Recovery

We are recovering nicely here at Kendal at Granville from four difficult days without power  during a record breaking heat wave  thanks to our marvelous staff.   About five o'clock on Friday, the twenty-ninth of June, as I was working at my computer in my den I sensed that it was growing darker and thought to myself, "Maybe we will get some rain and it will cool off."   Little did I dream what was about to happen.  Not even when the telephone rang and I heard the recorded message about an approaching storm from the fire chief of Granville village did it occur to me that we were about to be hit by hurricane force winds in less than ten minutes.

 Suddenly the sky was really dark - like about 9:15 p.m. - and the rain came in torrents and the wind roared in like a freight train.  Almost immediately the power went off leaving us in the dark wondering how long before it would return.   Our chef suddenly found himself  busier than the proverbial one armed paper hanger seeing that meals were served with only emergency power and also checking with the village officials to find out what they knew about how long the power would be out. The disheartening news he received was "three or more days."  Not what anyone wanted to hear with all weather reports indicating temperatures in the middle nineties for the coming week.  By morning the prediction was five to seven days. 

 Fortunately for us many of our administrative staff had helped us survive and recover when four years ago in late summer the tail end of hurricane Ike swung north from Louisiana and knocked out our power at that time for four days.  They learned the drill then.  Consequently although the next day was Saturday we saw them here bright and early to drag fans out of storage, locate needed extension cords, bring up extra supplies of bottled water from the basement, move furniture,etc., etc., etc.  Each one of them took it all in stride not missing a step.  No one asked, "Is this in my job description?"  They just did whatever needed to be done.

They did many things to make our life bearable without the benefit of full power.   I can only include a few.  One of the foremost things was to serve three meals a day for everyone.  Almost all of us  are on the one meal a day plan whereby we prepare two meals a day in our residences.  However, without power we couldn't cook.  One side benefit of this hardship was that it brought some of us together at mealtimes that didn't always see each other.

Lounge furniture was moved into one of the dining areas where staff had assembled an assortment of large fans and a couple of air coolers along with a television to  give us a lounge where we could relax and catch up on what was happening in the world at large. 

 Charging stations for cell phones were set up for residents who rely entirely on them for their phone service.  Staff made sure there was plenty of bottled water available so people would not become dehydrated.  As an insomniac one of my ways of coping with the dark nights was to move my den chair into the hall outside of my apartment where one of the ceiling emergency light provided me with light for reading and puzzle solving.  When the night man made his rounds, he never failed to ask me if I would like some water.

As much as possible we maintained our normal activities.  For example on Saturday a group of us saw that the ceramics created by residents went into the display cabinet as scheduled.
The newsletter came out on the first of July as expected.  

On Monday morning three of the administrative staff came around to each residence with black garbage bags to help us empty our refrigerators of all of the food that had been there too long without refrigeration and so must be discarded.  The housekeeping staff followed up to  clean the refrigerators where necessary.

Monday afternoon our hopes went up when the power went on in midafternoon.  But it went off again in a few minutes.  Some people got partial power later in the evening, but full power did not come on until about 2:00 p.m.  on Tuesday.  One of the most common sounds accompanying the sighs of relief as air conditioners started up was the sound of washing machines being started by those of us desperately in need of clean clothes.

We owe a huge THANK YOU to our staff for all they did for us in spite of the heat and I didn't hear a complaint from one of them.  No doubt the ones who deserve an extra measure of recognition are those who worked in the kitchen and dining room where the heat was greatest due to the cooking without benefit of air conditioning.  They are my heroes and heroines.

Now that we are experienced in the handling of extended power outages I believe that our staff could easily write a  valuable how-to book for others.