Unexpected Realities of Power Outages in the Upper Midwest

February 28, 2023

Read time: 10-15 minutes

More often than not, Michigan is totally and completely awful.  I wake up in the morning, throw on my coat, and fight the blistering wind with my chin tucked.  My mouth can barely move.  Arriving at my car is a sudden relief.  But my seat is freezing cold.  I blast the butt-warmers, crush the heat, and curse my relatives for settling in the Metro Detroit area. 

Then, the summer hits.  And Michigan turns awesome.    

Michigan is a truly wonderful place.  During the summers, there is no place you’d rather be.  We get 70-degree days.  There is an infinity of lakes that become day-long parades of good folks and good spirits. 

Our sports teams are quite good (if you ignore recent history).

Detroit is awesome.  As long as you go in with appropriate expectations, a respect for history, a map, and an earnest desire to enjoy your time, you will be pleased by the shows, the Eastern Market, the DIA, and everything else under the Detroit sun.

We even have advertising campaigns with hometown hero Tim Allen’s voice in the background telling you about apple trees, Mackinac Island, timelessness, and the power of storytelling in the background to shots of kayakers, farmers, and the leaves changing colors. 

Then the winter hits.

Ohhhhhhhh GOD does the winter hit. 

I remember one winter, it was 2019, and I was living in the Grand Rapids area.  We entered a new reality that became affectionately known as a “Polar Vortex.”  It felt like hell’s gates had been opened and Satan himself had unleashed a force of snowflakes the size of peanut shells that hit the earth with continuous annihilation for at least 120 hours straight.  People south of our border simply do not understand the cosmic possibilities that can happen when Mother Earth decides to take the slightest bit of precipitation from the Great Lakes and turn our freshwater against us.  What followed was endless ice, perpetual car scrapping, and wet boots.

Believe it or not, this was fun.

Being in college at the time, the Polar Vortex turned a week of class into a week of White Claws and snow angels.  Drive to work?  What work?  Classes were canceled all around because it was too dangerous to drive to class.  But it was not too dangerous to drive to apartment buildings and build Blood Alcohol Content up to .20 getting drunk on Kamchatka while fraternity Risk Management chairs tested the dexterity of their bedroom walls. 

These were the best of times.

***

Today, it is the end of February.  March is starting and everyone in Michigan is just plain sick of the winter.  We are used to snowfall and blizzards hitting us like a ton of bricks.  We are used to the sudden shock of waking up in the morning and realizing, “Oh gosh!  I have to clean off my car!” 

What we don’t prepare for in the winter (and no one really can) is power outages. 

This is no Polar Vortex…these are the worst of times.

Recently, an ice storm hit southeast Michigan and there have been electrical failures that have spanned far and wide.  Apparently, when the power goes out in the winter, that means your house is going to get extremely cold.  It means you get to sleep in a winter coat.  It means that when you go to look for a hotel as a saving grace, all of them filled up in less than 24 hours and you’re stuck in your rotten home whose tap water turns to icicles in the blink of an eye.  It means that you have no food supplies in your refrigerator and you have to survive on bags of potato chips and stale pita bread.  I know-I know-I know-I know…I know what you’re thinking, “Hey Kopel, if it’s so cold outside, why don’t you put the refrigerables outside?” 

Great idea. 

But what about the microwave?  That doesn’t work.  Ha!  Didn’t think about that, did ya?  Meanwhile, I completely ignored my gas stove top and told myself, “Oh gosh…this is how it’s going to end, isn’t it?  This is what the world is going to look like in a hundred years when we run out of electricity.  I’m going to go to set my house on fire for a little bit of warmth and I’m gonna eat cold raccoon meat and girl scout cookies for dinner, aren’t I?” 

The realities of living in the middle of Michigan, during the winter, while the power is out is a tale that scares the ever-living daylights from me.  These last few days were terrible.  And I’ve come to understand just how deep the darkness of our reality is.

***

As human beings, we are biologically designed to survive.  It’s hardwired inside of us.  It’s like breathing or chewing gum while walking.  Our internal biology somehow finds a way. 

Somehow, someway, through power outage and an ice storm that rivals Arnold Schwarzenegger from Batman and Robin…I survived.  Here are some things I’ve come to realize over the last few days without electricity and on the verge of extinction:

People will travel far and wide to find anyone or anything with power

Over these few days that the power was out, I was hardly home.  Yes, I was home on the days I went to work.  But on the other days, it was a mad chase for any one of my friends who had electricity and a means of warmth.

I hunted down my friends and they clothed me.  They bathed me.  They gave me a roof and walls that protected me from elements that were far too powerful for me to ever bear.  They showered me with food and drink in the most exotic ways possible (like Leo’s Coney Island). It turns out, whether the power comes in the form of electricity or a Coney Dog, everyone everywhere is always seeking a higher power for help.

In case of the actual apocalypse, I am going to make sure to have a full tank of gas and a portable phone charger on me at all times.  My car was my phone charger in a powerless house.  This way, I can always call my friends. There is no point in entering an apocalyptic winter without abandoning your family at home and spending time and warmth with the people you truly care about.

The candlelight economy will boom

Right now, I’d venture to guess that Yankee Candle is probably the most powerful economic force in the candle industry.  Why?  Because they smell good.  That’s it.  Whether you like lavender, a Christmas cookie, or minty hibiscus sunlight rays, you can have any and every kind of scent in the world under the umbrella of Yankee Candle. 

But what happens when the lights go out forever?

All of the sudden, all of that energy that goes into digging up the rarest form of scented wax for 40-something suburban moms are going to be channeled through finding candlewax that burns and burns and burns.  I’m talking about Channukah wax that burns for 8 days when we only expect 1 day.  I’m talking about a kind of burn that roars louder than the sun on June 21st.  I’m talking about the type of burn you get on your knee when you scrape it on the family carpet playing indoor football underneath the foyer chandelier.  That is the type of burn we’re gonna look for. 

Otherwise, we are all going to have to start banking on the idea of waking up at the ass crack of dawn.  The idea of beating the sun up in the morning?  That is something that is only for psychos of a completely different breed.  If anyone is beating the sun up on a daily basis that isn’t a farmer or working third shift, you probably need to hang out with your children more. 

Stoplights are going to be the worst

Picture this:

The apocalypse has happened.  There is no question about it. 

But it’s not a terrifying, horrible, fiery apocalypse.  It’s an “apocalypse light.”  Kind of like a Bud Light.  It’s an apocalypse similar to the ongoing apocalypse that happens in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders.  Yes, there is an uptick in gangs and movies attached to treadmills.  Sure, the power is out extensively, but think about all the things we will most definitely still have.  Cars will still run.  The economy will still boom and bust.  The NFL will most likely still be playing on Sundays. 

There will be plenty to look forward to.

But there is one thing I observed in this latest power outage in the middle of a Michigan winter that is most certainly going to happen in an “apocalypse light.”  Stoplights are going to be the world’s biggest nightmare.  That I have no doubt.

The clearest and most obvious sign of a widespread power outage in southeast Michigan was the stoplights.  You be driving along Ten Mile Road and, all of the sudden, you have to slam on your brakes and hang on for dear life.  Why?  Because traffic is blocked up at a four-way intersection where the light is out. 

What the heck?

The light wasn’t out back there…it isn’t out over there…why is it out right here?

These questions of bad municipal management are going to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue when the apocalypse rolls around.  It will get infuriating.  It will become commonplace.  Complaining about stoplights being out will be like complaining about potholes or security at the airport.  People will blame one side or the other when the reality is, no one cares about you and your happiness except for yourself.  And one day, stoplights being out will just be plain old normal.  There will be a direct correlation between the increase in stoplights being out and the increase in Henry David Thoreau’s literature being read.  People will abandon their homes.  Tents will be pitched in the middle of the woods.  And the IRS will wonder why the mail for property taxes is so much lighter that year.

The effects of mismanaged stoplights will become one of the most important topics that all Americans talk about, but CNN and Fox do not.  When was the last time you heard CNN talk about potholes?  They will be too busy talking about the election and e-cigarettes.  Trust me, they simply do not care.  Meanwhile, suburbia will be slowly abandoned because when people flip their light switches it takes two weeks for the lights to turn on.  And besides, possum meat tastes pretty good!

***

As my car charged my phone, I frantically wrote down ideas for the future slight apocalypse I might encounter. 

“How to trap bears”

“Where can I find gold and silver”

“How do I invest in LifeStraws”

There are only so many ways to prepare for the decline of the modern world.  Then, all of the sudden, as promised in DTE’s email saying that the lights were going to turn back on, the lights turned back on.  DTE said the power would be back once Saturday came.  Saturday came, the lights were on, and we refilled our refrigerator.  DTE even gave people a $35 credit on their accounts for all the trouble of nearly dying and whatnot. 

It turns out, no matter how far down the rabbit hole of horror shows and panic I can drum up in my paranoid mind…life finds a way.  It turns out there are a bunch of guys working for the city and for DTE who have pensions and 401(k)s who actually want to go to work and make sure that the lights come back on. 

And it’s not for you.

It’s not for the good of mankind.

It’s for themselves. 

If they don’t do their job, their bosses are gonna find someone who will.  Then, they won’t have a job, their kids will not survive the next power outage winter, and their wives will divorce them.

Or…they can put on a smiling face, get to work, and put food on their own table in the process.  And it just so happens, the economy rolls again.  And we continue to plunder our way through the 21st Century for new alternative energies and deep-fried Oreos.

Time for a Joke:

What did one snowman say to the other?

"Hey!  Can you smell carrot?"