Hurricane Isaias brought a tropical storm that ripped through my town and in minutes, did more damage to our electrical grid system than Hurricane Sandy. Most of our community—made up of about 60,000 residents—went at least three days with no power, and many are still facing a week until theirs is restored. This power outage was particularly challenging because it occurred during the COVID quarantine and we couldn’t just pack up and go to stay with family or friends who had power.
Once we heard our power was estimated to be out for a week, I quickly booked the last available room at a pet-friendly hotel. The fear of going to a public place with the kids during COVID is terrifying but so is the idea of being home in a 100-degree heat wave without air conditioning. LUCKILY, we got our power back early and we didn’t have to go through the stress and anxiety of checking into a hotel.
When the power at my house came back on last night, I cried. The kids quickly checked in on their old “friend” Amazon Alexa, requested music and began dancing to their favorite song. We made it! And we made some memories along the way! I’ll always be grateful for this experience and want to share some tips and fun experiences that the outage brought into our lives.