As we drifted off to sleep, it started to rain. Then it poured. I thought, This might not be a good thing. The rain really came down. It even thundered a little.
Sometime after 11:45, I was conscious that the A/C and fan had turned off. The compressor turns off, but the fan runs continuously. My first thought was, Ah, it’s quiet, now I can go to sleep. Then I thought, Wait! It is pouring rain and something electrical quit working in a little camper. This might not be a good thing. The light on the microwave was out too. I turned on my phone flashlight and looked around. Before bed, I had noticed the breaker box under the sink shelf. None of the breakers were off though. Under the microwave above the stove were some switches. One was for turning the hot water heater on to battery. The light on the fridge was on. I opened the fridge to find that the freezer was rapidly thawing. Well, maybe we are operating on battery. Let’s check the lights. Sure enough, the lights were dim. I wondered how long the battery would last. Was pretty sure the pump for flushing the toilet was running on battery power.
Drip! Drip! Drip! What was that? Water leaking over the shower from the skylight. I woke Christy up. We tried turning the main breaker off and then back on again. Nothing happened. It was a temptation to just go back to bed. However, that was not a really good idea for at least three reasons.
1. We knew that all the food in the fridge would spoil.
2. We still didn’t know if there was a fire hazard somewhere.
3. It would get too hot quite quickly in the camper.
Well, we had done what we could, so we texted Aunt Ruthie. In a few minutes Uncle Tim came out. He also tested the main breaker and felt the breaker box. No breakers were hot. However, the breaker had tripped where the line was hooked into the power supply at the house. Uncle Tim turned it back on, and we started cleaning up and getting ready to go back to bed.
In about five minutes, the power went out again. Sent another text. Uncle Tim came back out and reset the breaker. Before he even got to the camper, it was out again. He heard it Pop! that time.
Thus began our middle of the night excursion moving from the camper into the house. Aunt Ruthie got up and found places for us to sleep and covers for us to use. She also had to clean out her refrigerator. She said it needed cleaning out anyway, she just hadn’t planned to do it in the middle of the night. 😊 We were so thankful our aunt and uncle graciously got up to help us and take care of things in the middle of the night. Finally, we settled in and went to sleep. I woke up early though because of the early morning light coming in the windows.
Memory Making Monday was about to begin. But that is a post for part 4.