Our house went dark about 7:20 this morning. No big deal. Power went off yesterday and came back on about an hour later.
But by 3 p.m., we figured out this might be a long-term outage. We had driven out of our neighborhood a couple of times and were amazed by the number of trees that were down with limbs covering both the street and sometimes the roofs of homes.
Winter arrived extra early with an October ice storm that threatened to take out every tree and power line in Oklahoma County. Late this evening we saw that OG&E was reporting nearly 300,000 customers without power.
As I prepared for a night of “adventure sleeping” in our living room in front of the gas logs in the fireplace, my wife suggested it was time to seek a hotel room for the night.
Yeah, right. So, I reluctantly fired up the Priceline app on my phone and began to see what our choices were. We sought a hotel in Northwest OKC or Edmond.
But as I scrolled through the choices, every one had a note that said “no rooms available.”
I switched to Expedia, and got the same thing. I even tried to find an available Bricktown hotel, but there was no room at the Inn for us.
Adventure sleeping it would be. Our household consists of me, my wife, Paula, daughter, Sarah, and her 16-month old son, Solomon.
Paula did not want Solomon sleeping in a cold house.
So, I decided to stop by a few hotels in the Quail Springs Mall area to put my name on the list if there were any cancellations. First up was the Holiday Inn North, but the desk clerk told me they were 10 rooms “overbooked” and gave me the front desk number to call later to check.
Next stop was the Holiday Inn Express at the intersection of Memorial Road and the Lake Hefner Road. This place was Grand Central Station judging by the people going in and out, but I approached the desk anyway and ask about cancellations.
The clerk gave me some paper to write my name and phone number, but then the manager on duty walked in from out of the back and said they just might have a room for us. Turns out they did, and I whipped out my payment on the spot to secure it.
It was a Christmas an October miracle!
So, we’re lounging in the room tonight, making the most of our Ice Storm Staycation.
Here’s hoping it ends first thing tomorrow.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 