Sunday 30 April 2023

The Porcupine Saga, Part 2: When The Lights Went Out, Part 1

Will Harper, Wednesday, July 19, 2028

Another drop of sweat ran off Will Harper's brow and into his right eye. He straightened up and leaned on his hoe while running a finger tip through the eye to get rid of the sweat, reducing the stinging to a tolerable level.

It was as hot as Will could remember it ever being in Inverpen, with not even a hint of a breeze off Lake Huron for relief. He still had ten feet left to weed in the row of beans, and as Co-ordinator for the Community Garden, he felt he had to set a good example, keeping the weeds down in his own plot. So damn hot, though.

He set the hoe down and walked to where his water bottle sat in the shade by the fence. He took a good swig of the not very cold water and splashed the last of it on his face. Somewhat refreshed, he picked up the hoe again, did a quick and dirty weeding of the remainder of the row, and decided that the rest of the plot could wait for a cooler day, hopefully soon to come. He locked the gate behind him, put the hoe away in the barn and set off up the hill for home.

Normally he would have taken the walking path along the river, but he had his heart set on a colder drink than lukewarm water, likely available at a coffee shop downtown. So instead of the path under the bridge, he continued up the park's laneway and turned right onto Queen St. It wasn't far to Inverpen's four block downtown. Something didn't seem right and it took Will a moment to figure it out. The town's main street boasted four traffic lights, all visible from where he stood, and none of them were on. A power outage of some sort was in progress, it seemed. The Community Garden didn't have power, so he had no idea when this had started.

He continued up the street to the second intersection and first traffic light. Traffic wasn't heavy and people seemed to be doing a good job of applying the "treat a dead traffic light like a four way stop" rule, but he paused anyway and then crossed gingerly, not wanting to be the first exception. Huron Beans, a coffee shop that he frequented regularly was only a few doors down on the west side of the street, and he stepped inside.

"Any chance of getting a cold drink?" he asked the young woman behind the counter.

"They're in the cooler behind you," she replied, "better get one while they are still cold—the power's off. And we can only take cash, nothing else is working."

"OK." He picked a bottle of still icy cold Diet Coke from the cooler, and fished in his pocket for some change. "How long's the power been off?"

"Since around three, about half an hour ago," she answered. "And that'll be two fifty nine."

She looked up from the calculator app on her smart phone and opened the cash box that sat nearby on the counter.

Will handed her a looney and a twoney. She put them in the cash box and handed him back his change, then noted the sale on a pad that sat next to the cashbox. "The radio isn't working either," she said, indicating a battery powered radio on the shelf behind her. "Or rather, it is, but there's nothing but static on AM and FM, no local stations transmitting. Nothing from farther away either. Must be a pretty wide spread outage."

"Sounds like what happened in 2003 and 2025," Bill replied, dropping the change in the tip jar. "Which is good, since if that's the case, it shouldn't take long to get things back on, at least around here. Power was only out about 4 hours in 2003 and 3 hours in 2025. Do you know if phones are working?"

"The landline here is working—I talked to the boss about how to set up to take cash and keep paper records," she said. "Haven't tried my cell phone yet."

"I'll try mine, and see if I can find out what's going on." Will pulled his smart phone out of his shirt pocket and called Joe, foreman of the crew at Hydro One that Will had worked on before he retired.

Joe answered quickly with " 'lectrical Maintenace. Joe speakin'."

"Hi Joe. It's Will Harper, what's up with the outage?"

"Hi Will, can't talk long, we're just arranging to turn things back on. Another system stability outage, like in 1965, 2003 and 2025. Way too much air conditioning load, and we're connected directly to Quebec now. They had a hiccup and it took out the whole of the northeast. Gotta go."

"Thanks, Joe. Take it easy," replied Will, but Joe was already gone. To the woman behind the counter he said, "The whole of northeastern North America is out. Should be back on in a few hours, though."

"Good to know. We close at 4, do you think the power will be back on by then?"

"I wouldn't think quite that soon." Will responded, not wanting to make promises his former employer couldn't keep. "Well, I'd better be getting home. See you later."

"Yep, see you too," she replied as Will turned and went out the door.

He headed north along Queen St. and then turned left onto Durham St. The heat was starting to get to him and he felt a little shaky, so he stopped for a rest in the shade on the bench in front of the Post Office. Heat waves had grown much more common these last few years as global warming really started to take hold of things, but usually cold, deep Lake Huron moderated things quite a bit.

But not so much today, thought Will. He fanned himself with his wide brimmed hat and drank his Coke. In a few minutes, he felt better and continued on his way.

"Hey Sue, I'm home," Will called out as he came in the front door. He proceeded through the kitchen and into the living room, where his wife Sue was relaxing on the couch reading a book. "The power is out. Another system stability outage."

"Yeah, I know the power's off. I brought some of bottles of ice up from the freezer and put them on the top shelf in the fridge to keep things cool," she replied. "I would have got the generator set up, but it's just too heavy to get it out of the shed."

"No problem," said Will, "I am heading in that direction now."

But first, he stopped at the fridge. A little mechanical thermometer hung from the bottom shelf and read nicely within its green zone, a few degrees below 40 Fahrenheit. Sue had rearranged things so that the three bottles of ice were on the top shelf and everything else was closer to the bottom. The temperature seemed to be holding well, but the ice would have to be changed regularly if he couldn't get the power on.

"Hey Sue," said Will, "that ice is really working well in the fridge."

"Thanks, Will," replied Sue, "even better if we can keep the door closed."

Will chuckled at that and headed downstairs to the basement, where he opened the disconnect switch for the electric water heater and pulled the plug for the electric clothes dryer. That finished the short list of loads too heavy for the generator. It wouldn't handle the kitchen range either, if the oven and all four elements where on at once. But he preferred to keep open the option of using one or two elements at a time.

Will continued through his workshop and out the back door. He smiled a little, pleased once more that house was built into the side of a hill, the main floor at the level of the front yard and the basement at level of the back yard. A few steps put him in front of the shed where he stored the generator. The wide single step in front of the shed wasn't attached and could be turned 90 degrees and used as a ramp for rolling things in and out. Will turned it around, then opened the shed's double doors and set the near end of the step/ramp up on the door sill.

It being summertime, the lawnmower sat at the front inside the shed, and Will had to roll it down the ramp and set it aside before he could access the generator. Then he lined the generator, which was significantly heavier than the lawnmower, up with top of the ramp, rolled it carefully down onto the grass and over to the concrete pad under the back deck. He checked its gas tank and found it, as expected, full of gasoline. He turned on the fuel valve and the on/off switch, and set the choke lever to "start". In the afternoon heat the generator started on the second pull. He backed off on the choke and it settled down to run smoothly.

Will went back inside and grabbed the heavy, 240 volt, 30 amp extension cord. He plugged the male end into the generator and then the female end into the male receptacle on the wall next to the door. Then he went back inside, closed the generator disconnect switch on the other side of the wall, walked to the far end of the basement and moved the transfer switch next to the main panel to its "generator" position. The lights came on without so much as a flicker and Will smiled in satisfaction. The big freezer sitting against the north wall of the basement, between the laundry area and the shop, hummed quietly.

Will mused that he could have had a permanently installed generator, with automatic start even. But it would have cost a lot more and wouldn't have been nearly as flexible. On occasion he used the generator elsewhere, such as at the Community Garden. With the back seats folded down it would just fit in their little hatchback.

Back upstairs, he found the small freezer working just fine, but the fridge was cool enough it hadn't even come on yet. He adjusted the fridge's temperature controller down a bit and it started. "Everything looks good, Sue," he said to his wife, "Do I need to get the Coleman stove set up to cook supper?"

"No," she replied, "I was just going to cook burgers on the barbeque anyway. How long do you think the power will be off?"

"Joe says another two or three hours. Since it's not going to be a long outage, I think I'll just leave the generator running until the power comes back on. Doesn't use much gas unless we load it up, anyway. The next thing will be how to tell when the power comes back on, since we're running off the generator."

Sue got up and came into the kitchen. "I'll just turn on the radio."

Will turned to watch her switch on the battery operated radio, which was always tuned to the local FM station. There was nothing but static. Oh well, thought Will, they'll probably be back on not too long after the outage ended. But before he could open his mouth to say so, the announcer's voice came from the radio with a crackle and pop.

"Shoreline FM is back online. We finally got our generator hooked up and running. We'll keep you posted on the power outage as soon as we know something more. For now, let's get back to our usual musical programming."

The sound of 80s rock replaced the announcer's voice and Will asked, "Can we trust them to let us know what's going on?"

"Hope so," said Sue. "I'll just finish this chapter and then get started on supper."

"Sounds good to me," said Will, "I'm gonna go check on the neighbours."

Will went out through the front door, and headed south across his lawn and his neighbour's and up to her front door.

He knocked and after a moment she opened the door and said, "Hi Will.The power's out. Any idea how long it's going to take to get it back on."

"I'm guessing before sunset, Joan. You OK in the meantime?"

"Except for the fridge. I hear things start to go off in a couple of hours?"

"Yep. That's what I hear too. I've got the generator going and I could run an extension cord over here if you'd like?"

"If it's not too much trouble, that would be a big help."

"OK, back in a minute."

Will went down to his back yard and into his workshop and grabbed several long extension cords. It took only of a few minutes to hook one up to the outdoor receptacle at the back of his house and run it over to Joan's front door. She was waiting for him and said, "I guess I can leave the door open a crack and just run this directly into the kitchen and plug the fridge into it."

"It's only going to be for a short while, so yeah. I'll leave you to it while I go check on Vicky and the Browns. Come get me if you need help."

Half an hour later, Will had two more cords running from the outdoor receptacle at the front of the house. One to Vicky's place on the north side, and one to the Browns across the street. Traffic was pretty light on Mackenzie Ave., so he didn't worry about having a cord run across the street. The generator still wasn't working hard, even with his house and three others hooked up to it. He spotted Sue on the side deck working at the barbeque and went up the steps to join her. "Any news on the radio?"

"Nothing yet other than an endless parade of golden oldies."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"Could you throw together a salad while I watch these burgers?"

"Sure, no problem."

"I think we'd better eat on the little table out here," said Sue, "it's cooler in the shade of the awning than inside."

"OK, soon as I get that salad together I'll start hauling things out here."

"Things" had included the portable radio, and they were just finishing up supper when the announcer interrupted the music to say. "Word from Hydro One is that maintenance crews will be switching things back on during the next hour or so."

This prediction proved to be true and they had hardly finished cleaning up after supper when the announcer broke in again, "The power is on again. We'll be off the air for a moment while we switch back to grid power."

Standing on his back deck a few minutes later, Will could see clouds rolling in from over the lake, driven by a freshening wind. The temperature had already dropped, a welcome relief from the afternoon's heat. Sticking his head in the door he called out, "Sue, it looks like rain, I'm going to clean up the generator and extension cords before they get wet."

He went down to the basement and switched back to grid power, then put the generator back in the shed away from the threatening rain. He was about to start wrapping up the cords, when all three of his neighbours showed up, cords in hand, coiled up ready to be put away. They had a short chat about the weather and then headed home. Will put the cords away in the basement, then went upstairs to turn on the attic fan and bring some of the cooler air into the house.

Will went to bed that night feeling good about how they had come through the outage, short as it had been. The generator had worked well, and he'd been able to help out the neighbours. It felt like he had things under control. It had cooled down nicely by then, and he looked forward to a good night's sleep—a pleasant change from the sweaty nights of the heat wave they had just come through.

Coming soon, The Porcupine Saga, Part 3, When the Lights Went Out, Part 2,
Will Harper, July 20, 2028


Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

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