It's still cold here. February is the month everybody loves to hate. March at least gives unkept promises of spring, but February doesn't care enough to even do that. February laughs at you and gives you another helping of slush.
There's often a bit of a thaw at the end of January that reveals the new and enlarged cracks and potholes in the road, previously filled with ice and snow. You spend February driving through them. Bleh.
The other night was a typical cold night. The daytime high was -5, windchill around -12. At night the base temperature went down to -9. The rooms at the Motel are built of simple woodframing. The insulation was put in 30 years ago at least and has been wet several times since, which makes it largely useless. The windows are single panes of glass in old wooden frames. The heat is provided by electric baseboards. And the power went out.
It went out at 5:30 pm. It was restored at 2:00 the next afternoon.
About half of the rooms were affected. When I found out about it my mind went down the rows of rooms, filling in a map of names of people. Thinking about how most of them live alone, many have physical illnesses. One woman said it was too cold to sleep, even with somebody to snuggle with.
I wondered why they didn't phone us for help, but then I realized that the phone system, one of those "dial 9 for an outside line" deals, probably didn't work if there was no electricity. And at least one person I knew had a cell phone, but had run out of minutes on her phone card and couldn't afford to top it up until payday.
I thought about the fact that our town has an emergency plan that might have provided overnight stay in a hotel for some of them. About what we could have done to provide hot meals for people, with the network of friends we've built in the community. I felt badly about all of that.
I would have loved to help.
But - the awesome people at the Motel did what they always do. They coped. They did what they could and then waited.
Everybody seems to have come through alright.
The problem turned out to be a panel that had to be replaced, costing the management thousands of dollars. Don't know yet what the fallout from that will be...
r
There's often a bit of a thaw at the end of January that reveals the new and enlarged cracks and potholes in the road, previously filled with ice and snow. You spend February driving through them. Bleh.
The other night was a typical cold night. The daytime high was -5, windchill around -12. At night the base temperature went down to -9. The rooms at the Motel are built of simple woodframing. The insulation was put in 30 years ago at least and has been wet several times since, which makes it largely useless. The windows are single panes of glass in old wooden frames. The heat is provided by electric baseboards. And the power went out.
It went out at 5:30 pm. It was restored at 2:00 the next afternoon.
About half of the rooms were affected. When I found out about it my mind went down the rows of rooms, filling in a map of names of people. Thinking about how most of them live alone, many have physical illnesses. One woman said it was too cold to sleep, even with somebody to snuggle with.
I wondered why they didn't phone us for help, but then I realized that the phone system, one of those "dial 9 for an outside line" deals, probably didn't work if there was no electricity. And at least one person I knew had a cell phone, but had run out of minutes on her phone card and couldn't afford to top it up until payday.
I thought about the fact that our town has an emergency plan that might have provided overnight stay in a hotel for some of them. About what we could have done to provide hot meals for people, with the network of friends we've built in the community. I felt badly about all of that.
I would have loved to help.
But - the awesome people at the Motel did what they always do. They coped. They did what they could and then waited.
Everybody seems to have come through alright.
The problem turned out to be a panel that had to be replaced, costing the management thousands of dollars. Don't know yet what the fallout from that will be...
r
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