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Two Hams in a Can Two Hams in a Can

Where were you when the lights went out? Aug 4, 2008

A huge storm hit Chicago last night and since we were on the third floor, we got to see it first. I have never seen such violent lightning and heard such vicious thunderclaps. The power went out early in the evening, and the sirens came on. We all (Laura, us, and the 2nd floor tenants- Adam was working late)trooped down to the basement brandishing our tiny flashlights. Nothing really bad happened, but the power did not come back on.

We climbed back up and sat in the dark for a while. Laura's brother Philip was also visiting - he was attending Lollapalooza - the big music festival. He took shelter in a restaurant, but when he came home - still in the dark, we all marveled at the light show. What was amazing was that we could see lights on across the street, but none on our side.

The next day, there was no rain, but lots of evidence of damage to trees and buildings. Still no power. Jeff and I sat on the sun porch with the windows open and we could hear them announcing the ball game at Wrigley Field - obviously sports arenas still had power.

We even could clearly hear everyone singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th inning stretch.

Laura and I walked down to get some ice at the drugstore. She had stopped on the way home, and they were out. Evidently, everyone was trying to save everything in the frig. Power still out all night.

I walked down the next day and bought more ice. The heat was starting to build and we had no fans, but thank goodness, an occasional breeze would filter through. We decided we'd had enough of the heat and got Jeff and wheelchair down the 3 flights and walked down to the subway station. We decided to go the the Art Institute because at least they had power. More on that in the next entry.

As we were coming back, we started looking for signs of power, but unfortunately none of the house on the block were showing signs of electricity. We trudged back up the three flights, and settled in for another hot night. About 4:30, a sudden whirring caught my ear, and I could hear people in the neighborhood applauding and yelling. The power was back! I have never been in a power outage that long before. Made me really long for the Honda 2000 with the Airstream. We carried our own power.