It's been since Thursday night (about 9:30 pm) since we've had power in South Nashua. The First night wasn't too bad, since the house was still warm. But by morning things had changed significantly. I got up around 8:00 am to check on things. When I got to the back side of the house, it was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G!! At first thought, I figured it was just because that was the addition that built on a crawl space and abutted the garage. But as I stood in the hallway assessing the situation, I realized I was feeling a fast moving draft. I opened the door to my son's room to find him missing , and a large tree limb through the window. There was glass shattered and scattered everywhere! I was glad to find my son fine and sleeping in the basement, and no squirrels in my home. I guess the limb had broken through the window at 6:00 am, and shattered on his back. He just got up and brushed it all off, and moved to the sofa in the basement. We spent that afternoon clearing tree out of the room, the glass out of the sash, and securing it with a storm window, and some plastic. We then closed the door to his room, and the mudroom to keep the rest of the house as warm as possible.
When we went out to get something to eat at 1:30, we found the main road to all the restaurants and mall, packed. Apparently, most of Nashua was without power and looking for someplace to stay warm or eat. The fact that it was about 20 degrees outside didn't help matters!
We kept a blazing fire to keep us at least above the freezing point for the day. When I picked up my husband from his trip to California, that night, I updated him with the news. I'm not sure which is worse, my needing to deal with everything on my own, or his having to come home to the great news - Welcome home, honey! LOL . We decided to go out to dinner at 9:00 pm just so I could get warm, and we could have something to eat.
Fortunately, on Sat, my father called to tell me, he had a generator we could use. We went to pick that up, and got the furnace working by mid afternoon. When our thermostats came on, they all registered somewhere in the 43 degrees mark. It took us a good 12 hours before we were above 60. On Sunday, we were able to bring some more electricity into the house. Now we have limited power for a computer or two, internet access, a crock pot for cooking, two lights , our fridge, and one TV for getting updates on the news. We were hoping to hear we should be getting power anytime soon. But it turns out, there are 300,000 clients of the 500,000 PSNH clients without power. Some complete towns without power, so we are probably a bit lower on the list. There are three other electric companies in NH w/ similar reports.
Losing power is like losing your right hand. Most every solution we come up with, requires an alternative for using power. For instance, we have a camping stove we decided we could use inside to cook on. However, they warn about carbon monoxide poisoning. "No problem, hon," I said, "We can turn on the fan over the range to uptake the carbon monoxide."
" Good idea," my husband responded. That lasted about five minutes, until one of us remembered you need power to turn on the fan!
We've had hot water all along, but the thoughts of washing my hair, and sitting in a cool house with wet hair, hasn't exactly thrilled me. I finally washed it today though, and unplugged the fridge to dry my hair. It's all in your priorities, and level of tolerance - I guess!
* A list of existing real estate foreclosure (bank-owned) and short sale listings in Nashua, NH and other communities you select.
