Just a short post today – prompted by a couple of power outages for various reasons here in Belize lately that have made me really aware of how heavily dependent on electricity our modern world really is! The power cuts since November have been for a variety of reasons: Hurricane Iris and other weather phenomenon, a fire in central Placencia, a cut cable … ah, well ….

The first really big blackout I remember was that of 1965 when most of the northeast US and much of Ontario was blacked out due to a power failure at the Adam Beck Power Station in Niagara Falls ON. I was at a Girl Guides meeting at the Copetown United Church. The Guide leader got out the candles, we got on the phone to our parents and they picked us up. In those days, the telephone lines worked – no cordless phones or cell phones – these were landlines!

Initially, when we lived in New Delhi there was occasional “loadshedding” as it was called there but the increasing modernization we saw over three years resulted in regularly scheduled “loadshedding” and the schedule was published in both the Times of India and the Hindustan Times. Unfortunately, I am not sure that a) those doing the loadshedding were able to read the schedule and b) there weren’t those that were VIP’s or VVIP’s who ensured their neighbourhoods were unaffected. Our neighbourhood got loadshedding so often that it was 3 or 4 times a night. That sounds innocuous, one should sleep through those times, right? Well, no. At the peak summer months of loadshedding there was also the peak summer months of heat and pre-monsoon high humidity. Opening windows was not an option since New Delhi air quality was not good in those days (it has improved immensely even if still problematic at times), especially at night when there were often wood or charcoal fires fouling the air. We also did not have central air conditioning. Each room had its own split a/c which produced cool air in summer and could heat in the cool of winter. We also had a generator – a big, noisy thing that required a manual start (by the chowkadar – who often slept through the event), regularly ran out of diesel fuel and would run only one a/c. However, each room had a ceiling fan that could be manually turned on. On the other hand, our incoming electricity came on three input lines and when measured they provided anywhere from 180 – 320 amps rather than the 220 they should have been. Not long after we moved in, they installed a stabilizer unit for each of the incoming lines that worked on a weighted balance system, kathunka, kathunka, and provided a reasonably steady 210-230 amps – needless to say, our computer was plugged into a constant voltage transformer and a surge bar!

When loadshedding occurred I usually was alerted by the sound of the generator going on and got up and went around to the bedrooms to start the fans in each one that had gone off with the power supply. Toddling back to bed, I might get an hour or two’s sleep before the generator going off again not only turned off the fans but alerted me that someone had to go around and push the little green button on the box going to each air conditioner to restart that air conditioner. That was to keep them all from turning on at once and blowing the fuse box! Luckily, years later when we moved to Chandigarh, somebody had hooked up the fans so that they, if left on before the power went off came back on with the generator as well as a rolling start system to the air conditioners so they started one at a time. For the most part, I was the one who appreciated the new system as the old one had exhausted me in New Delhi: I often say that Sahib could sleep through an atomic bomb going outside his bedroom window so you know who did most of the turn on/turn off duty.

I don’t recall many power outages in either Austria or Jordan – if they existed, they were minimal! Although there was one power outage that we rejoiced in while in Austria: the ice storm of January 1998 that knocked out power as well as closed roads, schools, and places of employment in Eastern Ontario for days at a time – including my headquarters in Ottawa that was not heard from for several days!

However, while we were in Jordan, my youngest and I went to Ireland for a month while Sahib visited his father in Canada in 2003. Our original plan was for the three of us to drive to visit my brother in Tarsus, Turkey – we had our visas for Syria and Turkey and were all set to go when our plans changed. Not being keen to do all the driving through Syria and Turkey, let alone with a 17 year old daughter, I called my mother and asked her if her passport was valid and would she like to join said daughter and I in Ireland on Tuesday! She immediately made plans and joined us for two weeks. The day of her departure from Dublin airport was timed perfectly so that she would be on her way and an hour later we would pick up middle daughter, joining us for the second two weeks, on arrival. As we took Mom to the counter, we found her departing plane – no explanation – was going to be a couple hours late but middle daughter’s was on time and we had reservations for a weekend some distance from Dublin. Mom said she did not mind a bit and to be on our way, so we did. Little did we know until later that her flight was delayed by more than 12 hours due to the power grid failure (especially at Toronto Pearson Airport) that blacked out a good part of north east US and Ontario.

I think the longest I have ever experienced being without power was during the New Brunswick Ice Storm of 2017 in January of 2017 when we were without power for 34 hours in Sackville NB. Our house was a 2 story, with attic, high ceilinged house. We were heated by gas but without a pilot light, our heat went out. Luckily, our gas stove could be hand lit so we got out all of our flashlights, closed the kitchen-living room door and hung blankets from the two open doorways to the breakfast nook and “back room” as well as the (large) open pass through to the back room and got some warmth. Having lots of quilts handmade by my mother otherwise kept us warm and we hunkered down.

I must admit, we have become more and more wired up and power outages, loadshedding, rolling blackouts remind us that this is so. Our cordless phones don’t work, our internet is down and cell phone coverage is iffy. We do have a solar powered radio that lasts for short bursts and is useful at such times. Otherwise, flashlights and candles are always to hand and our house if full of books …