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| Our red maple |
Someone working with an excavator north of Pullman, WA, on Wednesday (Nov. 8) cut the gasline that supplies our region. Here at our town house, our water heater, furnace, and dryer are all gas. We count our blessings that we have an electric stove, a small woodburning stove (and plenty of wood), and space heaters. For us, it’s a matter of inconvenience. It could be worse.
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| Above Moscow |
Schools, businesses, and restaurants have shut down for the duration. Even if the gasline is repaired today, it may still be several days before issues are resolved, including that Avista, our power utility, must visit each home or business to turn on the gas at the meter and relight the pilots. We can’t do it ourselves, they say.
Now I’m taking dishes from the dishwasher and washing them by hand. I have a stockpot and a teakettle of water heating on the stove. (So grateful our stove is electric.) I put two quarts of water from the simmering pot into the sink and added just enough cold water so that I could tolerate it, testing it carefully with my fingers. Then I replenished the pot with water from the teakettle, and heated the teakettle again. The dishes get a lukewarm rinse in the other sink.
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Suddenly, I could see my mother doing the dishes at the farm when I was a youngster. This was the way she managed the water, and somehow I remembered.
Until we have hot water again, we will have to take sponge baths. I will miss my evening shower, but again, when I was a child, we didn’t bathe every night like we do now.
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The photos here were taken yesterday when Mike and I made a trip to Moscow. Mike left a new boot at Peck’s Shoe Clinic to have a lift inserted in the sole, and then we found several geocaches and left some snuggle flannel scraps from my stash at Chris’ house, my contribution to the blankets and bibs she makes and donates. We drove back to the Valley on the Old Spiral Highway. Since it was noon, it was not the best time of day to take photos. KW
3 comments:
Great story. It shows that we are one disaster away from catastrophe. It also shows how dependent we are on the links in the supply chain. I hope you are spared any further hiccups in your energy supplies.
I think the community has managed quite well, though I'm not privy to the details. Schools were closed on Thursday, but Friday was a holiday anyway, at least for some. And we hear that our neighborhood is scheduled to be reignited Monday morning.
I was surprised that so many people don't have space heaters. Mike and I use space heaters in our rooms during the winter, and we have one in the bathroom. But with this gas outage, there was a run on space heaters. A plumbing and heating business gave away 1500 heaters on Thursday.
I too was surprised at how many people apparently don't have space heaters. So strange. Things are going well up here; everyone seems to be dealing with the situation with good spirits. I'm sure if it was to go on much longer that would cease to be the case.
We are supposed to be reignited on Monday, too. Downtown and much of Fort Russell will supposedly be done by tomorrow night. Because we're outlying, we're in the last section to be relit.
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