<p>We were heading south on Monday and my SIL’s 90-something mother did not have electricity in the DC area, so we popped in to make sure all was well. She was fine, but said that she hated to throw out food, so she had eaten four ice cream bars.</p>
<p>LOL, MD Mom. I like the way she thinks!</p>
<p>We finally got power back on Tuesday after 4 days. I found out 2 important things: Hilton Hotel chains accept dogs and my inusrance covered up to $500 in food spoilage. that won’t cover everything, but it sure helps. I don’t know how people lived in this area years ago without AC.</p>
<p>We were very, very fortunate not to lose power. The heat is debilitating. We have a visiting grandchild, and we’re really feeling that our activities are limited by the weather (no hikes for me!). I’m so tired of talking about how hot it is–but at least I can cool off in my house. Next week looks better–in the 80s.</p>
<p>We lost power Friday night, and it came back on Sunday afternoon. We are fortunate to have a very cool basement, so we slept down there quite comfortably on Saturday night. I’ve never seen so many downed trees, big ones.</p>
<p>We lost power Friday evening and somehow, miraculously, it came back on about 24 hours later. Given PEPCO’s past history, I thought it would be 3 days at least. Our neighborhood was just lucky to not get the high winds that other places got. </p>
<p>However, there are still people without power, and there were major intersections that didn’t get power back until yesterday. Cops out there, all day and night, trying to restore order and not get killed. </p>
<p>DC had fireworks, but all the other smaller displays around here were cancelled because they didn’t want to pull police and firefighters away from more necessary duties. </p>
<p>I was helping D1 move from one apartment to the other in the eastern panhandle of WV and luckily, both her apartments had power so we stayed over in one Saturday night. D2’s apartment in Baltimore never lost power either. It’s good to have friends and family close by to shelter with if you need to! We offered several friends a place to stay at our house after our power came back on.</p>
<p>We have dogs too so I didn’t think we could stay easily at any hotel. I read a list of open hotels and none of them would take pets and the ones they listed as pet friendly would only take service dogs. Didn’t anyone learn anything from Hurricane Katrina? People lost their lives because they wouldn’t leave their pets behind. It’s good to know that Hilton hotels will take them. I know that all Loews hotels are pet friendly (and they’re usually quite fancy) and La Quinta is too.</p>
<p>In Virginia now and what a mess in Lynchburg–esp the 24503 area. Big trees down everywhere and still no power for many. Got into the house and it is bad but not too bad. Have a guy coming tomorrow to take out the tree and tarp the roof. It pays to use the same tree guy for years. Rest should not be too bad. Damage limited to roof and one room. But sure is odd having a huge tee limb in your bedroom and seeing the sky. luckily no major water got in after. Power expected back by Saturday but we need a new line from the street to the house. It was a victim of one other large limb that came down, boucned off the corner of the roof doing some minor damage and taking out the line. But it sure is hot–104 today. Not a dry heat either. Luckily got a hotel room in Roanoke–lynchburg is full with refugees and power line guys.</p>
<p>We’ve had some bad storms in Michigan the last few days too, they are estimating around 105,000 customers without power and the heat index has been hovering around 110 all week. Some people I know have been told not to expect power until Sunday. I’m very lucky my office has power, usually when it doesn’t we have to come in and sit anyway in case it turns back on. My grandparents around the corner are without power.</p>
<p>I can’t believe power outages are so frequent for some of you. The longest power outage I can ever even remember was the huge blackout the eastern side of the country faced in… maybe early 2000s? That was less than 24 hours. Our power never goes out for longer than an hour or so and that’s rare, maybe once or twice a year if that. I am pulling for you guys, stay cool. :(</p>
<p>This has been such an odd weather year. It is so dry here that there have been fires-- that doesn’t happen here. The state picked a terrible year to legalize fireworks.</p>
<p>I’m a little north of Baltimore and didn’t lose power this time, but many friends did and some are still out. I lost power for over a week last year after the hurricane so I have paid my dues, but it was not nearly as hot. My internet/cable has been out off and on since Monday and Comcast is telling me it will be spotty for the next week. I think this will be enough to push me to Verizon. The older neighborhood in Baltimore City in which I used to live looks like a bomb went off there. Trees with root balls over 20 feet in diameter are down on every street. Some of them have not been lifted off the wires yet so they have a long way to go.</p>