Signing in from SW PC headquarters

I can't tell you how exhilarating it was when the power came back on at last yesterday. Hauling buckets of water, emergency supplies and thawing food up and down the stairs, removing and storing hurricane shutters, etc. was great exercise for a while, but was more than enough after three days.

It was amazing that we suffered no more than twigs, branches and leaves downed - though it looks to me like a lot of the trees up and down Routes One and Two are looking busted up and pretty stressed.

And then, overnight, Cox phone and internet service came back on.

As Joni Mitchell wrote "you don't what you've got till it's gone."


Anyway, I hope everyone else in town is up and running. I know there's been some dissatisfaction with National Grid and the phone/cable utilities, but we did get hit by a pretty big storm.

That's in the category of "Whaddya expect?" When Cathy and I lived in Montgomery County, Maryland, we expected power outages, sometimes of great duration from just about any weather event. These outages would last for anywhere from a day to a week.

Irene was the Big One that dropped in size and shifted just in time. As Jodi commented, sooner or later, the Big One will hit us. The storm does remind us of things we can do to prepare the next Big One that's bound to hit us sooner or later.

This time - and no doubt in most major storms to come - the first effect we feel is the loss of power. There are a couple of ways we can prepare for the next time. One would be for National Grid to start putting as much of its cable underground as possible (Cox and Verizon, too). Almost all of the major power outages we've had along our stretch of Route One have been due to downed poles and wires on Route Two.

The second major thing we all should consider doing is reducing our dependence on the juice coming in along the wire. Yes - I know you guys were waiting for me to bring this up - this means residential scale alternative energy, such as wind turbines and solar panels.

Home-sized Vertical axis wind generator

Of course you can buy a gas-powered generator and that will serve you well if you have the gas and don't mind the noise. Linda Felaco and her husband Mauro were kind enough to offer us the use of theirs since their end of town didn't lose power. That would have been quite a relief if not for a mishap along the way that damaged the generator while they were loading it on their truck. I thank them for their thoughtfulness and hope it's an easy fix.

But it sure would be nice to be less reliant on the utility companies - and on the kindness of friends - and more self-sufficient.

On September 12th, the Town Council will hold its public hearing on Charlestown's historic ordinance that will ban all wind power in Charlestown. This is an amazing backwards move made particularly outrageous in light of the days of no electricity in most of Charlestown.

Sure, Planning Commissar Ruth Platner says the total ban is just temporary until her Planning Commission writes residential turbine regulations - but don't hold your breath. As Council member Gregg Avedisian said at the last Council meeting, "I have no confidence that the Planning Commission can write a residential ordinance in six YEARS, never mind six months."

Six years. What do you think the odds are that the Big One, or even a Medium-sized one might appear by then?

Author: Will Collette