Doing Without
No power, no computer, no lights, no hot water, no refrigerator, no air conditioner, no television, no elevators, nothing resembling normal. That's a slice of life when severe weather tramples infrastructure.
We are used to a functioning electrical system in our homes and work places. A bad storm can interrupt what we're used to in ways that range from nuisance to dangerous.
No flushing toilets, no way to keep a perishable lunch from spoiling, no traffic lights at a busy intersection, no way to pump gas.
Those severe storms last Friday night in the Washington DC area blew through in less than two hours but as I write this exactly 72 hours later, a couple hundred thousand people in the area are still without power, more than 100 intersections still don’t have functioning signals, many businesses are still closed and at least 22 people have died.
We take for granted that a light will come on when we flip the switch and there will be safe dinner or a cold beer in the refrigerator. We are slapped into reality when those things don’t happen. Our lives depend on electricity and computers for nearly everything. It is scary to think how vulnerable we are in so many ways.
We are used to a functioning electrical system in our homes and work places. A bad storm can interrupt what we're used to in ways that range from nuisance to dangerous.
No flushing toilets, no way to keep a perishable lunch from spoiling, no traffic lights at a busy intersection, no way to pump gas.
Those severe storms last Friday night in the Washington DC area blew through in less than two hours but as I write this exactly 72 hours later, a couple hundred thousand people in the area are still without power, more than 100 intersections still don’t have functioning signals, many businesses are still closed and at least 22 people have died.
We take for granted that a light will come on when we flip the switch and there will be safe dinner or a cold beer in the refrigerator. We are slapped into reality when those things don’t happen. Our lives depend on electricity and computers for nearly everything. It is scary to think how vulnerable we are in so many ways.
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