Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Thank you, National Grid

Lights are back and so is Progressive Charlestown
One of at least six trees we lost
By Will Collette

Helluva storm and omigod, what a mess! But a tip of the hat to National Grid for getting most of Charlestown powered up tonight.

Reconciled to several more days without power, Cathy and I visited Cathy's family in Portsmouth for a nice meal (made from stuff that had just thawed in our freezer), a hot shower, and to run a load of dishes through their dishwasher.

While we were there, we checked the National Grid website to see the status of repairs and saw that we weren't due to get power restored until Friday.

Well, at least we were clean and had lots of clean cat food bowls.




But as we cruised down Route One, we saw South Kingstown all lit up, but figured, hey, that's them. Charlestown will still be dark. But then we started seeing lights all the way. In fact, it almost seemed like everyone had turned on extra lights just because they could (it was too late for the trick-or-treaters).

We knew the acid test for us would be whether or not the signal at at the motels was on. It was, and so was our house.

Cagey National Grid. Telling us no lights till Friday. Maybe. As a young organizer, I was told that one of the secrets to success is "under-promise, then overachieve."

Anyway, we're back just in time for the final days of this godawful election season. We've been operating on articles we posted in anticipation of a power outage - not that many people in Charlestown could actually read them.

As for Sandy experiences, please share, either by e-mail or via comment. Send us photos by e-mail too, please.