An Open Letter of General Irritation

First thing's first - I apologize profusely for being away from my little home on the world wide web for so long. It's just not a nice thing to do to my loyal readers! But I would like to offer you all a bit of an explanation ...

I am currently stationed in a location which has been experiencing a rather ridiculous weather pattern recently. I lost power for about 36 hours and have spent the better part of 5 days being stressed out about stupid weather, how to keep my home safe and in one piece, etc.

I completely understand and appreciate that, for lack of a better phrase, shit happens and said shit includes weather related events. But what I do not understand is the lack of communication from regional government agencies and general service industries to the public at large BEFORE said weather events.

In this day in age, weather forecasting has progressed to the point where, when a major weather event is pending, everyone knows about it. It's what drives people to clear grocery store shelves of bread, milk, toilet paper, and bottled water. If you work for a government agency or for a utility company, you likely have heard the news and are also probably running out to the store to score yourself some of the essentials.

So why in the hell don't you do a little PR work ahead of time?


Would it be too much to ask for the local power company to get a few representatives on the local news ahead of a weather event to say, "Folks may experience power outages. We are preparing to have all our teams ready to go in the event there are widespread power outages. But you can do your part to be prepared, so here is a list of things to have on hand in the event your power goes out and here are things you can do to stay warm if your power goes out."


Most people know to have batteries, a radio, a normal phone (since cordless phones won't work), water, canned goods, and food you can eat without having to cook on hand if your power goes out. But not everyone knows that they should close off rooms, pull curtains, etc., to help keep rooms warm if the power goes out.


And another thing, when you're without power and freezing your ass off for more than 10 hours in this very digital age, no one wants to call a phone number and get an automated message. You want to get a human on the phone. You want to say, "I'm sorry, I know you guys are trying, but can you tell me when you might have my power back on?" A pre-recorded message stating that you should "make alternate plans" when the weather event is in progress does nothing but infuriate people. If I should have made alternate plans, it would have been nice to know that ahead of time, OK assholes? Let me know two days ago that I should have made alternate plans, not one day in to my lack of electricity hell.


In closing, I would like to assure everyone that I am warm for the time being (and safe) but that I could loose power again at any minute. Really what I want is a nice long weekend where I can do nothing but sit on my ass and be warm and not think about anything serious - only trivial crap. That could be awhile. But if you're reading this and you know anyone in local government or who works for a utility company or the like, please let them know that this blogger thinks the appropriate course of action is to give people plenty of fair warning and be helpful in advance. Don't do what the average Joe does and wait until the last minute or until it's too late to be of any help.


- The Incident