Surviving Mother Nature.

(A recount of how events unfolded on October 12 & 13, 2006)

Thursday, October 12, 2pm, UB North: The first flurries of the season. Normally this is the time to rejoice, admire the beauty of the snow, and a nice time to get your winter stuff out of the basement. But this year, it came so early, that no one had really prepared themselves for the snowfall, let alone the events that followed.

5:15pm, UB Commons: The first sign that things were going wrong. Power gets cut off at the Commons. Not an uncommon occurrance, but it has rarely stayed off for more than an hour. Headed off home.

9pm, 122 Sundridge: Just finished dinner. Watching a movie based on 9/11, when the lights go out. Had spoken to Dell Customer Service earlier (another blog on that experience will follow soon) for some problem on my laptop, and thus had just charged the computer and the phone. Really needed all that battery now.

10:30pm, Sundridge: Heard that 88,000 homes dont have power. Expected back by 2am. Went off to sleep.

Friday, October 13, 4am, Sundridge: Woke up. No sign of electricity. By now, even the house had started to get a little cold. Back to sleep.

8am, Sundridge: Mayank came back. Had left for work, but there was a travel ban and they werent allowing any cars. Nothing to do, no where to go...might as well catch up on some reading. Managed to find an old radio and tuned in for latest updates.

10am, Sundridge: Seeing more cars going out of the parking lot than coming back, we decided to give it a try. Took a while to get his car out of the parking lot, got stuck at times, but once we were on the road, it was much better. First halt at Tops to get some food.

12:30 am, Delta Sonic, Maple and Niagara Falls blvd.: An hr and a half wait for gas, made a bit easier by watching the antics of the chaptas ahead of us figuring out how to use the gas pump. Headed off to school to access the net, and back to Tops to get some candles. By now it was around 380,000 households without electricity, and a travel ban across neighboring counties. Even the I90 was closed a 100 miles, and backed up for 7 hours. Power expected back sometime Monday, maybe later.

3:30pm, Sundridge: No way the electric stove was going to work, so made a meal the american way - using the grill. A bean burger lunch would have tasted good even otherwise, but this time it was even better.

5pm, 143 Callodine: Somehow this house had power. Must ask Sharvari, Apoorva and Manjari how they managed to patao the bijli company into giving them electricity. But that was good for us, managed to get news and charge the phones.

6pm: Left for Rochester, to meet Candice. Roads were clear, and could easily reach there in just over an hr.

10:30pm, Rustic Village, Rochester: A nice dinner at PF Changs, but that can only keep you awake for so long. Shut eye!