Power Out: Camping in Our Own House

Saskatchewan saw some tremendous storms in the past two days.  The southern province saw some tornados, but we just saw lightening and wind last night.  The lightening cut power to tens of thousands of people on Monday night, with our power finally restored today.  With the absence of power, we also had no water.  The town dispensed drinking water from the water plant.  I hauled some water from the lake across the street, some of which was given to the potted plants.

RCMP officer dispenses drinking water in La Ronge

 We have a generator, which helped to keep the fridge and freezer cold while the house heated to 30 degrees C.  Power outages of days in duration are not unheard of here, and it pays to have a generator on hand, rather than seeing all your meat thaw out and go bad.  Quite a few people in town were running their generators. 

Beach in La Ronge, a popular place in a power outage

 Most of the stores were closed, and I hear the CO-OP grocery store was broken into on early Tuesday.  The store did open to sell water later in the day, however.  The weather was quite warm and the humidity high, so the water was quite appreciated.  By the end of the day, my own layer of sweat was getting too sticky for comfort, so I brought a little bottle of shampoo with me to the beach.  I saw out a ways and made it look like a new backstroke.  Ah, relief! 

Robertson's Trading Post in La Ronge, closed Tuesday because of the power outage.

 Of course, fuel was in short supply, with gas stations not able to provide much or any.  Some wanted fuel to take their boats out on the lake, while others probably used some for their generators.  Local ambulances were warning that they had extremely limited fuel and thus limited travel abilities, so I hope that the available fuel went to better causes than recreation. 

Lineups outside the Shell station.

Northmart closed due to power outage.

La Ronge health center made arrangements for alternate water supplies.

I purchased a solar and dynamo powered radio/flashlight/cell phone charger online for the next great power outage, adding to our emergency supplies for the next time.  You can never be too prepared!