Sunday, October 21, 2007

What a tangled web we weave...

These power lines, stretching on and on into seemingly infinity,
remind me of a spider's web sparkling in the sun, surrounding and enmeshing us,
totally controlling our lives.
What would we do without our electric lives?
I am not a proponent of returning to life as it was 100 years ago.
I like my microwave.
I do see an alarming inability to survive without so much that we take for granted.
We have a tendency to have power outages during storms out here on the West End of the Olympic Peninsula.
Having a generator is almost a requirement for living here - and we're in the city. Many live in the forests and outlying areas.
So many don't have the luxury of a generator, and 50 percent of us use electricity to heat our homes.
When the power goes out, there is one restaurant open -
the cafe at the hospital, which has a generator.
We haven't tried it yet, but have heard that it feeds a thousand or more people in a day when the power is out.
The local grocery store has a deli, and a generator,
but is limited to what it can sell with a limit on the electricity the generator can produce.
While our local Public Utility District is doing a marvelous job of reinforcing and repairing, sustaining and maintaining of our electrical system, we need to take a look at how we can sustain and maintain ourselves in the ways that were common 100 years ago.
Not just here in the rural areas, but everywhere.
Maybe especially in the cities, where we aren't as well-versed in not having what we need just around the corner.

2 comments:

Mary Helen said...

We were so lucky this last storm to keep our power on. It will be interesting to see what kind of winter we have this year.
Mary

Lavenderlady said...

I heard on TV tonight how the mayor in seattle was encouraging residents to get their emergency kits ready...in case of a repeat of last years storm...the one on Dec. 14th. We didn't loose power here, but they surely were hit all around us.