The storm seemed to start like any other; the sky turned dark grey, the wind wailed, and the rain poured down. It didn’t stop; days went by, and it was still storming, with brief interludes of sunshine for half an hour or an hour where we’d go outside and be pelted by the sand caught in the fierce wind at the beach right next to our house. When it started up again, the wind took on a force that I’d never known. Our north-facing windows towards the ocean rattled so much I questioned if they would stay. I was compelled to say a little prayer that they stayed strong and continued to protect my family. I told the boys that we would eat in the lounge room rather than the dining room tonight, and with the change, they had some excitement. The wind beat against the windows, against the house, up to 110km per hour, I read the next day. The power went out, and being my well-prepared mom self, I broke open some glow sticks for the boys to hold as they fell asleep in their beds. However, I was woken by water droplets falling onto my head in my bed! The wind had pushed the rain through the tiniest cracks around our newly installed windows on the western side of our house, and my little indoor downpour ensued.
We are now a couple of days into having no power. Since we previously drove around Australia in an RV that was fully decked out for a family, we have supplies to be off-grid. The generator has kept us going quite nicely. We even lent it to another neighbour who needed to top up the electricity in their fridge and freezer.
Someone who lives far from here texted me during all this, saying they would be looking for another place to live where this wouldn’t happen. I replied that most places have natural disasters now, and all things considered, this isn’t so bad, especially for us; it’s just novel more than anything. We have plenty of fresh water. Our children are still going to school; I’m sure I could even have my regular groceries delivered right now if I placed an order. Our little section out of a hundred sections of Tasmania is out of power right now. Before coming here, we lived in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales during the dreaded “Black Summer”, and the bushfires were terrifying, one of the primary reasons we moved from there.
This experience has me wondering more about self-reliance and self-sustainability. We now live in town on a town block, which is surprising. I just realized that for solar to work, it has to be started with electricity the way we have it set up. It is time to think about retrofitting a rainwater tank too.