Three Adults, Six Cats, One Hotel Room. What Could Go Wrong?

aka Real Ice Storms Are Not Like the Movie

At 11 p.m. Friday night, February 12, we lost power.

In bed, I listened to ice sliding and branches breaking and crashing to the ground. Saturday morning, we discovered our maple tree had split and part of it had fallen over my car—over and around, but not on, so thankfully there was no damage. Ken hacked that part of the tree up so we could get out and made sure nothing else had fallen dangerously.

By midafternoon, we were pretty cold, I was worried about the cats, and PGE’s estimate for power on at that point was Tuesday night (I think). So we packed up three people and six cats into my car and slowly, carefully crawled over the ice- and snow-covered freeway to Vancouver and a hotel. (The rules say two cats, but we decided that meant two cats per person. Sshhh!)

The cats did great, really. I think they liked having us in sight all the time. Clara, Hamish, and Bonny Lass were the bravest; Floyd the most nervous—but he dislikes feet and panics at loud noises, so the fact that he came out on the second day and played zoomies with Hallows at midnight each night was wonderful. (The Lodger did not appreciate it the first night when they were sleeping and Hallows parkoured off their pillow.) Although we panicked one day because we couldn’t find him, until Ken realized there was a sag in the box spring that peeped when he poked it.

There was a second ice storm Monday night and Ken and I went home Tuesday to pick up a few things and make sure nothing else was damaged. Another part of the maple had fallen on the enormous temporary (ha!) ugly yellow storage tent (think pop-up carport, only with walls), denting some of the metal supports inside and punching a small hole in the roof. Now there’s a nice blue tarp over it, just charming.

I was fine staying in the hotel: I had heat, power, Internet, my husband, and my cats, as well as a small fridge and microwave. I could be comfortable and eat warm (although not necessarily healthy) food. But the Lodger was antsy (they’re basically a Hobbit and needed their hole to recharge) and Ken wanted to Solve the Problem, so Wednesday he rented a generator, he and the Lodger set it up, and he came back to the hotel to take me and the cats home.

Not long after I got home that afternoon, the smoke detector in my office began explaining in a calm female voice that she had detected carbon monoxide and mildly suggested I remove myself.

(If you’ve watched Red Dwarf, the announcement was at about the same urgency as Holly announcing an emergency.) Long story short, having the generator in the garage, even with the door open (and a breezeway between the garage and the house), sent carbon monoxide into the house. We opened all the windows (just after the house had finally warmed up!), moved the cats downstairs with us, and the Lodger and Ken moved the generator to the driveway and covered it with our SCA (modern) day shade and then chained the Lodger’s car to it so nobody could steal it.

Then Ken went off to try and buy a generator while the Lodger and I sat bundled up and covered in the garden room until the warnings stopped. Ken failed to find a generator to buy but brought us dinner, so that was a fair trade. The next day, he drove two+ hours north into WA to buy one, brought it back, and swapped the two over. The new one was big enough to also power the hot water heater, hurrah! It’s called the Predator 9000, which I must say in a WWE voice, “PREDatorrr nine thousand…thousand…thousand…”

That afternoon he helped the neighbor’s tree guy with chopping down more of our maple (some of which had ended up on the neighbor’s roof). That evening he and I drove back to WA to return the rented generator (yeah, about a five-hour trip, but I’m always happy to hang out with my beloved, and he’d done the drive enough on his own so this way I could help).

Power came back on Friday night, February 19, a few hours’ shy of a week of it being out. Internet finally came back Sunday night. My heart went out to people with small kids, sick or caring for the sick, and/or didn’t have money for a hotel. Thankfully, our community had members who made extra food, welcomed people to come charge their devices or take showers, took others in, etc., and that makes my heart glad. People also took pizzas and burgers to the line workers (I believe there were about 3000 in the entire Portland area, some of whom came from other states), which was awesome.

So that was our adventure for a bit over a week. There’s more, about downed limbs and several fence sections down, but that’s for another day. I wrote most nights, and was able to start a copyediting job even without Internet (I could double-check things on my phone or iPad). And now we own a generator for the next emergency, may it not be for many years!

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