Blackout

As a Californian living in London, words which used to be part of my everyday vocabulary like ‘rolling black out’, ‘brown out’, ‘power grid’ and ‘electricity surge’, have all but vanished from my memory. That is, until last week when my family and I experienced the Courtfield Road blackout of December 2003.

It was a lazy Sunday evening; my five-year old daughter had finished her well-balanced supper of plain pasta and mashed potatoes, had her bath and was rubbing her eyes. Jenny, our Scottish nanny was curled up on the sofa under a cashmere blanket watching ‘Maid in Manhattan’. Suddenly, the lights started flickering. After a few seconds of halogen bulbs dimming in and out, I knew that we were headed for darkness. I snatched the remote control from my nanny, turned off the television and lunged for the computer. I shut it down in the nick of time, just before it crashed on its own.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Jenny asked, throwing her blanket to the floor. “I was watching that movie!”

Before I could say “blackout” the house went completely dark.

Swiftly, Jenny located the flashlight my daughter, Lindsay, had been playing with earlier. Thank goodness she didn’t run the batteries down while she was pretending to be Britney Spears and dancing under the spotlight. In the meantime, I fumbled around for matches and lit the Dyptique candle that sat on our entry-hall table. Within seconds a luscious Mimosa scent wafted throughout the front hall.
Next, I heard my husband knocking against the walls as he rushed up the stairs from his office on the lower ground. “Where are the flashlights, the candles? What about canned goods?”

He was already in full-disaster mode and began shouting orders like a general.
He looked first at my dumb-founded nanny. “Before the shelves are emptied, go to Harts (local convenience store) and stock up on batteries, candles, bottled water and long-life milk.”

My nanny mobilized, scrambling to find her coat. “And don’t forget some duct tape,” he barked. I expected his next words to be: ‘We’re under attack.’
Hearing the words ‘duct tape’ I knew I needed to put a stop to this hysteria. For those of you who aren’t living in constant fear of a saran gas attack, you wouldn’t understand that duct tape is an essential item to keep in your emergency supply bin. You’re meant to use it to seal the windows in order to prevent deadly gas from seeping into your house.

“Calm down, Grover,” I said throwing my body in front of the door to prevent my panicking nanny from rushing down to Gloucester Road. “I didn’t feel the building shake, so it’s not an earthquake, I don’t hear the wind hailing or raindrops pounding, so it’s not a hurricane. And at this time, it doesn’t appear that we’re a victim of a terrorist attack.”

“You never know,” he pointed a finger at me and raised his voice. “We’re completely unprepared. We don’t even have walkie-talkies.”

“Walkie-talkies?” my nanny blurted out. “What heavens for?”

“In case we split up,” my husband said, nearly out of breath. “We can’t rely on cell service.”

“Split up?” I questioned. “Are you insane? We live in a three-bedroom flat, not some cavernous, country pile.”

I had to admit, though, the ‘unprepared’ bit began to make me a little nervous. At home in California I had a garage full of warm blankets, tents, gas stoves, a year’s supply of bottled water and enough canned goods to feed the entire neighbourhood. After all, we lived in earthquake country. Not to mention El Niño and fire country. Of course, we had a few cans of tuna and soup in the cupboard; but I knew that I had committed the ultimate emergency faux-pas: our can opener was electric. That alone was enough to guarantee death by starvation for my entire family.

Speaking of starvation, I needed to make an executive decision about what to do with the organic milk and chicken I had bought at Waitrose earlier that afternoon. I knew the whole lot would spoil in a couple of hours after the fridge started to warm. But if I opened the refrigerator, the last few cubic feet of cold air would escape, thereby banishing the contents to the bin by the next morning. I calculated the outside air temperature to be close to freezing, cold enough to preserve the freshness of the food. Should I risk the veggies to save the meat, dairy and poultry? A no-brainer. I swiftly opened the fridge and removed in one swipe an armload of perishables and placed them on the windowsill.

Mission accomplished in the kitchen, I called out for Lindsay. It was nearly 9:00 and far past her bedtime. I held her little hand and guided her down to our bedroom. After stumbling around in the dark, I tucked her in, lit my other Dyptique candle on the bedside table, and crawled into bed with my daughter. She fell asleep peacefully, and I nearly did too, until I heard my husband shout down the stairs.
“Make sure to shut all the windows,” he barked. “The heat’s been cut off and the outside temperature is dropping two degrees an hour.”

“Thank god,” I thought. Normally he likes our flat hot enough to roast a turkey in the reception room. At least we’ll all cool down a bit.

Somehow, only armed with a few fragrant candles and one pitcher of Brita-filtered water, from 8:15 p.m. until 4:30 the next morning, we managed to survive the Courtfield Road blackout of December 2003. Okay, so I slacked off a bit when it came to preparing my family for an emergency. But as my precious daughter slept soundly, cradled in my arms, I knew I had everything.