As I type this post, I have another browser window open to track the path of Hurricane Florence due to 
make landfall in my area sometime later this week. Though I now live a few hours inland, I grew up in a coastal town, so I know how unpredictable storms like these can be. It’s entirely possible that we will get a bit of rain and wind and nothing else–and it’s just as possible that we’ll be spending quite some time without power. I pray that the latter is the absolute worst of what we all endure here.
In preparing for the storm and potential power outage, I was reminded of a time about a year ago when I was returning home after dropping off my daughter at school. As I approached the first stoplight on my route, I noticed that it wasn’t working. That’s odd, I thought. I drove on, navigating through another half dozen malfunctioning traffic lights before arriving safely back home only to discover that the power was out there too.
I used the little remaining battery life I had left on my phone to check the estimate of when our power company would restore service: two hours. No problem, I thought. I’ll get out my fully charged laptop and I’ll chip away at my to-do list until the power comes back on.