Hurricane Sandy 1
Matt Seinberg

For over a week, the entire eastern seaboard was being warned about Hurricane Sandy, and how devastating it could be if it met up with a cold front coming down from Canada.

I was hoping and praying that Sandy would take a right turn and not hit the east coast, and stay in the Atlantic Ocean, but that didn’t happen. So the “Frankenstorm” that was predicted hit us on Monday, and the lights went out.

My first thought was to the new NBC TV show “Revolution,” and how the power went out at the same time all over the world, and the devastation that was wrought. But since this is real life and there was no EMP burst, I wasn’t all that worried.

What did worry me was reading today that out of the Long Island Power Authority’s 1.1 million customers, over 984,000 were without power scared the crap out of me. How long would it actually take for LIPA to restore power to that many people?

The fact is that LIPA does not have a great track record when it comes to re-establishing service to its customers, and this is the worst power outage to ever hit Long Island.

Right now, our schools are closed through Wednesdayand I don’t anticipate them opening at all this week. Nor do I think that many businesses are going to reopen because they don’t have power. I was texting with a couple of people from my job, and so far we are not open Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday is still up in the air.

Trust me; I would rather be at work talking to strangers than stuck at home with three crazy females. The only one not bothering me is Daphne the cat. Michelle wants to spend time her boyfriend, and Melissa wants to bother them because there is nothing better to do. Marcy is worried about what to do with all the food in the fridge and freezer, and how/and or when we’re going to cook it.

At some point, I’m going to fire up the grill and throw on whatever I have to so we can eat for the next couple of days. Today she finished up the milk, eggs and bacon for a really good breakfast. Luckily we have a gas stove that we can light with one of those Bic Flickers.

In the next couple of days, the grill will see quite a bit of action with hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage and chicken.

What do I miss most during this power outage? That would be lights and television. I find it very difficult to read with a flashlight on my shoulder pointing at the book, constantly changing its position to see the pages just right. Not having TV is tough, especially on Monday and Thursday nights when some of my favorite shows are on.

I told Marcy I’m going to buy a generator in the near future, so we don’t have to go through this again. Our next door neighbors have one, with their fridge, freezer, TV and one light connected. They say by having the appliances on during the day, they can shut the generator off at night, and still have everything cold and frozen the next day.

I’m cold, tired, depressed and tired of the dark and can’t wait for the power to come back on. Stay tuned for more, next week.

Click here to read part two of this series.