Our turn...

 

We had been counting our blessings.  Much of the towns (closest to us) of Port Isabel and South Padre Island have been without power for 2 to 3 days.  Amazingly, with the exception of a few outages of 10 minutes to a couple hours, we haven't been without power.

That changed at 2:20 this afternoon - our entire island is without power.  Yes, we still have weak water.  Good news/bad news.  The good news is we can run water.  The bad news: without power, we can't run the stove to be able to boil the water.  The really bad news: without power, the lift stations on our island can't move the sewage off the island.

We got our generator out, gassed it up, and fired it up.  Much like the state of Texas electrical grid, we can now decide what gets power priority.  The generator isn't big enough to run the whole house; the two important items: the fridge and the electric fireplace.  Keep food cold, keep us warm.  It is 43º outside with a cold north wind; the warmth of the electric fireplace feels good after being outside to mess with the generator.  We can also run a lamp, and power up our devices on a "rolling basis."  Our regular high speed internet (and cable TV) is gone with the power.  The back-up is what we use when we're out and about in the motorhome: using my phone as the hotspot.  It is getting dark, so one lamp will get into rotation, as well.

Joan won't be baking anything, but we have a butane cooktop that will suffice for heating things up.  Rufus's meals will still happen at their regular time.  Right now, he is pretty confused about the state of things.  Joan tried to sooth him by saying, "This is like camping, Rufus!"  He isn't buying it.  He thinks camping is roughing it in the motorhome.  ;-)

We'll see how long this drags out.

I'm real happy we both got a good shower in today.