Woo hoo! Six floors of 250 apartments of senior citizens who are used to eating out!
As fate would have it, my mom and I were in the elevator with a wagon full of groceries including ice cream, heading to the 3rd floor when everything shut down. After an eternity of 10 seconds or so, the power began flickering, so I punched #2, the elevator stumbled to a stop on 2, and we charged out. It took me four trips up and down the flight of darkened stairs before I got the groceries, the cart, and my mom up to her apartment. Good think I’m not in bad shape.
I checked with my neighbors to see if anyone needed food, but everyone seemed to be OK. The hallways and stairs were totally dark; luckily our old batteries had enough umph left to power our flashlights and my walkman/radio. The power went back on just after it got dark, and in the meanwhile, there was a lot of grumbling going on behind all those closed doors.
We sure are a spoiled lot, we Americans, taking our reliance on electrical power as our god-given right. Of course, Dubya is mouthing a lot of talk about shoring up the power grid. I’m waiting to hear somesubstantive talk about moving away from fossil fuel toward more hydro-electric and solar sources of power. Yeah, right.