Power To The People

"We love you!" I shouted to the man walking down the street, long pole in hand to lift the power lines that hung too low for the big orange trucks to pass under.  He raised a hand in salute as I plunked my purse down and announced to the children, "Well, I guess we're not going to get gasoline after all."  While the children drew chalk crabs on the driveway, I watched the three giant trucks maneuver into position next to trees whose bent and broken limbs hovered over the power lines.  As if choreographed, all three buckets rose high into the air, the men inside wielding their chain saws like scalpels.  Branches dropped to the ground, some bouncing off the already beleaguered wires before landing with a familiar thud. 

Nearly five days ago, Saturday, we stood on our front stoop and at the front windows watching a heavy October snow fall steadily, piling up on the autumn leaves that had yet to fall.  And when the weight became too much to bear we heard the crack, as if from a rifle shot, and watched the limbs fall to the ground below, sometimes taking out power lines on their way down.  The branches fell steadily for nearly 4 hours.  And when all was said and done, the power lines had been ripped from more than half the houses in the neighborhood and we went to bed early, in the dark and cold.

Now I watched as the tree trucks quickly trimmed broken limbs from the trees, working their way around the block and out of sight, leaving almost as quickly as they'd come.  Ours, one of the crew had said, was the worst neighborhood he'd seen so far.  An hour later, six PSEG crews descended on the block, backing their trucks into driveways, propping ladders against the houses and pulling the lines back into place.  Though it had taken five days for them to arrive, they worked with speed and precision.  We watched the whole thing, grinning and giving thumbs up to any worker who happened to glance our way, and texting our working neighbors the good news.    Like the tree trimmers, they quickly worked their way around the block, and then vanished.   The lights were still out, and it was growing dark.  "I guess we're spending one more night without power," Miguel said.  He pulled on his boots and jacket, grabbed the keys and the gas can and headed out to procure more gas for the generator we'd managed to procure on Sunday afternoon.

I left for work as the generator roared to life; ours was the only house on the block with the steady glow of an incandescent bulb in the window.  Just as I finished my session, Miguel called.  The reception was poor and I could barely hear him, but I made out the words, "We have power!"  I grinned all the way home.