The electric company owes me a couple cases of water...

[thistlechaser]

Mumble, mutter. Last week I got a letter telling me that electricity would be shut off to my apartment today between 9 AM and 3:30 PM. This annoyed me, as I'm on vacation this week and home all day, but what can you do? With the letter came some instructions on getting your home ready for being without power. One of them was that things in the fridge could stay only four hours without cooling (freezer was good for 24 hours).

9-3:30 was a good deal more than four hours.

So I broke open my stores of water bottles. Not wanting them to explode (like soda cans do), I opened each and poured out a little bit, then closed them and froze them. This morning I moved a bunch into the fridge and left the rest in the freezer. On top of this, I got up early so I could get all my online stuff done before 9 AM.

9 arrived, and so did power company trucks, so I shut my computer down and unplugged it. By 10 AM, there were six trucks (including a flatbed kind carrying the new transformer they wanted to replace an old one with). A dozen or so men standing around. I still had electric.

By 11:30, still having electric, I decided to go out and get lunch and do the shopping I needed to do. The men were still milling around, no work done that I could see.

Got back at 12:30, all men and trucks were gone. Old transformer was still in place. (It was larger than the new one and scuffed up.) All my clocks still had the right time, so power didn't go off during that hour I was gone.

Never did lose power today. We still have the old transformer. Unfortunately last night I threw out a lot of food from the fridge and wasted all those bottles of water getting ready for the day without power...

Stupid power company will probably reschedule to some other day. I better save those bottles.

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Er. Why did you do that to your water bottles? Water doesn't go bad if it's not refrigerated.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Soda cans explode if you freeze them, and the water bottles were really full. I probably didn't have to, but I emptied them out just a bit to try to be sure they didn't explode. Usually I just keep them standing around in the kitchen (though sealed, which they aren't anymore).

[tersa.livejournal.com]

I think either I'm misunderstanding or not communicating well enough.

I know soda cans will explode if they're frozen. I'm wondering why freezing the water bottles were in play at all? Why freeze them? They don't go bad, they shouldn't have been a problem if the power was out, being out or in the fridge, no matter how long it was supposed to be out.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh! The letter from PG&E suggested freezing water bottles and sticking them in the fridge if the fridge would be off more than four hours. It was an attempt to save the food I couldn't part with.

The amusing part is now all the bottles are in the sink, making all sorts of cracking and knocking noises. Sounds like I have ghosts!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Maybe you do! *twilight zone music*

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Woo! I'll be all set when I'm given one of those 'go kill 10 ghosts' quests!

[tharpy.livejournal.com]

Next time, go to the local supermarket and get some dry ice.

5 lbs is probably enough for 8 hours (and maybe overkill), and at least here generally runs about $1/lb.

Toss a bag into your fridge and freezer and you shouldn't have to toss anything out.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I considered doing that, but the power was going off at 9 AM and I didn't want to have to go out earlier than that to buy it (was on vacation!). I could have probably gotten it the night before, but wasn't sure if it would make things too cold or if it would melt and make a mess (was thinking of a bag of normal ice, not dry).