auchmeddan

We’ve had a water shortage here the last few weeks. It’s quite serious, and we’re having to do everything we can to save water - including only flushing the toilet when it’s absolutely necessary. For the past 3 weeks or so We’ve both been showering at work, to save what’s left of the water in the tank at home. It’s a real pain, and has been playing on both our nerves a bit.

It got worse
We both woke up around 3.05AM, in the early hours of Thursday morning. It was strangely quiet in the house, and after a few seconds we both realised the air-conditioner wasn’t running. I turned on my flashlight, and checked the ceiling fan - it had almost stopped turning.

“Did you pay the bill?” Jules asked me, rather grumpily.

I snorted a laugh and said something along the lines of “They don’t turn up at 3AM on stealth missions to cut off the power!” After checking the house, I confirmed we had no power at all. I didn’t look like the neighbours had any either.

As I headed into work the next morning, I stopped at the Gas Station down the road to get gas for my bike, as I was getting very low. There were cars parked and people huddled around talking, but none of the pumps were working. I fugured I had about enough gas to get me into town, or at least to the next Gas Station.

When I got to Barnes corner I stopped the bike and stared over at Hamilton. There was a giant black cloud pouring into the sky. When I saw it, I knew it had to be the Electricity plant, but I kept heading into town anyway (I really don’t know why). Every Gas Station I passed was Chaos. People were queueing, getting impatient and grumpy, but they weren’t getting any Gas. I drove Harbour Road and as I got closer to town the view kept getting worse and worse. There was no power anywhere. It was an island-wide blackout.

It turns out that one of the switching stations caught fire/blew up/whatever around 3:05AM, and burned until sometime around 10am. My office was in total darkness (it’s in a basement, so it’s like walking into an underground cavern just now).

I ended up sitting on the patio yesterday drinking beer with a friend, and later boiled water on the barbecue so we could eat a Pot Noodle for dinner. I ended up boiling eggs on the BBQ shortly afterwards, so I could get breakfast this morning.

No Water. No Electricity. Welcome to Paradise

I said to Jules last night - “you know what I’d really like for my Birthday? Water and Electricity”.

We got power back at home a couple of hours ago. It’s been raining down here for the last 3 hours or so.

I guess Birthday wishes do come true sometimes!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 4:26 pm and is filed under General Day-to Day Stuff, Bermuda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.