Blackout - Rachelle Rosano

Thursday afternoon, I was in the gym during volleyball practice, when suddenly, the lights went out. Initially, we thought it was merely a problem with the switch in the gym itself, but when I called my mom, wondering where she was, she was barely halfway getting to the school. After I got into the car, she explained what she knew about what was happening. A twenty-minute drive to the school turned into more than an hour, as not just East Chula Vista, but the whole city of San Diego, struggled with no traffic lights guiding the way. It was a county-wide power outage, affecting millions of people for what we thought would be for a full 24-hours. As the night progressed, my parents and I lit candles downstairs and stashed flashlights on the stairs as well as in each room. I worked on my homework by candlelight after the sun set until the phone call informed us that school was cancelled for Friday. Taking advantage of that announcement, I shut my books, took a quick glance outside, lit by only the moon and the stars, and fell asleep by 8:30 PM. A twelve hour good night's sleep led me to waking up, being able to switch my lamp on and off once again. Looking back to the previous night, I found it interesting how San Diego swore it was some kind of end-of-the-world catastrophe. The way we rely on electricity and technology is quite substantial, and it definitely makes me wonder how different life has become in the aging era. Personally, I found the situation pleasant, but in the long run, it would have greatly complicated preparing meals, the sun would be the only reliable source of light, and we would struggle just to get by with simple tasks that people back then would have seen as normal. No internet access, no cable, no charge for cellphones, iPods, etc., I believe, would lead to society being the murderer of itself. We are used to this high tech life and taking it away would only break us down.