What's your best power outage story?

9 months later i had a baby girl

It was that freak October storm- the day before Halloween, 2011. Connecticut was hit by heavy snow that weighed all of the leafy trees down, causing a lot of damage. The branches fell off into the road, into poles, onto houses. It was deemed unsafe to go out trick or treating. The power was out from that Saturday night when the wind started blowing, until 9 days later.

The first few days, the heat stayed in the house. It wasn't too cold out by day, and so we put out candles and ate foods that didn't need refrigeration. By the time it was a week in, all that is in the fridge is smelling horrible. There is actual meat juice coming from the freezer. For insurance reasons, we do not open the fridge.

We had no internet, no phone line and no way to contact anyone. Driving was hazardous due to wires in the roads, trees in the road, and a lot of routes were blocked off. It was like "2012" had come early!

No one could shower that well- if you used a gas grill to boil water, you could do what you needed to, but fuel was scarce and so the grill was a valuable resource. Due to lack of food and hot water in homes, shelters opened up in our local schools. Radio stations broadcast where to go and what gas stations were working- you could end up stranded if you didn't pay heed to the news man. On the road, most traffic lights weren't working. So you would have to "take turns" at lights, and if you were facing nonstop traffic? You may be stuck for an hour, with angry, impatient people stuck behind you. If you tried to drive at night? DON'T, that's what was advised. There were no street lights, so a branch could come out of no where in the dark, and you could hit it before you knew what had happened.

It was scary. After 9 days, the power came back on. We lost 1 fish in the power out, but one miraculously survived without heat for over a week. We had to move our dogs out into a friend's house, and the cats? We piled up blankets in the house for them, and they kept us warm on those cold, cold nights- some nights too cold to sleep. I'd never felt so cold. Had to wear many layers to bed. But thank goodness, it's all history now.

It really showed us all of the things that we take for granted day by day- hot food, light, ease of communication, travel.

My brother was showing off some of his dance moves, and the power went out during one of his flips and well he smacked a wall he didn't see....power came on a second later...He as well as everyone else burst out laughing....

I sat in the dark until the power came back on. The end.

One time it was like midnight and I was in the middle of taking a ****, and all of a sudden all the lights went out.

Earth Hour.

Hurricane Wilma hit Miami in 2005, in late October, at the end of hurricane season. The storm was a lot more powerful than expected and, of course, knocked out the power lines. The bustling city of Miami was in the dark for four nights: it was so eerie, so unusually quiet.
Fortunately, the storm brought a could snap, so we didn't feel the lack or air conditioning. The phones lines were down, there was no internet. One day we got in the car and we went to South Beach. We ended up in a convenience store in a block were they hadn't lost power. I was staring in fascination at the lights and the coffee machine, like I never saw anything like that before.

Looked out of the window to see that some boys had broken into this little generator building that powers the whole estate and found the "OFF" button. Every time they did it, a lorry had to come around to turn it back on.

7 days no power/water after Hurricane Andrew, had to gather rain water in trash cans to flush toilets, etc. we took an old soup can with the lid still partially attached, put a lit candle inside it and got some old crayons and would melt them on the lid and let it go into the soup can and made a rainbow candle! Learned to LOVE the crank radio those days. Hurricane Katrina was 5 days without power. Hurricane Gustav was another 7 days without power. Living in South Louisiana you learn that a generator is part of life and can be your best friend. unless you weren't smart enough to stock up on gas cans/gas.

Last power outage I was stuck on an elevator with extremely sketchy people who kept talking about how they were glad that to be stuck with a beatiful young girl..LOL