Snowpocalypse @ The Calvert

We all hear jokes about how DC comes to a screeching halt when even a single snowflake is seen.  Well, I had quite the snowpocalyptic evening lastnight.

 

I left work at the end of the day as normal, and got home at the usual time.  But when I stepped off the bus, I noticed something seemed wrong...my building was completely BLACK.  No power at all.  The downstairs shops were all closed.  In the upper parking lot, there were power trucks galore.  Cherry-picker, generator truck, cable spools... and the fire dept was there too - arranging fire patrols until the power was back since obviously the fire alarms were also down.  The freezing weather and snow had cracked a power main below our building (built on a Dominion Power hub of some kind, apparently) and the electricity had been off since 10 AM yesterday.

 

The property management team was posted at the various doorways to let tenants in as we got home from work; the exterior door locks are all electric.  The property maintenance team was wandering around putting up LED lights in the stairwells and hallways as it got darker and darker, and, with their flashlights, escorting tenants who needed it.  (I, thanks to Nicole's Baghdad souvenir, had a convenient little red light that I could use.)   I was glad, when I got to the fifth floor of the stairwell, that I didn't live on the high top floors!  What a walk those folks had.  Later, the management team had pizzas delivered to the office, since none of us could cook.

 

I got upstairs and fed the cat, lit some candles and settled in to watch the goings-on in the parking lot.  It was quite entertaining watching the trucks move back and forth, the confabs among the power men, and the confused-looking tenants arriving home from work.  I was glad of the snow as it reflected more light into my apartment through the windows, so I wasn't sitting in pitch-darkness.

 

The dozen or so Dominion Power guys down in the parking lot eventually managed to rig up a temporary cable from a pole next to the parking lot to get us light and heat by about 7:30.  They left a team there all night in their truck, cherry picker raised up high holding the temporary cable over the parking lot.  They had tried, unsuccessfully, to set it up so that it could be driven over but eventually, after much conferencing, gave it up and hoisted the bucket instead.  Hopefully today they'll be back to fix it for real.