Thundersnow Incapacitates Washington, DC; Hundreds of Thousands in Power Limbo

Silver Spring, MD., Jan. 27-Power restoration estimate: it could be Sunday before our power is restored, according to secondhand news posted on a listserve and relayed to me by someone with an iphone. This may not be the most reliable way to get news, but it happens to be the only way at the moment.

Sunday? That's three days away. This is utterly ridiculous. Where are our public officials?

The results of my efforts to connect to the internet are inexplicable. I can publish on this site but I can't access certain other pages on the same site. I can't access either of my email accounts.

Silver Spring, Md., Jan. 27-Back at Borders, there's a fleeting promise of internet. The walls of the bookstore are lined with adults sitting on the floor with laptops on their laps. For me, pages almost load, then disappear. The tease is frustrating. But my need for connection with the outside world is intense, so I keep trying. I need to let writing clients know of my potential inability to submit work for the next who-knows-how-many days. More than that, I crave connection with people whose spirits are not "under the weather" due to the weather.

Even my cell phone failed in this storm, though it was fully-powered just before the storm struck. It looks at though moisture invaded the screen but I am not sure how this happened as the phone was comfortably tucked in my purse up until I tried to use it and discovered that it wasn't working.

I was feeling incredibly optimistic at the start of the week. I painted the hallway walls and was hoping to complete the project with a touch of paint to woodwork. Painting requires moderate temperatures, not the freezing conditions in my house right now.

Potential employment opportunities are awaiting my resume- but all of that is trapped in a dysfunctional computer handicapped by internet service idiosyncrisy. Several writing projects were underway, but without an internet connection, I can't complete the research or submit them.

Not only are the positive projects just out of reach, there are the demands of a houseful of snowbound family members to contend with. The very worst aspect of this power outage is the lack of reason for hope. We have no information about how many freezing days and nights we made have to endure without lights, hot water, or other trappings of civilized life.

Silver Spring, Md., Jan. 27- There are several tree limbs down in the streets of our neighborhood. The coffee shops are packed to capacity with "powerless" refugees who abandoned their cold, dark homes for warmth, light and power outlets to plug in their laptops. We tried 3 coffee shops to no avail before grabbing the last seats in Whole Foods café.

Public internet doesn't work here though, so if we hope to connect with the world outside our snowbound neighborhood, we'll have to go out and compete once we finish our drinks here. Refugees from one of the other coffee shops just informed me that internet service is not functioning there, speculating excess demand is the cause.

The main roads are clear to the pavement, while side roads are coated in ice and slush. The sun is shining, melting the snow. The snow total is barely six inches. Anywhere but here, there'd be no fuss, just business as usual.

Oh, yeah, this is business as usual in the nation's capital. A flake falls, panic prevails. Government and businesses shut down in anticipation of snow-induced gridlock, flooding the streets with drivers who create gridlock. Schools closures and state waivers of minimum school days due to excess snow days are taken for granted.

And power outages? I imagine utility officials rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of holding the entire national capital region captive. They have the power, both literally and figuratively.

Silver Spring, Md., Jan. 27- It's afternoon the day after a powerful thundersnow struck the national capital region, forcing hundreds of thousands of households (up from 25,000 last night) into darkness and cold. Commercial establishments selling nonessentials from dog biscuits to party dresses received priority power restoration while area residents face a second day without electricity.

Even potentially life-threatening emergencies don't upset the warped power balance of who gets electricity and who doesn't. We notified Pepco at about 8 pm last night that my husband needs a CPAP machine for night breathing and is suffering advanced cancer. His immune system can't handle freezing nights; his continued breathing is at risk without his CPAP. Nevertheless, our household has no power.

This morning we discovered a new potential threat- a wire down from our house and stretched across the road. An impromptu caucus of neighbors was unable to ascertain whether it is live or not because it is buried under ice. But its downing may have coincided with flashes of blue light and rumbling last night outside our house. To Pepco, it's one more report of a wire down; to residents in our neighborhood, it could mean life or death.

After a phone call this afternoon to Pepco, my husband reported back. He explained how the lack of electric power was life threatening for him. The utility's response? The representative said he should go to a hospital emergency room. We're flabbergasted. Besides the fact that it costs a lot of money to go to a hospital emergency room, it's not a shelter. My husband's health is fragile, but he isn't in need of immediate medical treatment. What he needs is a habitat with electric power. But apparently restoring power to sellers of dog biscuits and party dresses is more important to decisionmakers than respecting the lives of ordinary citizens.

Silver Spring, Md., Jan. 26-Electric power is a memory. Five inches of snow paralyzed the nation's capital Wednesday, bringing traffic to a standstill. Area school districts pre-emptively shut down for the day, after two inches overnight and threats of minor late afternoon accumulations spooked decisionmakers.

At 7:30 pm, lines of cars are backed up with nowhere to go on Silver Spring's Wayne Ave.

The night's cold threatens to freeze ground slush, making roads impassable. Or are they impassable now? No one is sure, because they're so backed up, there's no opportunity to test the theory of passibility. Plows have yet to appear. In past storms, local governments have held back on plowing until the storms abated. That appears to be the case today, though I can't be sure without internet or television news.

Even the kids know not to ask whether there will be school tomorrow. The answer, of course not, is obvious to everyone. Snow and snow day are virtually synonymous in this snow-averse region. Municipal ineptitude is a given.

The kids asked me to cook dinner early, anticipating that the electricity would abandon us. There's no good reason for the electric power to go out in this relatively minor snow storm; but Pepco does not operate on the basis of any reason. It's a malevolent and malfeasant company immune to learning from experience. For years, this pathetic excuse for a power company blamed its frequent outages on the big bad tree conspiracy. The trees, it would have customers believe, launched assaults on Pepco's wires, rendering the behemoth utility impotent.

Just before the power went out this time, the president of Pepco announced on television that Pepco has made big strides since last year. Last year at this time, we were without power for five long, frigid days. How well must a company perform to beat that record? Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, our power went off, consigning us to the company of 25,000 Montgomery County neighbors already in the dark and without heat.