Natural disasters can teach you a lot about yourself, and the people around you. You get to see things like how you handle yourself in a crisis, or how people panic around you. Man made disasters aren’t much different, as it turns out. Yesterday at about 3:30pm-PST a large portion of Southern California lost power, and it stayed lost until around 2:00am-PST this morning.
By all accounts, people kept their cool. Except when it came to actually staying cool, it seems. Temperatures were running pretty high in the middle of the day, so there was a rush for ice. I’d heard reports that all major markets were out of bags of ice somewhere around 4:30pm-PST. Still, some markets and corner stores were at least still offering service. My local liquor store was doing cash-only transactions until sunset. I was able to pick up a six pack of Shock Top with only a mild wait in line. Pretty cool, guys. Thanks for keeping your community running!
Still, with no power, there were no games. Similarly, both my DS batteries were dead, as was my phone, and the laptop. It was interesting, sitting in the front yard for a few hours, doing nothing but talking, drinking beer and finally having a dinner of cold leftovers that would have spoiled otherwise. All in all not a bad night.
I’ve always felt that I’d be able to handle myself if things ever went so pear shaped that society stopped working altogether, but after what I saw today I’m a little more steeled to the thought. This was by no means a litmus test for a long term outage, but people still managed to come together and handle themselves with some poise and grace.
Well done, local humanity. You have managed to show adaptability.
— Vid