NPR’s reporting shines a light in the Upside Down

"Natural disasters are terrifying - that loss of control, this feeling that something is just going to randomly end your life for absolutely no reason is terrifying. But, what scares me is the human reaction to it and how people behave when the rules of civility and society are obliterated." 

— Eli Roth

AUBURN — For two and half days, it felt like we were out of the loop after a nasty Nor’easter sideswiped Maine and left thousands of the state’s denizens groping in the dark the past week.

Just before I watched the lights fade from every room (thank you, Moody Blues), the annoying radio alarm sounded revelry at 6 a.m.

I bounded out of bed and told my annoyed wife that we still had power.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

Five minutes later, I saw a flash of light outside the bedroom window and watched the radio clock and night light go out.

Silence filled the room. 

The neighborhood went dark and I was drowning in anxiety, not knowing where my next cup of coffee would come from in these perilous and dark times.

We felt like we stumbled upon the portal to the Upside Down. I also realized I didn’t possess No. 11’s power turn the frigging electricity back on. 

“Oh damn it,” I said as I reached for the flashlight. More four-letter words followed when I bumped into objects along the way to a pitch-black kitchen.

Cable and Internet were out of action and a dormant coffee maker denied me my morning jolt of caffeine. 

The power was gone. I was unhappy, cold and the sudden quietness was already getting on my nerves.

My wife and I would snipe at each other by candlelight for the next two days. We hung out anywhere we could to get the Internet. We visited the Lewiston Library and drank coffee at Dunkin just for the WiFi. We were like wandering, energy vampires looking to suck up free Internet on somebody else’s dime.

We weren’t overreacting. News stories were breaking that Mueller and his team of lawyers started making arrests in the Russian controversy. We were gleeful that Mueller’s band of merry men were making headway, but we were still on the sidelines with no TV or Internet. 

That’s when we turned to National Public Radio for our news and a chance to cheer on Mueller for getting to the bottom of this mess that our president appears to ignore.

We commandeered our son’s ancient radio, stuck some batteries in the back and listened to “All Things Considered” and an endless stream of NPR stories about Mueller’s fearless exploits.

NPR was like another flashlight in our dark home.

For 60 hours, I lived in the murkiness of the Upside Down. I missed taking a warm shower and brewing a cup of that black gold that jump-started my mornings.

When the sun rose, I got the camera and took pictures of downed trees and power lines. Auburn was a mess and its inhabitants were in a bad mood.

So we waited impatiently as hoards of linemen descended on the Pine Tree State to help put lights back on in New England.

My tour of our wind-swept state was startling. The telephone pole near the end of my street had snapped in two and wires still were connected to the top half of the pole that was resting in the middle of the street.

Mother Nature had done a number on us.

But there was hope — if you believe in hope. Linemen were working on the broken pole for two days. By Wednesday, they were mounting the relays on the top half, and wouldn’t you know it, the power returned in the morning and all was well in my neighborhood by evening.

The TV and Internet came back to life in our home and there was warm water running in the sink to wash the damn dishes.

We were fortunate. There are still over 5,000 people wandering in the dark in Maine. I am sure the level frustration for those Mainers is in the red. 

For us, life was good again and we were grateful to those men who work with electricity and brave danger to put the state of Maine back on line.

And shout-out to NPR for keeping two people informed after two dark days. And with power on, the portal to Upside Down has been closed — for the moment.

Let's do the Twist-er

"If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm."

                                                                                                                                               Frank Lane

REVERE, Mass. —  There were a dozen phone trucks with flashing lights going up and down Broadway repairing fallen lines after a twister left this section of the city looking like the aftermath of an air strike from a B1 bomber.

The loud whining of industrial woodchippers could be heard throughout neighborhoods that bore the brunt of an EF2 twister with a maximum wind speed of 120 miles per hour. People were in their yards gathering up piles of debris that landed from blocks away.

An employee, working feverishly from atop a cherry picker, apologized to my sister for taking so long to fix the phone line to my boyhood home in Revere on Thursday.

My son ran into the hallway in Maine on Monday morning and told me a two-mile long twister rolled through Broadway and tore up the center of my hometown. Facebook went berserk and relatives and friends began calling us in Maine. We watched the coverage on the computer. Revere was a mess with fallen trees, blown-out windows and debris littering the landscape.

A frigging twister? In Revere? Are you kidding?

This seaside community has never experienced a twister in my lifetime. I have always believed New England has been surrounded by an invisible force field that protected us from these devastating whirlwinds. I thought twisters only wreaked havoc in the Midwest, and as far as I am concerned, these deadly concoctions of nature can stay in the Midwest.

Revere has been ravaged by blizzards and menacing hurricanes, but this community of 53,000 residents has never stared down a twister without any warning. The twister was only on the ground for five minutes, and in those brief moments, the tornado flipped cars like a short-order cook tosses burgers. Some homes were rendered uninhabitable and a few businesses were nearly leveled.

My nephew took a peek out from the picture window of my father's home and saw trees snapping when a frightening funnel cloud became visible. He shouted to his mother to get downstairs and the pair huddled in the dark basement, hoping the house would not shake loose from its foundation. They have been caring for our dad, who was resting at a rehabilitation facility in nearby Melrose, Mass. I was proud of my courageous nephew who thought of his mother first and took shelter in the basement. For a brief moment, they felt like Dorothy and Tonto.

If you can read a map, Revere is next to Boston. But most of the city was unscathed due to the narrow path of the storm. It began in Chelsea and whipped down Revere's main street and veered toward my old neighborhood where McClure, School, Belgrade and True streets were hit hard. My dad's roof and siding took a beating and my uncle's shed was ripped to pieces.

I believe you can chalk up this rare instance to global warming caused by the most destructive force on the planet — man. There are too many of us and our appetite for overdeveloping the earth and wasting finite resources has taken a harsh toll on a planet soiled my careless human beings.

My other sister was not home, but her husband was pushed back when he tried to open the door to their home. Both sisters and their children were not injured and can now tell their grandchildren a tale of how they survived a tornado. 

Nobody was killed or severely injured in the tornado that ambushed a city on a quiet Monday morning. Homes can be restored or replaced, but people are lost forever in these dangerous storms.

Kudos to Revere residents for making a quick recovery.