FYI: My power is out. Again. Estimated time of restoration is 3 hours. No one can blame a tornado today. Apparently, the power can't even stay on through some light rain anymore.

UPDATE: It's back on! And in just a shade under two hours. They're getting faster.

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FYI: My power is out. Again.

There was thunder and lightning for six continuous hours overnight Sunday and several more hours of lightning last night. I expected power outages from those, but no. Today's multi-hour outage comes in the middle of the afternoon on a comparatively calmer rainstorm, electrically speaking. That's what I get for letting my guard down.

I live in a metro Atlanta county, and the power to my neighborhood keeps going out, multiple times a year. And it feels like the outages are getting longer. This one started at about 4PM. Initial estimate was that it would be restored by 6. Update just came in that revised the target to 7:30.* That's not surprising; a few weeks ago, the original four hour estimated job ended up taking thirteen.

For the last few months, all we've heard from local government and Georgia Power is how eager they are to invite new development, especially power-hungry data centers. Why in the world should I be supportive of that when they can't even keep the lights on in well-established neighborhoods?

So what do I do now? I was planning on going to the grocery store, but there doesn't seem much point in buying ice cream sandwiches just to bring them home to melt. I guess I'll do what I always do in these increasingly common situations: I'll wait for the power to come back on. And then I'll hustle to get what I need done before it goes out again.

*At 7:45, I got word that the newly estimated time of recovery was now 10:45PM. So I have started the gasoline generator for the refrigerator and made myself a hamburger on the propane grill. I'm getting quite good at camping at home.

At 8:23PM, the power came back on. The first thing my phone tells me after the router comes back online is that another round of thundershowers is due about midnight. I think I'll leave gas in the generator; that's the best way to be sure I won't need it.

Update 05/28: Per WSB TV, "The NWS confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down in Coweta County on Tuesday afternoon." I had no idea, but as it happens, the start of that tornado track is very close to where the Georgia Power trucks spent several hours working to restore power yesterday evening. So i guess I should go easier on them; a surprise tornado is definitely harder to defend against than a thunderstorm. (That's the second tornado to hit my neighborhood since 2020. Maybe it's time to consider moving somewhere safer, like the side of a dormant volcano.)

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On April 1, the high was 77°. On April 2 and 3, the high was 84°. On April 4 and 5, the high was 85°. (Atlanta broke a 54-year record high.) They say it'll be cooler next week, but I decided I'd seen enough of my poodles lying around panting, so they got their first clipper cut of the earlier-than-expected summer season yesterday.

I love cutting on my living topiaries. It's very relaxing for me, and the boys don't complain too much. Louis mostly likes the attention, but Henry will make himself scarce if he sees me moving towards the scissors storage, so I have to be sneaky!

I always leave the whiskers a little longer around Henry's muzzle, but as you can see, I generally trim Louis completely. I think this is the last time I'll be doing that. Sure, he's cute with short hair, but when fuzzy, he looks a more like a teddy bear, which really suits his personality better.

Meanwhile, Henry's just ready for a break in the pollen and heat.

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No matter what the calendar says, spring is here. You can tell by all the thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches.

According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tornado database, the city of Newnan, Georgia, has been hit by five tornadoes since 1974. An average of once a decade doesn't seem so bad, but three of those have hit since 2020. One of those brushed the entrance to my neighborhood. Another leveled the local high school.

Also according to NOAA, "Severe Storms" have accounted for over 50% of all the disasters to strike Georgia since 1980. (That category doesn't include "Tropical Cyclones" or "Flooding," which combine for an additional 23%.) Here in the Bible Belt, we like to thank Jesus when a tornado takes out our house but leaves us alive. Given how frequently the weather strikes these days, I guess that means Jesus loves us more than he used to.

I am not a climatologist, but given that tornadoes are driven by heat thermal energy in the atmosphere, it's probably no coincidence that the ten warmest years in recorded history are also the past ten years. This bodes poorly for the near future, especially in the current political environment where combatting climate change is taking a back seat to, well, everything else. (Which is why the current administration has proposed cutting the NOAA staff in half. Tornadoes might be more common than ever, but at least they're getting harder to track!)

I have started paying attention when the forecast calls for severe weather. Not that I can do a lot about it, other than make sure that I'm in the basement. Since I live in a basement, that's not too hard. But, as a famous slaveholder once said, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

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Two snow events inside of two weeks in central Georgia? Some things just shouldn't happen twice. Hell really has frozen over.

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Henry and Louis' first snow day.

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"Atlanta, N. Georgia brace for snow, ice" reads the AJC headline.

Did I get in the car today and go to the grocery story to buy a gallon of milk despite the fact that I have two half gallons in my refrigerator? Yes, yes I did. The store had only three gallons in the case. When I walked away, there were two. Yes, I am part of the problem.

But at least I don't hoard little ducks made from petroleum based products for the dashboard of my Jeep. Nor do I release helium-filled balloons into the wilds or set all of the leaves in my yard on fire on windy days. I'm so much better than those people.

Is this a rationalization to make myself feel better about my irrational life choices? Yes, yes it is. If something is horrible because it does selfish things, and all humans do selfish things, all humans are horrible. If I'm a human being (spoiler alert: I am), I'm just going to have to learn to accept that.

On the bright side, self-loathing tastes better with milk.

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I type this at 1:28 AM with live weather coverage on WXIA TV telling me that Hurricane Helene is currently a category 2 storm as it passes over Valdosta headed north at about 20 miles per hour. There is minimal wind outside, but based on what I'm seeing, I expect it to pick up soon. That will no doubt bring trouble.

I've mentioned before that my neighborhood has power issues. Case in point, last night, after taking over 3 inches of rain totally unrelated to the hurricane, our power and cable went out. That's right, we were without power for 8 hours the day before a hurricane hit us. There's no telling what the state of our power grid will be by the time you read this.

I write this only to document a novel situation as I wait for the lights to go out again. I don't recall the last time a hurricane passed over Atlanta. I was certainly a Decatur resident when Opal moved through the city in 1995, but I don't remember that storm itself. That might have been the night that a limb fell through the windshield of my station wagon while I was at my girlfriend's apartment in Stone Mountain, but maybe not.

I have friends who remember being trapped in the Pink Pony, a "gentlemen's club," for 24 hours in what is now the city of Brookhaven. Their memories of Opal are much more vivid than mine. (I can only imagine the horrors. I met another friend of mine at The Pony for dinner one night, and a stripper rubbed herself all over my glasses, leaving me blind for the rest of the meal. I'm still irritated about that.)

Opal was 3 decades ago. In 2055, should I live that long, will I remember Helene? I sure hope not. That would mean that things go poorly. No one remembers mundanities. Just strippers.

UPDATE 1:50 PM: Nothing to see here. Helene wandered farther east than expected. Our biggest wind gust has been 11 MPH, and the power never even flickered.

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