We just had a beautiful day yesterday. The temperatures were in the 20's with no wind, the flakes were falling lightly all day and the sun was warm, well, as warm as the sun gets in February. But around 3 to 4:00 pm the winds started howling. By 4:30 pm the temperature had dropped by 20 degrees to 4 above. Our guests, who had been out snowshoeing most of the day were just heading out to supper when.........the power went out in the entire county.
Power outages in the summer are a mild inconvenience, in the winter, they can be really rough and thankfully, I have experienced very few winter power outages. We have enough back up heat to keep the temperatures above freezing in the lodge but in my case, with high winds and dropping temperatures, just above freezing is what I can do with back up propane heat, wood and no electricity.
After an hour with no electricity and the temperatures still dropping, the large propane stove was running at full blast in the dining room, the guests built a large fire in the fire place and I hooked up the emergency heat in the well house to keep the water pressure tanks and pump from freezing. I figured I had still a couple hours before I needed to fire up additional emergency propane heat in the basement of the lodge.
The electricity came back on after about 4 hours (thank you Arrowhead Electric!) and I breathed a sigh of relief. Our guests had settled in for a 'winter campfire' as close as you could get to the fireplace enjoying the warmth and cozy flickering lights. When the lights did come back on, it is such as surprised that we went around the lodge and turned them all off to continue to enjoy the winter evening.
The temperatures continued to drop during the night and it is now 20 below outside. The winds haven't let up yet and continue to move around our snow and beat at our windows. My intrepid guests are strapping on their snow shoes to venture out again.
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