Friday Night Without Lights

Did you get hit by a storm Friday night? Our area sure did!

It seemed to be a spectacular day for weather throughout the "mountain west" region. Thursday I had some hint of what was coming-- my desktop weather app had a severe weather warning posted for our area. (It was a high wind advisory.) By the Friday morning drive to school, the radio stations were warning us about dust storms and 50 mph winds and lots of snow in the mountains. The Tucson radio station we listen to was pleading for people to stay off the roads in general later in the day. (We get massive car pileups on the I-10 & I-8 during dust storms.)

I even had a little talk with the kids, preparing them for the idea that there would be a storm later that day and reminding them that it was possible that we would lose power. (My kids get panicky every time there's a power outage. I thought a little advance preparation would help keep them calmer should it happen. Hah!) At the time I thought I should make sure I knew where our lanterns and flashlights were when I got home and that everything had working batteries, just in case. Of course, I forgot about it five minutes later.

Friday evening when Terence was at work, B & K & I went on a little walk around the neighborhood, hoping that maybe I could convince my random contractions to become regular. It was a little chilly and breezy, but nothing seemed terribly unusual. I figured that wherever the storm hit, it wouldn't be our house. The walk didn't do anything to get labor going-- just made me stagger around painfully-- so after I put the kids to bed I climbed into my own bed, thoroughly disappointed.

But what a blessing that I didn't go into labor that night!

I woke suddenly shortly after midnight-- the storm was assailing us full force. It sounded like a tornado going through our neighborhood. And then the thoroughly predictable happened-- the lights flickered and the power went out. I had just a moment to thank my lucky stars that all the children were asleep and hopefully wouldn't notice at all.

Then all the smoke alarms in the house went off! I didn't know I could even move that fast anymore. I leaped out of bed and hurried to the other side of the house, knowing that the kids would be terrified. By the time I got to the kids' rooms I could hear high-pitched screaming and sobbing. Terence had gotten to the boys room first and he was trying to calm J down and getting K out of the crib. B stumbled into me (it was pitch black dark, remember) and clung to me like she was drowning. I couldn't find M in bed (scared me for a second) but finally found her scared stiff and frozen like a statue in the middle of her room.

All this time the alarms were still going off and the wind made it sound like our roof was going to go tearing off at any second.

Terence had found one of his flashlights so we had a little light. I took K from him and led the kids to the living room, debating whether it would be better to take them outside into the storm (and away from the alarms) or stay out of the wind and cope with the nerve-shredding alarms. I compromised by opening the front door and herding the kids into a little huddle by the screen door. It let in a little light (precious little) and it was about as far from an active smoke alarm as we could get.

I got uncomfortable standing there pretty quick. Pregnant belly, holding a shaking 2 year old, with the three older kids hanging on me. The living room couch was covered with folded piles of clean clothes (I had attempted to catch up on the laundry earlier) but I threw all that work to the wind and scooped all the folded clothes off the couch and into a basket. Then the kids and I all huddled together under blankets on the couch while Terence attempted to get the smoke alarms to shut off. Every once in a while they would go quiet, only to have them start up and blare at us again. Finally, Terence realized that when they would start up, the first one to go off was always in the girls room. So he attacked that smoke detector relentlessly with canned air, and eventually all the alarms shut off.

Blessed quiet. Oh, except for that pesky storm going on outside. As soon as the alarms were off, then the kids started worrying about the storm destroying our house. Finally, the wind eased up a bit and Terence found our lanterns. We got the kids calmed down and tucked back into bed. But that didn't mean Terence and I could get back to sleep. Unfortunately, with no power Terence's CPAP (he has sleep apnea) wouldn't work, and Terence couldn't get to sleep well at all. As for me, a good block of sleep is difficult nowadays anyway, but it was especially hard to get comfortable and shut off my brain that night.

The power came back on nearly five hours later.

I'm so grateful we don't have to do without power very often or for very long periods of time!!