was a white power company cherry-picker in our shared driveway. They were working on our pocket of 18 homes. I didn’t want to get my hopes up but, after flipping off some of our breakers (dishwasher, hot tub, air conditioner) I decided to go for a walk down the driveway to thank them for trying and ask them if they thought it might be repaired soon. Before I got 100′ I turned to look at the house and saw that the outdoor garage light was on – it was 3:01 pm. We had electricity – after 9 days and nights without. I was so relieved that I got tears in my eyes. I tried to run down to thank the crew, but they were off – off to help someone else with their power. We still had no phone service, television or internet but we had lights, and a furnace, and a running refrigerator.

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