Connecting without connectivity during the 2021 snowpocalypse
It was Friday, Feb. 12 at 8:06 p.m. The lights flickered then turned off. Mid-studying for a chemistry test, I wondered what had happened. I looked outside my window and saw that every house on my block did not have power. I had heard no tree fall, no loud winds, no crunching of a power line, but it was clear: the snowstorm had taken down a power line.
For those in my neighborhood, Willamette Heights, the power outage lasted nearly four days. With my computer needing to be connected to power to function and my phone dead, I was without the screens that I had relied on so much for the duration of the pandemic. Fumbling around my house, I found a flashlight, initially trying to use my phone’s flashlight before realizing my phone’s battery was dead. Once I found my way to the closet for a flashlight, I was stumped as to what to do next. With being so tied to technology to connect with people during the pandemic, it was strange to be without my computer or phone.
The next morning, I woke up to see that two trees had fallen in my neighborhood: one fell on my parents’ car, slicing off the left side mirror, and another fell on top of my elderly neighbor’s house, puncturing a hole in their roof and shattering the back window of their car. Seeing the severity of the damage to my neighbor’s house and car, I walked over with a shovel and began helping clean up the debris.
By the end of an hour and a half, a large group of masked neighbors working beside each other had formed. My dad, Andrew Olshin, reflected on the scene.
“It was very inspiring to see the community come together around our neighbors,” he said. “It seemed like, despite the pandemic, snowstorm, and myriad other factors, people still cared about each other.”
In a time period when connection is based on internet connectivity, it was refreshing to interact with others not over WiFi, but over community.
In the comments section below, describe a moment - big or small - during the pandemic when you felt the strength of your community.