When I saw what Telwyn of Gaming Sans Fronti猫res had for a Blaugust writing prompt, I knew exactly what the answer would be:
What piece/s of technology would you have the hardest time living without?
And I can answer that because I just recently had to live it.
Earlier this month, Hurricane Isaias menaced the entire east coast of the United States without ever really doing much damage, and everyone from Florida to North Carolina breathed sighs of relief. But it was an arrow that was pointed right at New England. It came barreling through Connecticut and dropped tornadoes and trees alike through its rampage. Most of Connecticut was without power for at least awhile; my neighborhood was without power for five days.
We lost all our refrigerated food, hundreds of dollars worth. The high humidity started mold growing everywhere. Our gas still worked, so I was able to cook dinners (largely rice and pasta based), and we ate and cleaned up by candlelight.
The one bit of tech I missed most was — a light. It would get too dark to read or anything past 6:30PM or so, because our house doesn’t get a lot of natural light. So I’d read outside until that got too hard, and then I’d continue reading in the living room, in the dark, with my phone in flashlight mode.
Sure, I missed gaming and stuff. I had permission to go into the office so I could charge my stuff and work. And I was thankful my stove and hot water heater worked on gas and not electricity, or things would have been much, much worse.
I missed lights the most. We did have lanterns and flashlights but we didn’t want to drain the batteries for no reason.
When the lights finally did come back on, I couldn’t understand the joy I felt.
In the house I grew up in (and for everyone in the area) water came from our own well, and the pump for that water was electric. So when a hurricane came through and took out the power, it took out the water too. And we had an electric stove. My mom would always fill up the bathtub with water whenever a big storm was coming (mostly used to flush the toilet). Worst I remember was 7 days with no power, though towards the end of that I at least knew people who’d gotten theirs back and who were happy to let us fill jerry jugs with clean water. And it was still warm enough that we could swim in the ocean to get the worst of the grime off. Though it was a salty time. 馃檪
So were I a blauger I’d just say electricity. Is that too broad?
Having the power out for so long reminded me how fragile the modern way of life really is. If we hadn’t had hot water and gas for the stove, I don’t know how much worse things would have been.
And we’re supposed to have another extreme weather event tomorrow.
What about candles? Fortunately we haven’t really had any power outages where I’ve lived for the last thirty years but when I was a teen in the seventies we had them frequently and we always had loads of candles on hand. One candle doesn’t give a lot of light but a dozen really do. More than enough to read by, comfortably. We used to use the plain, uncolored six inch type that every hardware store sold in boxes of 6 or 12. Do they still sell those? Maybe I should get some in, just in case.
We have an old storm lantern hanging up on the kitchen wall as a decoration, come to think of it. Never used it. I wonder if it works?
We didn’t have a lot of candles, just a couple of scented tea candles that I used while we ate and for cleaning up after. I don’t generally want a lot of smoky burning things in the house. But yes, if I’d had a dozen candles and candleholders handy, it’d have been a lot easier 馃檪
An oil lamp like the one you write about would have been perfect, though. They are pretty safe for indoors.
We sometimes game (tabletop not computer) to candle light because it’s atmospheric. We’re still using Fantasy Grounds on computers so the screens provide enough light and we don’t need books really as everything is implemented in the virtual tabletop. I remember in the mid 2000s a number of power cuts when I’d just moved to London, I can remember them in another city we lived in just before that too, but honestly they’re extremely rare in more recent years. We’re lucky in that regard, and that there aren’t significant or at least widespread weather events in the UK (localised flooding is increasingly a problem, but no hurricanes etc to speak of). Very interesting to read this perspective!
Part of our problem here in Connecticut is that the utility company was given money to bury the power lines in high risk areas, but has not done that. Since there are so many trees, every significant wind causes power outages.
You reminded me of when we played Nyctophobia, a game where the players are blindfolded and the facilitator moves players hands around to help them feel the board. We played that in the dark with a single lantern for light. It was glorious.