The Power of Power

Photo by Dan Bender. Click on photo to see Durango Herald's article on lightning strikes.

Everyone knows what electricity can do. It can run cities, industries and homes. It is at once ubiquitous and unseen. When power is disrupted, it can cause chaos. In this last week or so, we have witnessed first-hand the power of power. As the monsoon season continues (hallelujah) it has brought welcome rains, but also lightning. Lightning can cause forest fires and it can fry transformers. We had a lightning strike close by our property last week, and this week a transformer in Mancos blew up, cutting off power to hundreds of nearby residents – including us. We lost power for nearly 18 hours before it was restored. And in the middle of that, the barn and the guest apartment completely lost power. Not because of the transformer problem in Mancos, but from a failure of our own system. At our house we get electricity from a nearby transformer box. Then we send the power from our house to the barn. It wasn’t a great system, and we knew we would have to fix it eventually, but out of the blue it just quit working. We have had to relocate guests and cancel reservations. Something no vacation rental host EVER wants to do. The upgrade that we planned in the future is needed now. And the work will have to be done by the local electric utility company. So now we wait.

The loss of power did not stop our eveready crew. Using a portable generator, they were able to keep plugging away on the final items to make the barn space complete. They created the most wonderful barn-style doors for the kitchen door, the pass-through space, and a crawl space opening in the ceiling. They were even able to repurpose the hinges from the original dutch-style stall doors. They also touched up paint and other refinements. Still some to go, but like I said in my last blog, “So close!”