We had a blackout last night. The power went out a little after 8, and didn't come back on until 10.30. It was one of Gary's long days at work, so he was on his way home; I had just finished eating leftover pierogis from Easter.
We tested out the emergency radio my mom gave us a few years ago. The flashlight worked great, the radio preferred AM over FM. But, since this happened in Fremont, there was nothing in the news about it. If this were Oakland or San Francisco, we would have heard about it.
We decided to drive, carefully, around the neighborhood to get an idea of how widespread the problem was. Gary had thought the power was only out in our small neighborhood, but as we drove around we realized it extended all the way back to the hills, and from 880/Fremont to Thornton Ave. There was a bad accident at the Fremont and 880 off-ramp intersection. Presumably someone had just come flying through the intersection, not realizing that there used to be lights there (or maybe just not paying attention, since there are signs telling you there's a light.)
The weird part of the driving experience was when we came to areas that had power. It seemed like the gas stations and fast-food places, which is mostly what we saw, had far more many lights on than they needed. It looked almost as if they had turned on extra lights just to flaunt the fact that they could.
Gary and I lit candles at home and hung out, talking about what might have caused the blackout, and wondering what appliances might still work without power (probably our range, we decided, and maybe the hot water heater.) We thought as home owners we should know these things, but we didn't bother to find out (we figured if the power was still off the next day, then we would learn.)
The power came back on around 10.30. Gary played a video game and I watched him until I fell asleep.
I had a hard time finding any mention of the power loss in the area papers this morning. The Argus (our local) had a short article. No one knows why the power went out (which is what I am most interested in.) And I suspect that by the time they figure it out, I will have forgotten that I wanted to know in the first place!
Posted by Jen at April 24, 2003 07:43 AM