Wednesday morning seemed like a normal enough day. I wake up, get ready for school, and realize it is F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G outside! As in... 18 degrees out! Where am I? But, no big deal I would have thought. So I'm driving along to school, talking to my mom on the phone about nothing important (actually... we were talking about how my mom was planning on shoveling her driveway today because they got hit hard with a snow storm. I later found out that I am the proud of daughter of a crazy lady who KEPT TRACK of whose snow pile was the highest by the end of the day from shoveling... she made not 1 but 2 snow piles that no one else even came close to topping - congratulations mother, you won). And in case you were wondering just how big these snow piles were... she took a picture of her "winners:
Impressive....As I veered off Mopac, the main road I take in at 6:20AM, and start venturing through the neighborhood where my school is I notice no one is up; lights are out. Must be too cold to get motivated. But when I come up the hill to the stop light, I notice something very eery and scary. There is not 1 light on in this little town. No stop light, no gas station lights, no Starbucks lights, no grocery store lights, and most important of all --- NO SCHOOL LIGHTS! Okay... am I on a set of a scary movie? Mom, DO NOT HANG UP WITH ME. I pull into the parking lot across from my school where Starbucks, a grocery store, and lots of little shops are and see some cars, the workers in Starbucks looking confused, but nothing else. I glance over at my school and see someone walking around outside with a flashlight. Well, I am not about to get out and run over there - it's freezing and that person could be the culprit!!
So I sit...
I turn up the radio and hear that there are MANDATORY rolling blackouts occurring all over TX today because there was not enough energy to power TX today (how does this happen?). The blackouts would occur every 7 minutes and last for about 15 minutes. Okay, am I having school? Do I even want to drive home before the sun comes up and risk my life (remember that the stop lights were out so people were calling into the radio reporting accidents everywhere because people were running lights that didn't know there were any there). I called a fellow teacher, her power had just gone out. Should she come? I dunno... there are more teachers arriving but no one is getting out. Then - someone switched on the lights! YESSSS! I quickly made a mad dash in the grocery store because I needed paper cups for a project my kids were doing today and I needed to pick up some canned goods because one of the stores was offering a promotion: bring a canned good get a free bottle of your choice of OPI nail polish! I had planned on hitting up all 4 stores:) Which later proved to be a waste because I never actually went to the stores due to the blackouts.
I went into the grocery store. They were in shock of what was going on and no one understood it. The head energy company claimed we all were informed about this but none of us were aware. I went to pay... the cash registers were down, she told me just to leave a dollar or whatever I had - she didn't really care hahah (so nice). I get in my car, park, and start heading up to school when bzzzpppp - no lights again. AHHHH I HATE THE DARK! So me in my knee high boots take off running! The gas station attendant is yelling to me - Miss, are you okay? Yes!!! I'm fine thanks! I get into the school, creeped out totally, leave my stuff by my door and walk towards voices. Everyone is congregating outside the office and someone announces that Starbucks is giving away free coffee. Awesome!
The plan was to send all kids to the cafeteria, at 8:00 we would take attendance and then go from there. The K teachers headed to our wing to direct traffic. I had planned to have a half day sub to get testing completed so she also arrived and I explained the situation. Around 7:30 the lights came on again. The bell rang at 7:40 and things were in pure chaos. Lights went out at 7:50... awesome.. what kind of day will this prove to be?
Throughout the day the lights went on and off. My class did wonderful sitting all bundled up in their coats with no light but the sunlight. I actually got all of my testing done and copies made during the 10 minute intervals that the lights would come on. The trend seemed to be opposite for our school than what it was supposed to be: rather than 15 off 45 on, ours was 15 on 45 off. It was terrible. At 12:00 the power went off and stayed off until 2:15... our school was an ice box. At 2:15 the power came on and stayed on the rest of the day/night. Thank goodness!!
Crazy, insane day for us but we survived. Rolling blackouts and all!
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