Living on the edge or living off the grid during Astoria’s first hurricane?
May 5th, 2008 Categories: Columbia River, Life in General, Weather
A random series of events has awakend my inner green self. All disconnected events really. But the sum of all has changed how I think of my daily routine . When I first heard the phrase living off the grid I thought it was some new hip expression that my teenager had for a dangerous/crazy lifestyle. It was around that time that I saw the documentary Kilowatt Ours ( the documentary channel is my current PVR addiction) all about energy consumption. Enter the Advent Storm (really a hurricane but don’t tell the rest of the world that). Seven days with no power, no phones and all roads closed off allows for a lot of thinking without the normal everyday distraction. Thinking about power or the lack thereof for sure! We have a generator but its not large enough to run heat, lights, fridge, TV, computers, etc. We found ourselves making decisions on what was necessary. It got me to really thinking about reducing our consumption of energy. I have challenged my family to reduce our power bills by 50% over the coming months. If you want to see what the energy vampires are in your house go to an online energy audit site. Here’s a good one. A friend recently told me about geothermal heatpumps. I think this may be my first step into un-gridlike living. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, in an attempt at reducing our landfill contributions, I’ll go back to potty-training my son. Talk about living on the edge!
Jennie
