Friday, September 9, 2011

No Power!

5 million of us in the very southern, very western Southwest were without power from about 3:30 pm yesterday to about 3:30 am this morning.  The outage is being blamed on "operator error" at a power plant near Yuma, Arizona.  That error "cascaded through the system"  (I like that description) and left us hot, cranky, stuck in traffic, with spotty-unreliable cell phone service, and evidently it left a lot of people wishing they heeded my father's advice and never let their gas tank get below 1/4! 

We here at Darby's and Pumpkin's Daily were lucky -- Glenn installed a photo voltaic solar panel system on our house several years ago. The system is wonderful in that it reduced our electricity bill by 75% or more, but even more wonderfully, he installed batteries that are constantly charged by the system and supply power to the house even when the electrical grid is shut down as it was yesterday.

So, even in the dark of a regional power outage, we were able to do this last night:

But, some people are never satisfied.  Remember how I mentioned that Darby and I can be difficult?  Even while our solar batteries allowed us to keep up with the news on TV, turn on enough lights to read and cook by, kept our refrigerator humming (unlike the refrigerators in most homes and restaturants) and allowed me to charge my cell phone that didn't work for you-know-what because service kept cutting in and out, I STILL had something to crab about -- that crummy solar system just isn't powerful enough to power the air conditioner.  Can you imagine???


Of course! I am kidding.  The solar system and the man who installed it are wonderful 

4 comments:

Scooter said...

Hey Darby & Pumpkin!
Wow, since you air conditioner didn't work...maybe try licking your mom's hands and feet, then blowing on them! Teeheeeee Cool breeze.
Grr and Woof,
Sarge, COP

MurphyDog said...

Wowza, are you lucky Darby! Mom got stuck in the awful traffic yesterday and it took her 2 hours to go less than 20 miles. She was a little grumpy when she got home.

It definitely made her wise up about a few things! No more letting her gas tank get close to empty (luckily, yesterday was not one of those days), and she's organizing an emergency kit this weekend. She had everything we needed, it just wasn't in one-easy-to-locate spot. Thats definitely going to change!

wags, wiggles & electrified slobbers
Murphydog

Wyatt said...

That is really cool that you have your own solar back up!!
We only have power outages in the winter....we put the food outside in the snow and build a fire in the fireplace!

Wyatt

Boo21's Mom said...

No offense, Sarge, but I think I'm going to keep your suggestion to myself! MurphyDog, it sounds like your mom was one of the lucky ones with only two hours on the road. That was a wake up call for all of us, wasn't it? Wyatt, with my Scottish, German and Polish blood, I think I am more suited for where you live. The power being out wasn't bad at all...the heat was what I hated! We are spoiled here in usually mild, usually don't have any weather, Southern California!