What a difference a week makes.
Last week I received a call from my wife at home. She asked me if I was sitting down. I kind of slumped in my chair and waited for the bad news.
The PECO bill had arrived.
It was a shocker, to say the least, easily the biggest bill we had ever incurred in the 30 years we have lived in our all-electric house, heated with an electric heat pump.
I was dumbstruck that our bill could be that high.
A week later, I have a little better appreciation of what that "juice" flowing into our house is worth" Priceless.
Wednesday morning I left the house early as I always do, took one step onto the walkway and knew I was in serious trouble.
Everything was coated in ice.
I managed to get to the car, chip off the ice, and hit the road. That's when the real adventure began.
Trees were down everywhere. Forget Sochi, if you want to see slalom skiing, you should have seen me weaving in and our of fallen limbs as I tried to snake my way out to the main roads.
The drive into Delaware County remained an adventure.
When I finally arrived in beautiful downtown Primos, my cell phone rang just as I was about to enter my office. I glanced at the number and figured my wife was checking up on me, since it had taken me considerably longer to make the drive than normal. It was worse than that. The power had gone out. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I was able to get up, get showered, dressed and most important of all, make coffee before we joined the legions of folks in the dark all across Chester County yesterday.
I felt bad for my wife. She's always home alone in these instances. If you hadn't yet guessed, when 650,000 people lose power, it's pretty big news.
I seemingly spent all day yesterday updating the numbers of outages from PECO.
At about noon, my wife called me back. I could tell by the tone in her voice she had good news. The power was back on.
Again, we were incredibly lucky.
I would find out just how lucky on the drive home last night. It was amazing to drive down West Chester Pike from Newtown Square into West Chester and seeing everything just pitch black.
But there were a couple of interesting things I managed to see.
On Sproul Road in the Broomall section of Marple, smack dab in the middle of a huge pocket of darkness, one strip center with a Wawa and pizza shop was open. You literally couldn't get into the Wawa parking lot. And there was a line out the door at the pizza shop. I'm assuming pizza - for those with the ability and power to make it - was a booming business last night.
The same held true as I headed out West Chester Pike. Anyplace, in particular restaurants, that had power was packed. But for the most part there was only darkness. That includes the traffic lights.
All of this was preceded by another call I received from my wife just as I was about to leave the office. I flinched when I saw the number come up on my phone. I feared what was coming. Yep, after being on all afternoon, the power was out again.
Never doubt the power of prayer. I was praying fervently as I drove home, and just as I drove through the pitch black sections of Marple, my wife called and ebulliently let me know the power was back on.
A lot of people did not have that luxury. West Chester Pike in many parts looked like a ghost town. As I got closer to home, I was able to put a picture to what I had been hearing all day.
I'm still trying to get my arms around the statement from PECO yesterday that at one point 80 percent of people in Chester County were without power. Think about that, 8 of every 10 people were in the dark. I never felt so lucky.
A lot of people in Chester County spent the night at shelters, in Lionville and West Grove.
This morning a lot of them are still without power.
Delaware County did not seem to be nearly as hard hit. They was a shelter set up at the Springfield Municipal Building. Villanova University has shut down for the rest of the week. Episcopal Academy will open their athletic center and library to people out in the Newtown Square area who are still without power.
This morning, PECO says the number of those without power is down to 420,000.
That PECO bill never looked so good.
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