The Powers That Be
I was in an afternoon meeting when the power went out. We've been having record heat, so everyone knew the grid was under duress. Then someone came in to say it wasn't a brownout but a blackout. Then someone else said it wasn't just San Diego but much of Southern California. Then the same person looked up from her smartphone and said it actually extended from New Mexico into Baja (the real Mexico).
Then I knew I had to try and get home to my 97-year-old grandmother.
Just imagine hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously pouring out of nearby buildings (if they weren't stuck in elevators or underground trolleys) and hitting the same narrow downtown streets and already clogged freeways when all of the traffic lights are out, gas stations are closed and ambulances are exiting hospitals en mass.
That was my commute.
The same situation played out everywhere in San Diego County yesterday as a power outage originating in Arizona created a crisis all along the Southwest and Mexico. According to news reports, we got the worst of it. Everyone was fine once we got home, though I couldn't find but one candle nor any batteries for the radio. Our family emergency kit had been dismantled due to space limitations. And, of course, all the stores were closed.
We've been in the throes of a heatwave, but temperatures were mercifully cooler that evening as everyone hit their porches and decks and balconies to barbecue, clink glasses of lukewarm water and do something rare these days: just talk and listen. I was surprised that our daughters in northern California and even relatives in Murrietta were unaware of our energy crisis when I could finally get through on my cell phone. In all, 5 million of us lost power.
I have to admit I enjoyed participating in my first neighborhood pow-wow. Within a span of 5 minutes, the conversation went from does anyone know of a grocery store open to why did people immediately conclude illegal immigrants raped those two girls. God bless Loretta, a woman around my age who commandeered the small crowd wearing nothing but a bathing suit. I loved later sitting outside with my good-humored Grandma ("Where do we go if the air raids start?") until around 9 a.m., then waiting for my husband to come back from a few moments listening to the car radio with an update. Both of them were asleep when electricity was restored and a blackend world suddenly righted itself. Or at least returned to normal. While we were in the dark, I think I finally saw the light.
