The Long Dark. Some 23,000 opt for a mindset in these surroundings during power outages, or we leave. There’s a pride in self-sufficiency that’s idiosyncratic. It’s barely noticed. Avoiding a raincoat. Three oil lamps ready with spare mantles. Dated water jugs in a reefer. $5,000 wood stoves or a gas grill. Last Friday’s New York Times story (May 7) about us as an “escape” destination missed this resilience. No one had invited them in.
As PSE winds up its customer outreach with artful terms like power reliability and shorter outages, it’s worth considering its implications beyond their persuasive grids.
It’s more than a sighting between hot showers and a tea kettle bath by candle. Or a switch wire size to get off-island juice vs. cutting tree swaths. It’s choosing to group cope or staying local. It’s about sustaining ourselves as independents, in a room alone in long johns, or evoking one of our newly-rescued neighbors, or seniors invited from single-grid condo’s.
Our current city police-sponsored emergency plan pushes for homegrown expectations. It realistically urges neighborhood contact networks. It insightfully urges us also “not to contact PSE workers.”
There’s the choice, too, of opting for a solar switch besides PSE’s way. Exploring wind or alternatives like on Vashon. And while welcoming émigrés from the east wanting no self-sufficiency to butt back on their 24-hour power needs, to inform them what’s unique and invisible in island life. Realtors tend to downplay these as they extoll price, trees and schools.
Some urge we can’t ignore Wifi/Internet demands. To an extent we can. We trust it’s individualized and electric cars, and as between Kindle or i-Pad, will shake out over battery upgrades. During The Long Dark past outage episodes, islanders got mainland battery-care packages via backpack. Some dried their hairdo’s and beards and charged their apps on ferry boats. You needn’t get off on the mainland nine years ago.
We ought to look at how to keep this resonance going on this side. Despite the new boat disembark rules, it’s hardly ripe for an Historic Museum display case. Inadvertently, without insisting on our dependency uniqueness once again, we’ll move over to the news reports of former “escapes.” By that I mean Islands – Gone – Mainland. No need to type in “Mercer.”
R.O. Conoley
Sunrise Drive
