Do you ever feel like the world's turned upside down?

Here in the South, I'm sitting in relative comfort listening the coverage of the massive blackout hitting the Northeast US and Southern Canada. I'm glad that it doesn't appear to be caused by terrorism and that (so far) people seem to be taking things relatively calmly. I hope that holds. I wonder how some people I know in New Jersey and New York are doing. I'm not sure if my cousin is still in Pennsylvania, or if he'd be affected. But here's to a safe blackout without rioting, etc. Our multi-day outage from February is still fresh in my mind (ice storm, if you haven't been reading). I had been one of the lucky ones without power for only a day, but it took awhile to get everyone back up, with power workers coming from out of state to help. Of course, those were downed lines at issue. This seems to have been a rolling cascade, but a quick one (such a large area out in about 3 minutes!) I was surprised that one hospital in NYC required generator to be brought in from outside. I guess I'm used to our building, which has fuel oil and generator capacity for several days, food, water, etc. laid in at all times. Of course, we're tiny by comparison, so it's easier to plan. We've got a plan for just about everything. The one thing I don't think is written up in the policies is what we'll ever do if we have a chemical spill or airbourne pathogen and we've sealed up our rooms, broken out the playing cards--and then realise there's nowhere provision for using the bathroom (I guess we pee in the plastic box all the supplies are kept in). Before you laugh, consider that the overwhelming majority of people in the hospital are female). Yeah. I know. I think of these things in the shower. But back to the disaster at hand.

I first heard about it when I was about to leave work; one of my co-workers was called by her son, who had be watching CNN. I realise that New York is a very major city, but I was tired of hearing only about NYC, so I went online to see what was going on in the rest of the cities that were affected. The CBC posed a somewhat insipid question of 'how are you being affected by the power outage in your area' which leads to a forum for discussing memories of other outages, tips for coping, etc. Insipid in the sense that most people affected won't be able to respond, and judging from some of the replies, many of those who are away from the fray couldn't care less. Still, there are isolated pockets of people reporting and some genuine humour (my favourite: 'it's my daughter's fault--I told her not to touch that wire'. :)

Another weird thing is the bizarre weather they've been having in Europe. They're saying 3000 people may have died in France. I was reading one BBC story about power outages where they did an oops and said the temps were near 90 degrees C in New York and Canada. That's Fahrenheit, of course, really, and thank goodness. Temps in Europe are running near 30 degrees Celsius, into the 100s F, and it's got to be miserable. Believe me, I do sympathise. Back in the 80s I spent an excruciating summer in the Midwest, in southern Kansas, where the temps topped 100 F every day for over 60 days. My mom cooked on a Hibachi in her swimsuit. It was awful, and people were dropping like flies. The state and cities were giving away fans and air conditioners, especially to the elderly, who are more sensitive. I had moved to Kansas from the California desert; it was hot but dry. Here in Kentucky (and in the other states I've lived in, Louisiana and South Carolina) it's the humidity that will get you. The other day I was able to open up the apartment without trouble. Today is very muggy, and going without the air conditioning messes with my asthma. Hard to believe, but I don't really remember air conditioning growing up. I know in California we didn't have air conditioners, we had water coolers that worked through evaporation on the tops of houses. Even thirty years ago, most houses here didn't have central heating or cooling, and my mom and I were always the type to run around with the windows of the car down rather than cranking on the AC. But at least we have consistent hot, muggy weather. For those people who are experiencing a once-in-150-year (or for those with the power outages, maybe a once-in-30-year) bit of unbearable heat, good luck, run cool baths, and wear as little as possible.