Turn off the lights (Dec 26)

What do you do when the lights go out? Nothing. Living on an island, especially growing up on the Big Island, power outages are frequent. Earthquakes because of volcanic activity can knock the power out so I should be used to it by now. This time, the source of our blackout may have been a freak lightning storm. But it knocked out the power on the entire island.

Friday night before 7 pm, I was at home watching tv and the lights kept flickering until they finally died and never came back on. It was a pretty entertaining night. Scott and I drove up to church to see if they needed help running or shutting down the Friday night service and to grab lanterns that Scott had in his office. When we got there, we found service was canceled and we almost didn't even get up the driveway because the person they appointed to stand at the gate was a little too into their job and literally stood in front of our car frantically waving the flashlight in our faces yelling "NO CHURCH TONIGHT!!!" "It's okay, he works here...he has to be here" we yelled back until we finally were allowed to drive up. It was chaotic trying to bustle a bunch of junior high kids down the driveway in the dark and in the rain so they could wait for their parents to pick them up.

Lesson's learned from power outage:

1. Keep your gas tank filled (the emergency radio station was flooded with callers looking for open gas stations to get gas...I assume for their generators)

2. Keep your cell phone charged

I didn't have to work but I knew they might get swamped so I told them to call me if they needed assistance. Then i watched as my cell phone died permanently. Oh, well, at least the thought counts.

3. Keep your DVD players charged.

Because of my sleep schedule, I woke up at five in the morning and watched a DVD on my laptop until it died. Thankfully, the sun had just risen so I at least could get up and move around...but I wished I had thought to keep my other DVD players charged and ready.

4. come to our house for food and showers.

We have gas water heater and gas stove so we have hot water and we can cook. I was up since 5 am so by 8 am I was bored to no end. I annoyed Scott until he relented and called our friends to come over and we cooked up all our leftovers for a deluxe breakfast. Then the Garlands taught us the funnest game I've played in years "Telephone Pictionary." At one point, I was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my face and I couldn't breathe. Aw, good times.

I didn't take any pictures...so I had to borrow from another fellow flickr member.

Oahu Blackout 2008, originally uploaded by colleeninhawaii.

Our power finally came back on after noon Saturday. A good 16 - 18 hours of blackness in our house came to a close. Thank you!!!