Disaster, Adventure and Fear of the Dark

Last week was a tough week at our house. The nor’easter that dropped eight or more inches of rain on us flooded our basement. The knee-high water wrecked our water heater and shorted-out all of the electrical parts of the furnace. We had to have the gas and the electricity shut off to the house for safety. For a few days we had no lights, no heat, no hot water and no way to cook inside. We were greatly inconvenienced but we did our best to keep up our normal live. Maura still went to school, skating lessons and Girl Scouts. Jennifer and I still went to work.

As inconvenient as it was being without gas and electricity the experience was not all negative, especially for Maura. We were camping in our own house. While it was chilly at night, and in the early morning, the rain was followed by several days of mild sunny weather and it was never so cold that piled blankets could not keep away the chill. We ate out a few times partly because we were pressed for time. The whole family enjoys eating out, though Jennifer and I worried about the money we were spending. When time allowed I set up the camp stove and cooked outside, which Maura loved. It really made the experience seem like a camping trip and has Maura fired up for our planned expedition in April.

Having no power had an additional benefit I would not have expected. We had been leaving the hall light on when Maura went to bed because she was afraid of the dark. We couldn’t do that when there was no power so she had no choice but to go to sleep without it. When the lights were back on she asked her mother to leave the hall light off. Sometimes all it takes to get over the fear of the dark is to spend a little time in darkness.

Everything is back to normal in our house now. The water is out of the basement, the power and gas are on, and we have a working furnace and water heater. I’ll worry every time it rains for awhile and we’ll probably be installing a pump the summer, though it won't see much use. We’ve lived in our house for more than ten years and despite the fact that our foundation has cracks we can see through and our basement has a dirt floor and no drain we’ve never had serious flooding before, even when we had almost as much rain. The flood of 2010 will be one for our personal record books, one we hope will not be repeated in our lifetimes.