It’s called a “micro burst” when the sudden storm hit at 8:24 p.m. [July 22] and we lost electricity here. Even the emergency lights didn’t work so I was grateful for my flashlight even though it was flickering. I was safe in my bed just listening and talking with God and letting him know how grateful I was to have a roof over my head and I was dry and comfortable. I really noticed the silence and took advantage of it and the calmness of it all. By 2 a.m. I was curious enough to call the fire department to find out anything I could. National Grid was working and wouldn’t stop until power returned. However their instruction to call National Grid directly to report outage was fruitless even though I tried to reach them. Computer prompts were the only means of communicating and they weren’t working to accommodate human beings so I gave up and went back to bed.
Thank you God for my Stroke Buddy, Paul. He was the only one to call and check on me. I assured him all was okay only to learn when we hung up that my electricity was again not working. Thus the silence put me back into sleep mode until 6:30 a.m. when I used my microwave to cook breakfast and again around 10 a.m. to heat water for my cup of coffee.
Outside at the round table courtyard I saw a few tenants sitting and joined them to learn what I could. As I made my way to them I flung the broken twig branches to the side so that no one would trip in the walkway. Their words confused me, such as “Pole” as I was looking at street light poles, flag poles and my pole that holds my bird feeder. That wasn’t the “Pole” they meant. Their meaning was different from my perception. I was looking for vertical poles but they meant the outside light, left of our apartment door jamb.