Sunday, October 15, 2006

Blizzard of ’06: Part II

It’s about 3.30 pm on Sunday, October 15, 2006. And it has been more than 60 hours since we had electricity in our home last time, and for that matter hundreds of houses in and around Buffalo. All of this due to the snow storm that struck the region a couple of days back, and dumped more than 22 inches of snow in less than 22 hours. The news papers have coined the term ‘Freaking Friday, the 13th’. I think everybody knows that 13 is considered an inauspicious number, I don’t need to go into the details. If you haven’t read about the part I of my experiences, you can do so here: Part I.

By Thursday night itself we had realized that this is bad, but still had no exact idea of how ‘bad’ it is. So, after waking up on Friday morning, we again took a look outside the window. Everything was quite now, but the view outside looked like a ‘war zone’ and the city had been bombed badly overnight. And the major and most victims of all these were the trees; the asset and pride of Buffalo and its inhabitants.

As I had mentioned earlier most trees in all the areas (90 % in some case) had at least one branch broken. And in past 3 days we’ve seen a lot of this. News papers have reported about people crying over their beloved trees. And anyone with a heart would cry, it was that bad and grim. Some of them were more than 3 centuries old. The maple and oak trees are (or should I say ‘were’ ?) the jewels of Buffalo-Niagara region. But they are no more now. The destruction has left a big scar on Buffalo’s face. The entire landscape of the city has changed the roads and street look ‘naked’ now without their tree buddies. Everybody is wondering if Buffalo will ever be as beautiful as it used to be until last Thursday, or may be it will take generations to recover..!

Couldn’t stop writing about the trees, but I feel sad and so does everybody else here. Anyways, back to Friday morning, I made several calls to my work place, to see if they were open. Naturally everything was closed in Buffalo now. And a state of emergency had been declared in the region. In some places driving was completely banned and in others it was not recommended unless absolutely necessary. Since there was no work that day, I was happy..! There was nothing else to do now, even if you want to, you can’t do much without power. So, I slept and slept for most of the day, except the time it needed to write the Part I of this series..;). However, now we were getting hungry, and it was past 5 pm now, so we decided to go get some food. As we were driving around, expectedly everything was shut, and the roads were mostly deserted. However, we were still in search of an open grocery store. Also, I thought of checking if the car dealer was open, so that I can get pick up my car, however that was a ‘dumb expectation’, or at least get the car charger from my car. Anyways, so we decided to ‘visit’ the Transit road and, we were on I-90 east bound. At the exit they didn’t even take the toll, even if it was a mere 15 cents. I don’t know why, may be the emergency. So we were passing, the dealer was closed, a mile further down we saw a long line at a gas-station. They were lucky, that was one of the few pumps which was operation even without power. For our grocery needs we tried Wal-Mart nearby, but it too was shut.

Now, we were disappointed and were just heading back. Suddenly Purvin spotted a shining red ‘Tops’. Wow, we were more than happy. Finally bought some food from there and headed back to the ‘darkness’. Made some sandwiches after reaching home, and mitigated the hungry stomach. Once again nothing to do now, so I decided to take shower, just hoping that would ‘kill’ some time.

But, that was kind of tricky, it was total dark, and you can’t even see anything, how can you bathe ? So, lit up a small candle in the bathroom and enjoyed the hot-water in the bathtub for the next 30 minutes, of course with the door open. Luckily, we had hot water available. That was the only solace that we had in all this misery. By the way, I have something to share here. Please excuse my language in next few sentences. Peeing in darkness of bathroom was a tough task, and an experience in itself. I mean it was very difficult for me ‘to aim’ in the toilet bowl. It was real hard..;)! Anyways, that was about the ‘rest room experiences’..!

Next morning, Saturday, now totally surrendered to the situation, we didn’t care for anything, we were kind of ‘used to’ living without electricity. But got very bad news in the morning. Purvin mentioned that we didn’t even have water now. Shoot..! What would you do without water, especially when it’s morning and you have just woke up..! Just imagine. To my good luck, I generally don’t have any kind of ‘pressure problem’ in the morning, but still needed to empty the bladder. I thought, what the heck if there is no water. And I peed, and then sprayed a lot of sanitizer/bowl-cleaner to clean the toilet bowl, so that it doesn’t get bad. I was relieved now.

And we were off now to get some coffee and some breakfast. This time, there were some signs of life on the roads now. We spotted the convenient store open just around the corner, even though he didn’t have power. Anyways we bought some coffee, candles, playing cards and news paper. Just take a re-look at the list of things that we bought. We had believed by now that its going to last longer now, so we were getting prepared. However, we still needed to recharge the drained cell phones batteries.

Driving further down, found a Starbucks open with ‘electricity’. Wow, couldn’t get better than this. It was around 10.30 am now. Luckily found an unused electric outlet there and without waiting too much just plugged in our cell phones chargers. Spent about 1 ½ hours there and returned home about 12.00 noon. Again it was boring now. But spent most of the afternoon in UB and watched the movie ‘Dor’ with some acquaintances there. Then had dinner at Olive Gardens.

It was about 9.00 pm now. And we were driving back home, on our way home, we saw most places have power back now, and so will we. So, we were happy, it’s finally over now. But as we reached our complex, it was still dark there. That was sheer bad luck. Never mind, we can continue one more day. Went inside… and eventually to sleep around mid night.

Next morning is today. And we still don’t have power, at least when we left home about 5 hours ago. Meaning, for over past 5 hours we have been inside the Panera Bread on Niagara Falls Boulevard and using the free Wi-Fi here. It’s about 4.30 pm now, and I am almost done writing the part II as well.

In the end, I should say, past 3 days have been very different for me. No power, no internet and ‘no nothing’, just me and myself. I have had ample time to think about nothing. Just stay idle, do nothing. I have enjoyed this time. And at least once I have wished that it will be good if electricity still doesn’t come back.

In all these years I had always read about floods, storms, earth quakes, hurricanes hitting cities and towns. But I was never a victim of them, but this time I am. I have been throught it, and I know how bad or good it could be. Anyways, now I have lots of stories to tell everybody for the rest of my life.

Kaushal

Blizzard of ‘06: Part I

On last Wednesday night my roomie Purvin and I were having a usual chat, and he mentioned that it’s going to snow tomorrow. My first reaction was: I didn’t believe him, but then thought okay, so what, it would be the first snow of the season and would be very insignificant, no big deal. But none of us had expected what’s going to happen tomorrow and for that matter virtually the entire city of Buffalo and its administration.

Anyways, so next morning, I woke up, and went to the Canadian Consulate in downtown Buffalo, to get my visitor visa there as I had planned. Not to mention, Thursday morning was very chilly and to my surprise I was taken aback, and was caught unprepared for the challenging weather. I was just wearing a t-shirt, but still managed anyhow though. So after finishing my work with the Consulate around noon time, I called up Purvin to meet me at my car dealer Ray Laks and then drop me at my work place, since I wanted to get some issues in my car get fixed before I leave for the US Embassy next week, 350 miles away in Ottawa, Canada.

After dropping the car, we had lunch at Pizza Hut, and he dropped me at my work place. It’s around 1 pm now and it has been raining since Wednesday morning. So, I got back to work and cursing the rain as usual, and around 1.30 it started snowing. It really wasn’t actual real snow, rather you can say rain water which got frozen on its way down – meaning wet snow (Well, technically that means snow, but let’s not argue… ;)). Anyways, so this was something similar to what Purvin had mentioned the night before. Nothing surprising except that it was too early for the snow season. It looked liked the typical first snow, but as the day progressed it turned into real snow and every thing got covered with white carpet. My work place has big glass windows and there is a small lake in the back of it. All of my colleagues including me enjoyed the snowfall for the rest of the day, it was really spectacular.

Once again nobody knew what it is like being outside the building or the gravity of the situation. At about 6.45 Purvin and I left for Ray Laks again, to pick up a loaner car since they needed my car overnight due to non-availability of some parts. Anyways, so we left and the something was different on the roads, it wasn’t a usual sight. I mean, the traffic lights were off, everything was black and there was a chaos on the cross-roads. Suddenly it struck to me, it’s ‘Black-Out’. Wow, that was unbelievable and not expected. Meaning, you don’t see black outs everyday or for that matter everywhere. That was something ‘rare’. So, we were driving and we saw traffic-jams everywhere and most places were dark. However, it wasn’t complete black out, some areas did have electricity. All the while, I was too excited about something else; I was going to get a loaner car, some great Acura model.

Anyways, so we reached there, they were also ready to close. I did my paper work, and she handed over the key to me. And it was 2005 Acura TSX. Man, that was something. I couldn’t wait to drive, I headed towards the car, and what I see is a foot of snow is covering the car from everywhere. I made some efforts to remove the snow with my hand, but all in vain. Don’t forget that I wasn’t wearing any warm clothes, but just a t-shirt, and it was freezing outside. I immediately went inside and asked for help from one of the mechanics there, he found something to wipe water off-the floor. So, he removed the snow, I thanked, and I was off now. Finally I got into the car, first took a detailed look at all the features and finally zoooom. But weather wasn’t supportive at all, so couldn’t do much.

I headed back to my work place exploring more power outages and traffic-jams. It was about 7.45 now and I was back in my office. I declared there, that it’s bad outside, and most places are dark. Anyways, so I finished my task for the day, and had a discussion with my superior about it and we planned the action plan for Friday, and for the next couple of weeks. At about 8.30 we left from the office.

Meanwhile I had offered one of the colleagues to drop him to his home, because he takes the bus. And today wasn’t the time to step out, because I had seen how bad it is like being outside. So we were driving at a speed of about 10-15mph, and it was even worse now and snowing real heavily. While I was driving, I got a call from Purvin. He had some ‘good news’, we also didn’t have electricity at our home, so he wanted me to buy some lighter/match-sticks to light up candles. Well, that was the last thing I wanted to hear for that day. But then we were not alone.

So I dropped my colleague, and finally I was heading towards home. Saw some more calamities, hundreds of trees fallen and still snowing. I bought a lighter from a gas-station and finally entered into Chestnut Ridge Court, that’s where we stay. But more was yet to come, there was no place to park the car. In fact, I couldn’t even enter into the complex, my car got stuck, so I had to back up and take another entrance. There too I got stuck, but this time I tried real hard and got ahead. But now, the wipers stopped working due to heavy deposition of snow on the glass. So, I got out of the car and removed some snow with naked hands. Everything in Chestnut Ridge was a complete mess, cars here and there, trees obstructing the ‘drive-ways’. Somehow, managed a parking spot at the end, which was quite far from my apartment. But who cares, I just parked and got out.

I was now running in the snow and freezing, and worrying about my leather-shoes. Everything was so white and dark. Contrasting ? But true. Everything looked so similar and didn’t know where my apartment is, took a while to find apartment O-4. I hopped up the stairs, and Purvin was already there with the door open. I don’t know how he knew, or it was just a coincidence.

So it was 10.00 pm now, and I was inside the home, completely dark. We exchanged our experiences for the day. We discussed about the creaking noises of the falling trees outside, and the cars parked below them.

My day not finished yet, suddenly realized I don’t even know how I parked my car. I mean I didn’t want it to have under any tree. So got a jacket and ran again towards the car and made sure everything is alright and came back.

It was time to eat something now. I hadn’t had anything since the lunch at Pizza Hut at 12.30. So ate the sub that I got from my work, while watching the snow and damage outside. It was the first dinner in complete darkness, except some light from a small candle, in America. Right, that was a true ‘candle light dinner’ with myself..!

Now everything was over. We discussed and realized that how helpless are we without electricity; life comes to a total standstill. You just can’t do anything. Anyways, since there was nothing that we could do, we were forced to sleep, well what else could you do in the dark ?

Our cell phones were almost dead, so couldn’t talk with anybody of the outside world. Anyways so I was sleeping/rather lying in the bed in a moderately cold house, since there was no heat for that night. But, it wasn’t too bad.

In all it was an eventful Thursday, October 12, 2006. And the worse was yet to follow…

Kaushal