We had a doozy of a blizzard and it's a long story...
Day T minus 1 Tuesday March 18th
School for tomorrow gets called off at 4pm. It's 70 degrees and beautiful outside but all the weather people agree something is coming. We're excited- we'll bake and catch up on movies and do all the fun snow day things!
Day Zero Wednesday March 19th
Around two or three in the morning the blizzard starts. It's a heavy, wet spring snow with high powered wind. We wake up to flickering electricity but go back to sleep. When I finally get up at 8:00 I discover the power's been off for 45 minutes already. No fun snow day things because they all need electricity. Sad. I actually ended up going back to bed because I didn't feel very good. Jeremy and the kids kept busy. They gathered up candles and flashlights, Jeremy started the gas fireplace and Philip and Nicholas built a battery fan to try to move the heat from it a little. Did I mention Sam was home for spring break? He worked on homework until the internet went down. I suppose Julia read. But for you city people, don't forget, in the country no electricity means the electric well doesn't work so we have no water. Normally we think ahead and fill up the bathtub or something but this time we didn't prepare at all. Jeremy used the nozzle on the hot water heater to fill up some buckets so we could flush the toilet. We had milk and juice to drink. The blizzard cleared midafternoon and we could see we were on the higher end of the snow totals that were predicted. We figured we could eat leftovers for lunch, use the gas-powered Blackstone for a steak dinner for Jeremy's birthday and then make it through the night if necessary. Jeremy and the boys headed out to move snow around 4:00. While they are moving snow Jeremy got a call from OPPD our electricity provider: don't expect power until next Monday.
By this time the roads have been mostly cleared, the sun is back out and the temperature is rising but there were hundreds of electric poles that snapped in the wind. Miles and miles and miles between us and where our power comes from. We packed up the fridge food and clothes for five days (including uniforms just in case) and headed to Lincoln! The trip went smoothly except that the bypass was snowed in at the curve. Sam was driving Jeremy's truck (Jeremy drove his work truck because the van was blocked in by snow and Sam's car that didn't want to start) it was a good thing we were in the truck, because we ended up going over the median to turn around and go through town to 77 both of which were pretty much clear. Jeremy didn't take the bypass because he was dropping off Larry the cat at Laniks so he could stay in their garage. As we drove through town we could see the south part of Wahoo was starting to get power back. They have their own plant that supplies the town and some of the surrounding rural area. More about that later.
Day 1 with no power Thursday March 20th
School was cancelled because the gravel roads were still snowy and there wasn't any power pretty much anywhere in Saunders County except Wahoo. So we had a nice time in Lincoln with my parents and Lynn stopped by for a little while too. At 9:00 Jeremy told me he was going try to buy a generator at Harbor Freight before heading north (because Menards was already sold out of them). I thought he was crazy and would just end up frustrated but he got one! So he headed to Wahoo to hook it up and then tried to get to Fremont because he needed to get stuff out of Christensen Field where they were supposed to have had a high school ag day the day before. He didn't make it to Fremont. The roads were mostly clear of snow but there were downed power lines and jack-knifed semis all over so all his pathways were blocked. He did stop at his cousin Michelle's near North Bend because it was on one of the routes he tried. They didn't have power there either. Once he got back to Wahoo our generator started house hopping. It went to our friends in Colon, Father Fleck at the Colon rectory, Steve and Raleen's and Father Townsend in Mariana before making it back to our house on Saturday. Everyone ran it long enough to get some heat in the house, get the fridge and freezer back down to temp and then passed it on.
That night we got the call that St. Wenceslaus and Neumann would have a late start at school but not St John's since there was still no power in Weston.
Day 2 with no power Friday March 21st
With a 10 start we easily got to Wahoo in time for school. I stopped at the coffee shop and then went to the library and joined the work party there. Most of the county still didn't have power so there were people plugged in and working at all the tables. I had conversations with a bunch of people I wouldn't normally see, replanned lessons, corrected papers and got everything ready for whenever St. John's was back in session. I also made a stop at home for all the things we hadn't thought to pack for Lincoln. I had lunch with Jeremy which was nice and then I brought Nick to the doctor because we discovered he had a patch of ringworm behind his ear. I tried calling the wrestling mom nurse and getting the cream without a visit due to the whole no electricity and staying in Lincoln situation but he hadn't been to the doctor since 2023 so that was as no go. We went. (We were right, it was ringworm but he got an oral pill not the cream.) I dropped him off at Lanik's to play with Larry a bit and took Julia to get her car from home before Nick and I headed back to Lincoln. Julia was signed up to work the fish fry and had play practice. It was a good thing she worked the Fish Fry. They decided to offer free meals to anyone still without power- which at this point was still a large portion of rural Saunders County, so they needed lots of help. She stayed at Jen and Mike's after practice so she wouldn't have to drive to my parents in the dark. Where was Philip? Good question. He was at a track meet in Crete. It was combined with the meet that was supposed to be the day before so bottom line, he would be back late. We worked it out with the coach that he could drop off Philip at gas station where they would get off I80 to go to Wahoo. Then Jeremy called while I was in the St. John's fish fry line with my parents, Sam and Nick. He said he'd heard from the coach that the meet was going really long so it would be at least 10 before they'd be heading out. Philip had finished his 58.7 second 400 meters so he was done. (He came in 13th out of 43 competitors! Great job Philip! But seriously, he was there almost 8 hours and competed for less than a minute. Track is dumb.) So after I finished my fish I drove 40 minutes to pick him up. I didn't have anything better to do anyway.
Day 3 with no power Saturday March 22nd
Jeremy and the boys went to Wahoo to clean up Steve and Raleen's yard, helped their neighbor and started on ours. Julia came back to Lincoln from Jen and Mike's that morning. We hung out with my parents, did a little shopping, went for a walk around the neighborhood, checked out a new bookstore in the strip mall by my parents and made a birthday cake for Jeremy. Jeremy and the boys got back in time for a late dinner.
Day 4 with no power Sunday March 23rd
We had a leisurely morning and went to Mass at 9:00. We planned to have a birthday dinner celebration for Jeremy before heading back to Wahoo. We figured we could spend a powerless night at home so we didn't have to get up in time to make it from Lincoln for regular start school on Monday. And then about 2:30 Jeremy got another call. OPPD had restored power in our area...but please call if yours isn't working. I managed to get ahold of a friend who was going to be driving past our house and could check for us.
Running water means that after four and a half days the power was back on!! Yay! We packed up and headed home. Four days of no water makes for a messy house even when you haven't been there most of the time. We promise not to take electricity for granted...for at least tomorrow.
Day 5-6 Monday & Tuesday March 24-25 Most of Saunders County has power...
But Weston still doesn't, so no school for me. I caught up on some housework. Late Tuesday evening Weston finally got power but they advised Father to wait until Thursday to have school so there'd be time to make sure everything was working properly. Wahoo utilities had to replace dozens of poles and then pull wires the 10 miles from Wahoo so Weston was the last town in the county to have power restored. There are still a few rural houses waiting. They say it was a 500 year event. 5th largest power outage in OPPD history and largest ever in terms of damage. So glad I was alive to experience it. Meh.
Day 7 Wednesday today
I'm catching up on blogging before "normal" starts again tomorrow!
Side note: Thomas was in Hastings for the blizzard. They also got hit and lost power but thankfully they were back up by that evening (I believe) so his normal routine wasn't interrupted very much.
