. . .until I heard them mentioned as a headline story on NPR. The demogogic, “WindStorm ’06!!!” local news is one thing, but national news is different.

I mean, sure, a handful of people died, or got lost in the mountains, and our airport had to turn away a few flights, and the power’s still out in some parts of the state (which, incidentally, is why I’m here right now instead of recording up in Welches). . .but, hunh. Now that I think about it, I guess it was that bad after all.

I had a few people write or call, hoping everything was okay over here. Yes, everything’s fine.

When it was in full effect, I was at Trader Joe’s coming home from an hour-and-a-half drive to K-mart–which would normally take about twenty minutes–to get a car headlight (it’s way too long and uninteresting to tell that frustrating story).
In fact, I want to take a minute to talk about the traffic situation in Portland. There are only two main north-south freeways in Portland. At rush hour, there’s only one way east out of the city, and one way west too. If anything happens to one of them, and something almost always does, traffic is difficult and slow. If something happens to more than one of them, the town comes to a standstill, and everybody’s screwed. That night, something happened on every single one. Dead stop pretty much everywhere.

But I digress. :)

I was at Trader Joe’s, and the checker asked how it was going, and I said, “It’s inSANE out there. Wind and rain and traffic is nightmarish.”

She said, “I know! I heard that the power’s out in a bunch of places.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, all down through Lloyd Center and Broadway, it’s been out for a while now.”

“Oh great, that’s where I live!”

We finished up, she wished me good luck, and I headed home, down Sandy and onto Broadway. When I got to about 28th, something felt different, and as I got closer, I noticed that all the lights were out in a huge section of town. It wasn’t just Lloyd Center, it was the entire Lloyd *district*. At 20th Avenue, the traffic lights were out, and it was dark as far as you could see. I wanted to take a picture, cause it was so eerie, but traffic was too crazy, and I just wanted to get home and crash. (note to self: If I really wanted to get a good picture during a power outage, Mt. Tabor would be a great vantage point. )

I turned onto 15th, and power on my side of 15th was out, but the other side (where my friend Alyssa lives) was on. I pulled up and parked on 13th, and saw the flash of what looked like a downed power line at the end of the street. Kelly called and I told her what was happening. She asked, “Do you want to come over?” “I would LOVE to come over, but I don’t even want to THINK about driving any more tonight.” I texted Alyssa and hung out at her place for a little bit, and after maybe a half hour got a text from Susan saying that the power in our building was back on. I decided to go home and crash, since I was exhausted anyway and not very sociable, and A was feeling kinda crappy too.

Just walking home, there were tons of tree branches down, and the power crews were out and about. Lots of sirens everywhere too. I hardly slept at all that night with the wind (even though it sounded beautiful) and the sirens and all.

That was my night, but for lots of people it’s still not over. I heard yesterday that a hundred thousand people in the Portland metro area were still without power. I hope everything’s OK where you are!

* * *

p.s. – “taking a picture of a power outage” reminded me of a time when I was looking through a friend’s photo album and came across a completely black picture. I asked, jokingly, “What’s this, lens cap?” “Nope,” I was told, “that’s San Francisco, taken from Twin Peaks, during the rolling blackouts of the 90’s.”

It was stunning, in a way you wouldn’t expect.