Unplugged

Once in a while, it’s nice to go somewhere without internet access for a few days, even though it feels disorienting to be offline. But it’s not a state of being I’d want to spend too much time in.

We spent the long weekend in Southern Illinois. Two weeks ago, a storm came barreling through southern Missouri and Illinois, wreaking havoc. It wasn’t a tornado, but the winds were upwards of 100mph, and it went on and on and on. Three and a half hours the kids spent huddled under their bookbag rack at school. Offline was the least of their problems.

In the wake of the storm, my sister-in-law couldn’t get to the school because of downed trees. There was no power for several days. As many power outages as there have been in the last few years, from New York to Katrina, I hadn’t ever thought through the implications until it touched close to home.

For those with electric stoves, there was no way to cook anything. There was no way to keep food cool, except to run a gas generator, and no way to get gas because gas pumps require electricity too. Cell phones weren’t working, cordless phones weren’t working. Grocery stores and restaurants were closed. No ATM machines, no credit card readers.

By the time we arrived on Thursday night, power was back up and running, but hearing the stories was disturbing enough. It’s times like these when I realize how frighteningly dependent upon technology we have become. It makes life easier, more enjoyable, for sure, but now, what would we do without it? How will we live if something cataclysmic ever happens?

I grew up on a farm, so I know the basics of raising your own food. I know how to kill and prepare a chicken…though I’ve never done it myself, but I think I could do it if I had to. I know something about canning vegetables, and so forth. But I still need a chicken. And a vegetable plot.

Listening to my in-laws talk about the last couple of weeks, I feel a niggling of fear for the unknown cataclysm that could wipe out life as we know it. We can only survive so long on peanut butter and potato chips, and I fear the ugliness that might result when we get desperate.

But maybe I’m focusing on the wrong side effect of being forcibly unplugged.

The storm caused only one fatality in Southern Illinois. For that family, tragedy is still tragedy. But based on the amount of destruction we’ve seen here, the fact that the number is not far higher is cause for thanksgiving. And my sister-in-law told me that people are saying how great a time they had while the power was out. There was nothing else to do, so they played cards by candlelight and board games by flashlight. They got together with neighbors on front porches. They created community in a way that went out of fashion long ago.

So yes, if the unknown disaster ever does strike, life will be harder. But maybe we’ll also discover that we’re stronger—and better off—than we think we are.