Too Much Adrenaline by Susan L.

  It's been a crazy twenty-four hours. Snow, ice pellets then a generous helping of freezing rain knocked the power out about nine thirty last night.
  In a frantic panic and rather worried about the trees all around. I hauled out the generator but couldn't get it to start. Bring it inside. It might be too cold. The water began creeping over the basement floor.
  Take it back outside. (Boy I am glad it's such a little one!)
  Huff. Puff. Pull.
  Is the choke set? Yup. The gas line valve is on open? Yup. (By this point I confess a few choice words escaped.)
  Oh.
  There's an ON switch. Remember? She purred like a kitten.
  Got the extension cords run to the pump. Got another one to a light in the living room. 
  Last light was like having a newborn in the house all over again. The genny stalled out a couple times so I sort of slept with one eye open and was outside every other hour.
There was a God moment. The power flickered on briefly around 3:30 AM. I'd left my bedside lamp on to wake me up if it did. It didn't last long. I lay there in the dark realising just how quiet it was. The genny had stalled out moments before this happened. The Lord spared me a major flood.
  By this morning my little gas can was bone dry. The power outages extended to over 100,000 homes. Nothing was open. Nothing was working. I thought my tree was bad. There were tons of them down all over town.
I managed to borrow a few drops of gas from a neighbour then called my daughter who came to the rescue with a couple of big cans of gas.
The camp stove came out. Coffee never tasted so good!
The house got cold really fast. No hydro, no heat. I hung a sheet on the living room doorway and lit a whole bunch of candles. The heat felt good! Then I remembered we have a couple of small, stand alone heaters at work. With my boss's blessing, it didn't take long to get it home. The living room quickly became an oasis of warmth.
  Tonight, sparked by a short in the power lines, a pine tree in a row of pine trees caught fire. Pine will burn hot and furious even if it's soaking wet so I called 911 right away. These trees are awfully close to our houses. The fire crew was here in a matter of minutes but thankfully it had burned itself out.
I know there are many men and women who are still out there working hard to get everyone's power back on.
Bless them Lord and keep them safe. Amen.