Families Learn to Cope Without Electricity

The sounds of crickets and generators have been accompanying Zureen Khairuddin’s three children to bed the last couple of nights.

Khairuddin and her husband, Mark Lesk, live on Cold Spring Avenue in the Adams Point neighborhood of Barrington – one of the areas that still didn’t have power late Wednesday afternoon. They lost their electricity about 8 am last Sunday, Aug. 28, with Hurricane Irene beating a path through the region.

“We’ve been calling it luxurious camping,” said Khairuddin of their days without power. “We have gas for hot water and our stove is gas. So we haven’t had it as bad as many of our neighbors.”

They cooked what food they thought might spoil, she said. The rest they put in a cooler with ice.

Her children, Jared, 4, and Gavin, 6, have been reading a book titled “Rescue Radio.” It’s about Morse code.

“They’ve been learning it by clicking flashlights on the walls at night,” she said.

Khairuddin said power outages are nothing new to her. The native of Malaysia said the electricity would go off and on frequently in her home country when she was a child. But it’s the length of the outage that has surprised her.

“I’ve never experienced having it off for days,” she said.

A couple of blocks away on Ferry Lane, Amy O’Donnell and Mich Corbin have been cooking on a camping stove and using a small generator to keep milk cold in their refrigerator for their daughter, Beatrice, 17 months, and their fish alive in the aquarium.

“We’ve been alternating,” O’Donnell said.

They’ve also been using the camping stove to boil water to wash dishes, she said. 

O’Donnell and Corbin have not just been waiting around for the electricity to be restored.

“We spent a nice long day at the beach yesterday (Tuesday),” Corbin said.

After they got home, he said, they watched some movies on the iPad with Beatrice.

National Grid indicates that they might not have power at their home until around Labor Day. But Corbin said he was driving home Tuesday on nearby Hawthorne Street when he heard some kids yelling. 

“’The power is on, the power is on,’ they were yelling,” he said. 

Corbin gained some confidence that their power-less lives would end sooner than later.

Meanwhile, the power was also still out Wednesday afternoon in the Haines Memorial State Park area of Barrington. 

Every home on Humphreys Road is without power. It’s the same on Fountain Avenue south of St. Luke’s church. Homestead Avenue off of Haines Park Road to the west is dark as well.

An elderly woman who has lived on Humphreys Road for 50 years said: “Some very good friends have been taking care of me.” She asked that she not be identified.

“My son also have been visiting often,” she said.

Sandra Whittaker, secretary to Barrington Superintendent Robert McIntyre, lives on Fountain Avenue. Her house went dark Sunday morning. She has no idea when her power will be restored.

“It’s growing very old,” Whittaker said of living without electricity.

Elizabeth “Bonnie” Warren lives on Homestead Avenue.  She said wires brought down by a tree across the street still lay in the road. Fortunately, a neighbor has power.

“I’m plugged into an outlet at his house through a window,” Warren said. “It’s for my refrigerator. 

But that’s the only electrical device in her house getting any power.

“I got kind of a warm shower today,” she said.

But Warren said she might just take up the Bayside YMCA’s offer to use the shower facilities.  The YMCA made that offer to everyone in Bristol County Wednesday morning. See the story by clicking here.