story behind story: Blackout
by K. G. Deloas
Published by LogosMythos Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 © K. G. Deloas
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story behind story: Blackout
by K. G. Deloas
On Thursday, September 8th, 2011, at 3:38 pm, the lights went out.
Zap.
Just like that.
Not in a room, apartment, building, or neighborhood; they went out across the massive metropolitan area of San Diego, in Southern California.
The power outage stretched from south Orange County to as far east as Arizona’s Yuma, digging well south into Mexico. It affected one and a half million households in San Diego alone. Early reports said it affected three million people; later estimates put that at seven.
Efficiency bulbs, computers, toaster ovens, traffic lights, store neon signs, and I imagine some dentist drills too, went out. There’s a message here, I think, about scheduling dental work, or better yet, picking a dentist who has a backup generator.
Cell phone towers continued to function, drawing from their emergency power supply. While your cell phone had juice you could contact your loved ones, as well as tell time, if telling time was important to you. Nearing the end of a workday, I imagine for many people telling time was important.
The radio — especially the automobile radio — emerged as the single most reliable form of semi-official emergency-wide information, except perhaps for Twitter. I can't tell you which of the two is most susceptible to spreading untrue rumors. But radio was stable. It kept functioning no matter how many people tried to access it; web servers, not so well.
Likewise, the automobile itself became for many the most precious device, the key to recharging cell phones to stay connected. (And to tell time.) But with the grid out, your plans for picking up pork chops and string beans, on the way home, for a good pre-weekend dinner were out as well.
By 4 pm the 805 highway had already become a parking lot, but that was to be expected. Highway 805 daily became a parking lot by that time or shortly after. Just a little more so on Blackout day, people heading home while there was still natural light. Drivers treated each other cordially. As dusk fell it became easy to overlook intersections when traversing city streets. The possibility of a side slam at high speeds loomed big.
My story “Blackout” begins with “Nothing screams 'unprepared' like a citywide power outage”, as that was exactly what I felt when I finally made it home. Natural light had already disappeared. I used my cell phone as a flashlight (and who hasn’t ever done that) to search for emergency lights. I found two decorative candles (gardenia, and vanilla scents, I think) and two realistic fake wax candles (lit by flickering LEDs.) Fortunately the LED candles had enough juice in their batteries. Together these four provided enough light that I could do what I like to do most in quiet evenings like that one: write.
But first, I needed dinner.
In my earthquake emergency bag I found a hand-crank powered/charged emergency radio with flashlight. In fact, I found two, but the first one I tried turned out defective. It emitted light and it played the radio but only while I cranked it. Trust me, cranking gets old fast. The other one stayed alive for a few minutes after I cranked it, allowing me to keep a tab on the county-wide emergency efforts while scavenging the kitchen for edibles require no cooking.
How easily we delude ourselves that we are prepared. I had placed those two devices in the emergency bag, a few years before. Whether I tested them before is anyone’s guess, though I know that I haven’t inspected my emergency bag yearly as I’m “supposed to”. This wasn’t a massive California earthquake; but it was an emergency, and I was unprepared. The scream was loud and clear.
Months later, I still hadn't set up a better emergency bag. I guess I never learned. An entire emergency wasted. (Have you learned? If you’ve been through this massive blackout, I hope you fared better in the Lessons Learned department.)
Something good did come out of that blackout.
The seed was planted during my candlelight dinner: swiss cheese and crackers. Both items needed no cooking or heating. The cheese would go bad anyway, if this emergency lasted days. Others, whose fridges were more creatively stocked, had more fun. A woman called the radio station: “I’m trying to finish this tub of ice-cream,” she said, “before it melts — or the electricity comes back on.”
I wrote very few words down that evening — the radio stole my attention. When the blackout started, I recalled how power outages would become commonplace soon after a zombie apocalypse. In those cases, the power outage was a symptom, an effect. Not the cause.
So during my candlelight dinner I explored the converse question: what kind of supernatural event could be triggered by a massive power outage — and only by a massive power outage?
An idea popped into my head.
I wrote a few paragraphs, then called it a night. I blew the candles out first, wondering how many households may have forgotten that important step. I hoped few.
Two days later on Saturday, I woke up bright and early to write "Blackout".
Now, if I could only turn my writing dedication into non-delusional emergency preparation, I just might prepare for the next power outage — or the next home invasion, as my protagonist Gloria discovered*.
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* During the great Southern California blackout of 2011, Gloria Hagnes finds an intruder in her moonlit living room. When he speaks to her, Gloria recognizes the voice: one she thought was out of her life and, in fact, out of this world. She then struggles with what brought him back to her life, and what the end of this blackout might mean for him.
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