It should be personal to all of us - Please help the reservation Propane Project
We had a gas stove until we remodeled the kitchen, and a gas hot water heater. Why we did not have gas furnace was beyond me.
We lived through power outages of several days. We once went through two days when the snow was high enough to prevent the fuel from getting through, just as our oil ran out. But we did not face freezing, as it was still in the 20s and house was well-insulated.
That was in a suburban area, where the oil truck only had to travel over several miles of suburban, well-maintained roads.
I have lived my entire life within major cities (New York, PhiladelphIa) or their close-in suburbs. The longest I have ever been without power was 5 days, and our house has gas hot water and a gas stove, so we had some access to heat in wintry conditions, although that power outage was during the heat of the DC summer after the derecho, and the house became quite warm, reaching 90 degrees at one point.
Not all Americans are as fortunate.
For too many of our First Peoples, they live in remote locations on what we still call "reservations" - areas often of concentrated poverty, in rural setting without the kinds of utility services that most Americans take for granted until they lose them, as many did in the aftermath of the derecho, and more recently even in parts of our largest city and its immediate surroundings in the aftermath of Sandy.
For those of us on the East Coast, these were extraordinary events.
For those on our rural reservations, getting through the winter is a struggle, every winter.
Which is why this community, often so generous to its members, has for the past few years, taken on the task