In our very rural area, the only public utility is electricity. Water comes from wells and homes have septic tanks, not a public sewer hookup. No natural gas lines come out this far, either: home furnaces are fueled from individual fuel oil or propane tanks that are refilled periodically by tanker trucks. Storms equal rain (or snow) and wind, which bring down trees or branches, which land on power lines, and that’s all she wrote. Our homes run exclusively on electricity, which means that no power equals no water since the well pumps run on electricity. There’s also no heat, no cooking (except in the fireplace, since no gas stoves) and no light. Gets ugly quickly. If you’re prepared with water, battery-operated lamps, food, firewood and heavy clothing, you can get through a winter storm, but the key is being prepared.
On the bright side, this community is awesome. The social networks get buzzing immediately: whomever has power has everyone else over to shower and get warm and do laundry and charge devices.
And the best part has everything to do with dumb luck, since we didn’t know enough about rural life when we bought our home to have chosen its location on purpose. Quite the opposite, actually: the fact that it is on a main road actually concerned me when we purchased it, mostly because I was worried that the kids would run into the road when they were younger. However, it quickly became obvious to us that “main road” equals “good” out here in the boonies. The municipal garage is just up the road, so ours is the first road plowed (assuming we can get down the driveway to it!) But what proved to be the definitive advantage to our location is that both the police station and the fire station are near that garage. All three of those key municipal facilities are on the same power grid, which (by that dumb luck I mentioned) we also happen to share by proximity. Which means that every time the power goes out around here, the first priority for the power company is this town is our grid. Which means that right now, while literally 97% of our town is currently without power according to the power company's online outage report map, I am typing this in my warm kitchen under a light that is not battery-operated. Am I lucky? Yes. Am I grateful for it? Hell yes. Am I ready for spring? More than you can even imagine.
My brother lives in a rural area in California, all electric home and he invested in a generator, has had to use it several times, can at least have electricity, and other modern conveniences. You just never know what can happen...
ReplyDeleteMany people here have them too, Vicki. Some the whole-house variety, and some the portable kind that will keep a fridge cold, run a heater or two and keep a few lamps on. The first type are really expensive, but a godsend when power is out for days!! The portable ones are a lot less expensive, but tend to have more operational issues, plus they run on gas, so to keep them going you have to have multiple full gas cans stockpiled before a storm. All in all, it’s enough to make me want to move to San Diego and take my chances with the earthquakes.
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