My Derecho Experience
On Jun 29, 2012, I lived through a derecho, which is a violent wind storm with a bow-shaped front capable of producing winds as strong as a hurricane. This derecho was considered just as strong as a F1 hurricane with wind gusts of 60-80 mph. The derecho started in Iowa and traveled 600 miles east to the greater Washington, DC area in just 14 hours. This was my fifth memorable experience with bad weather here. The other four were Hurricane Floyd in 1999, Hurricane Isabel in 2003, a microburst on July 4, 2005 that damaged my car, and Hurricane Irene in 2011.
About 8:30 pm on Friday, I was typing on the computer when I saw my new energy-efficient light bulbs flicker in sequence in the ceiling light; they did not flash at the same time. I thought that behavior was weird, but continued to type for a while. Then the electricity went out several times. My computer was running on a battery, so I quickly saved my work and shut the computer down. I was enveloped in total darkness in the bedroom, so I went to the dining room to look out the balcony door. I saw that it was raining heavily with a lot of wind. Cars waiting in the front driveway below gave some light to see by. In the heavy clouds above, I saw blue lightening for the first time. I stood there watching for a while then went to get a flashlight from the pantry by the fridge. I went back to the bedroom and turned on the computer, thinking I could get back on the computer. I wanted to see if I could connect the cable modem and the router to the battery and so I attempted this feat. As soon as I plugged in the router, the battery completely drained itself of power and the computer abruptly went off. After seeing how futile it was to use the computer, I gave up. I took a hot bath, went to bed, and fell asleep.
On Saturday morning, I found that I had no hot water, no air conditioning, and still no electricity. My apartment reached a temperature of 85 degrees in the afternoon even with the balcony door and the front door open for a breeze to go through. I spent the time reading a good fantasy book. While reading, I drank all the liquids I could find in my fridge to keep hydrated. Then I went to a friend�s house which was not affected by the power outage, cooled down, and took a shower there. I stopped at a functioning Seven-Eleven convenience store on the way back home at night and purchased more drinks and a couple of apples. After arriving home, I found it difficult to sleep in the heat and I woke up many times during the night and took several gulps of my drinks each time.
Finally on Sunday morning, I woke up and decided to go to the mall nearby. Target was closed, but many other stores in the mall were open. The mall itself was cool and many people were there. The parking lots were full. I went in search of a USB hotspot device from T-mobile thinking I could use my netbook to connect to the Internet. I visited Radioshack and a T-Mobile store inside the mall, walked to Staples across the street, and tried to visit another T-mobile store across another street but it was closed. CVS was closed, too. I went back to the first T-Mobile store inside the mall and found the information I wanted there but decided it wasn�t worth the cost. Then I bought some popcorn shrimp from Popeye�s Louisiana Kitchen in the food court and went home to eat it. Several times I tried to pick out a book and started reading it but none of the books were as satisfying as the first book I had just finished reading. All the drinks were consumed already. I felt too hot and sticky so I took a cold bath before it got dark out. Finally, the electricity came on at 8:30 pm. It took a couple of hours for my apartment to cool down but I wasn�t worried any more about the danger of dehydration. I went to sleep in blessed relief.