So it was

So, it was an exciting day at work today.

It started off normally enough. I was cutting some frames and doing what it is we framers do, and all of the sudden the lights flickered out. We figured we blew a circuit in the basement, but since we are in the basement, it was impossible to see the circuit box, much less our way to the light.

After a few minutes of stumbling around the dark, someone came downstairs with a candle so we could at least get out of the basement. We realized that the entire building had blacked out.

We looked down the street and saw a couple of street lights out, too. We figured it was a temporary thing and we'd be back up and running in no time. Brandon and I decided to take lunch instead of sitting around waiting for the electricity to come back on.

We headed down the street, but it took a couple of blocks to realize the severity of the outage. It seemed to be everywhere. We drove about 4 miles before finding a restaurant that could actually serve us anything.

So, it seems Peoria died. But not only Peoria. The electricity is out in several surrounding towns, all the way to El Paso, which is about 40 miles away. Luckily the outage seems to have hit Peoria and the towns to the south and east. My apartment is about 2 blocks away from the beginning of the outage, so I'm sittin' pretty in my air conditioning with my computer on. Not many people are this lucky. I'd say 95% of Peoria is without electricity. Fun stuff.

I've heard an unofficial estimate that we will be without electricity for 10-15 hours. Radio stations and TV stations aren't transmitting, of course, so that's not the greatest source. Hospitals are shut down, too. Weird.