Tuesday, January 29, 2013

I have no power

I have no power and I feel like a complete diva complaining about it given I have at least one close friend and one relative who live right in the middle of cyclone-land and deals with this every year. I know I need to grow a pair, but I want to have my whinge.

I don't mind storms, but I have a real issue with high winds. And on Sunday night the winds were high!
Thank god for kerosene lamps

The lights went out at about 9pm and I decided to go to bed. Then I decided to worry about all the things that could happen like the windows imploding, or something tearing my roof off, or the tree next door falling on me. I didn't get much sleep.

I got up and checked my yard and apart from a couple of small twigs there wasn't much going on there. I felt like a complete wuss. Then I walked down the driveway and saw a tree in my neighbours yard had crashed through their fence.

Then I walked a bit further counted about six other big gum trees uprooted on my block. So I wasn't over-reacting, I was just lucky. Then I got scared of the wind and ran back inside.

I decided to go to my grandparents. I just couldn't sit around the house all day on my own worrying about the second lot of storms that were supposed to hit later that day (they never came, but I still worried about them).

So I had a stressful drive down to the Redlands where I dodged several more uprooted trees, navigated four or five non-functioning traffic lights and was detoured around someone's roof that was inconveniently blocking the road.

Nothing would have made me happier to have stayed there again today, but I had to get back to work. I had planned to work safely from home as I was not relishing the idea of getting stuck in the city while the river flooded (been there, done that). But when I walked in the house there was no power... just a bad smell coming from my fridge.

After a frantic drive around for ice, long-life milk and two-minute noodles I decided to drive into work. I dodged another couple of uprooted trees, went through more non-functioning traffic lights, but gladly didn't come across any more house parts not connected to houses.

As I drove to work I spotted my local power substation... with a tree lying across it. This is possibly the reason I still have no power.

But, my house will not be flooded. I don't have a giant tree lying through my roof. And everyone I know is safe. So I'll suck it up and get on with things.

Thank god for the primus



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