As I left our house yesterday morning about 7:30, the sky was a rather nondescript gray. By the time I got to the Kenosha campus of Gateway about 7:50, the sky had turned extremely dark – and we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. And as I turned on the control room mic to introduce the morning show, I said “It’s 8:11 here on WGTD, your Gateway to public radio . . . and through the course of today’s morning show, we will interrrupt the program to keep you fully updated on our severe weather situation.”
BOOM
That very instant, the place went black.
So did the homes of approximately 12,000 Wisconsin Electric customers in Kenosha and Racine. (And, I would only later find out, about 800,000 in Illinois, hit even harder than we were by this freak storm.)
And for the next two and a half hours, WGTD remained dead as a door nail, along with the rest of the Gateway campus. We did have a few hallway emergency lights on- but otherwise the only device that seemed to work in the whole building was the soap dispenser in the restroom. Otherwise, we were back in the Stone Age, just like that.
Actually, I am overstating the case. We still had our phones. We even had one laptop computer still working with its battery. But we were off the air and in the dark except for the light coming in through our windows overlooking 30th Avenue. That’s one thing I love about our current studios versus the ones we were in before – It’s a rather simple matter to look out and see the world and make sure it’s still there.
We were off the air but there was still information to gather, and I ended up placing a couple of phone calls to the media line at Wisconsin Electric – although there was absolutely nothing for me to do with that information until we were back on the air. But it felt good to know something. I also used the laptop to check the National Weather Service radar, which gave a pretty good indication that the worst was behind us, which was a relief. I also called home to make sure Kathy and the dogs were fine. (They were.)
And then, with nothing else to do except wait fo the power to be restored, I sat myself down in the production room, right next to the window. . . and proceeded to finish reading the book about which i was supposed to be recording an interview later that morning. It’s a book which has gotten me a few odd looks as people have noticed me with it, because it’s titled “Inside Scientology.” It’s a really interesting look at this highly mysterious and controversial organization which labels itself as a church but is really like no other church you’ve ever seen. This is one of those 400- page books that I usually have to heavily skim rather than thoroughly read, but with life suddenly on hold, I suddenly had the time to take it out and dig a bit deeper into it. And finally when 9:00 rolled around and the power was still off, I knew that the interview would have to happen another day- so I just kept reading. And basically for one hour and 45 minutes, I sat there reading – and it was the most delightful invigorating reading I’ve done in a long long time. No multi-tasking like reading while showering or reading while walking the treadmill or reading while watching TV or reading while shaving. Just reading.
Only now as I think back on that odd experience am I reminded of an interesting article in the current issue of New York magazine. . . about a handful of businesses that cater to analog customers with analog technology. The one that I remember most vividly is a small business which sells and services typerwiters. . . because evidently there are a few people left in this world who prefer doing their work on an old fashioned typewriter. And one of the owners who was asked about it said that when you are writing on a computer, you’re writing on a device designed for all kinds of other things . . . and it is incredibly hard to resist the urge to do some of those other things instead of writing. With a typewriter, there is likely to be a bit more focus on the task at hand.
Which is sort of what my lights out experience gave me- a fairly brief taste of being Amish. Of course, for my friends in Illinois who are still without power a day and a half later- some of whom are being told that they will be without power until FRIDAY – I would not expect them to look on the phenomenon of Lights Out as positively as I did. But even for people whose power is out for days rather than hours, there is at least the possibility of being reminded, however unpleasantly, of all we take for granted in our wired-up world which makes our lives so full . . . . and sometimes too full.
pictured above: the production room at WGTD during the power outage.