Bouncing Hedgehog

Posts Tagged ‘weather’

Like many people back in December we got hit by a snowstorm which (at least in Clendenin, West Virginia) practically sent us back to the stone age. Just before midnight on Friday December 18 the cable went out. No biggie – the TV schedule sucked anyway. Within the hour the power and the phone followed suit. And that’s where the real fun began.

Fortunately for us we have a log fire and a reasonable supply of logs which meant that we weren’t totally without heat. It wasn’t great – we could get the den up to about 62F – but it was certainly better than the rest of the house which very quickly dropped to 40F. We always have food and water on hand for emergencies and thanks to a camping gas stove we could at least cook after a fashion.

We also have a small radio (also for emergencies) and so we tuned in to try and find out what was happening. There’s half a dozen local stations so we didn’t think that would be too hard. Boy, were we ever wrong. What we needed to know were details of the power outages (and what steps were being taken to repair the downed lines) and whether our area had even been reported as out and of course what Verizon were up to as regards downed phone lines. With the phone out we couldn’t report the power out. Cellphone coverage where we live (a whole 25 miles from the state capital) is non-existent. Read the rest of this entry »