September 8, 2011 Blackout

          This blackout experience was, as much as I would like to say, shocking. It happened around 3:30 P.M. but my dad and I did not find out until around four o'clock, when we went to go pick up my sister at Southwest Collage. Just when we were already in the car and about to leave, my dad clicked on a button to close the garage door, but nothing happened. He got out of the car and someone from our communities front office came up to him and told him how we were having a brownout, but he did not know for how long or if we were the only region. Later, on the road after my dad manually closed the garage, we noticed how most of the street were not working. My dad even made a comment on how badly people drive because they were not following the; "act like it is a four way stop," rule. After we picked up my sister we decided to look for gas because we only had a quarter left, but all the gas stations were closed. We looked for almost and hour, I could not believe it. Even the Navy base was closed with no stored open. So we sadly accepted it was best to go home and cook since the stove ran on gas and we have dozens of candles and around five flashlights. My dad cooked soup that night called, Nilaga, which has vegetables and beef or pork. Yummm. And since we have dozens of empty water bottles as well, we filled them up with sink water, just in case. While we ate, we watched a movie on my sisters laptop which started to die as well. Not until afterwards around 8 P.M. did we find out my touch screen phone was the only one out of their two blackberries that had an FM radio. To think one person in Arizona, killed the lights for millions of people in I believe two to three states. The broadcasters at the time were our only link to see what was happening in other places. Hearing people call in saying where they live just got their lights back on and that everybody's lights should be restored in the next day or two gave me the feeling that everything will be alright. We went to sleep at 3 A.M. when finally our lights came back on.
          Americans dependency is very strong when it comes to the topic of electricity. Everyday we wake up in the morning not even considering if the electricity is on, we just assume it is. For centuries, people have known that light takes away the darkness that is often assimilated to evil which could be one of the reasons why we are so dependent on it, but a lot of our light sources come from electricity. During the blackout, on September 8th, many people including me found out how unprepared we were for an  unexpected emergency. People were driving everywhere trying to get gas or find ice for their freezers before everything spoils, which also caused numerous accidents. Electricity has become one of our basic needs in life that we cannot live without, it is even a base for almost everything in our society. TV's, internet, cooking, music, cars, cooking, even reading. Some people, I know do not depend on electricity as much as other people, and some might disagree but our dependency on electricity might not be such a good thing after all.