Last winter, my local area set records for snow accumulation.
By the end of the season, the piles of snow were enormous.
When a sudden thunderstorm and soaring temperatures arrived, there was countywide flooding. The snow melted, the river overflowed and multiple inches of rain fell. At the same time, we experienced especially high winds that knocked down trees, limbs and power lines. The power outages were extensive. We were left without electricity for five days. The food in the refrigerator and freezer spoiled. Without a working sump pump, the basement flooded with dirty water. The whole house smelled terrible and felt overheated. There was an incredible amount of damage and concerns with mold and mildew growth. We needed to replace the washer, dryer and water pump and all of the furniture in the basement. During the outage, we had no access to lights, internet, running water or any of our appliances. We couldn’t run the air conditioner or the dehumidifier. Because of the rain, we couldn’t even open the windows to get some relief from the heat. We were actually quite lucky that this power failure happened in the spring rather than the winter. Our local area experiences temperatures down to negative twenty-five degrees. Without a working heater, we couldn’t stay in the house. We’d be forced to brave dangerous road conditions to check into a hotel. There would be a risk of water pipes freezing and bursting. After the last power failure, I had a standby generator installed. If our electricity goes out, the generator automatically starts up and powers the entire house for as long as necessary. There is no need for refueling because it runs on natural gas.