Blackout 2011

I jinxed us. In yesterday's post, I said that we wouldn't lose power again, "hopefully". I should have said, knock on wood and then actually knocked on wood. Instead of two streets losing power, several million people in TWO countries lost power last night and into this morning. Our power was out for about 10 - 11 hours yesterday. In the grand scheme of emergency situations, it wasn't all that bad. Hot, yes. Worrisome, a little. Especially when the SDG&E guy said that it could be as long as 3 days for some people. We would've been alright without power for about 2 days but after that, we would have been out of food. We're supposed to go to the commissary tomorrow. We're not big on stocking up. Frankly, I barely have enough room in my kitchen for one week's worth of groceries.

We also have a boil water advisory. They mentioned that in the press conference last night too. I assumed that would have been lifted this morning when the power came back on but the lady at Jack in the Box told us that the health department told them not to serve anything made with water "until further notice". We don't have bottled water because we have an under-the-sink water filtration system that filters our tap water. So, we have to boil our water for now. No biggie.

Due to the fact that we lived in hurricane alley for three years, we have emergency stuff. We have a battery powered lantern with backup batteries, an emergency radio that runs on hand crank or batteries if you have them, and we also have a freak ton of candles but that's mainly because I love candles. Unfortunately, when you're burning that many candles for light with many varied scents, you end up with a headache.

We also had company last night for the blackout. My neighbor and her husband work at the Navy base downtown and couldn't get home because of the traffic. Fortunately, I'm on their emergency list and was willing and able to pick their daughter up from the youth center for them. They didn't get home until 9 last night. That's how crazy the freeways were. People said they saw people backing down the freeways to get out of traffic jams. Sheesh.

Today, power is back on but most traffic lights haven't been reset and they're either off or flashing. I would say the majority of people are smart enough to know that you treat intersections without traffic lights like four way stops. However, we saw an idiot bonehead totally blow through an intersection without even slowing down. Wake up!! We plan on going out sometime today and buying more batteries, some unscented candles, and a case of bottle water if we can find any. Call me crazy, but I don't trust the power to stay on at this point, lol. Counting the first day of school when the high school lost power because it rained (not because it was an electrical storm but literally because of the rain), we've experienced some sort of power outage three days in a row.

Ironic thing:  Yesterday was the Mister's birthday. As soon as he had finished unwrapping his Madden 2012 for the PS3, the power went out! Hehehehe. How rude is that??

Oh. And I totally would like to thank Twitter and all my San Diego tweeps for keeping me informed and for the laughs.

And to the asshats who were charging double for water and bagged ice, you'll get yours and I hope you rot when you do.