“The Wind Advisory That Ate Four Days”

I live in a rural area, which means I know three things:

1. How to spot real danger

2. How to prepare for bad weather

3. How to tell when something is wildly overblown

This outage falls squarely into category #3.

We were without power for over four days due to a concern about wind. Not sustained wind. Not ongoing hazardous conditions. Just the possibility of wind — which, in our specific area, showed up once for about 30 minutes and then moved along.

Now, to be fair: we understand that parts of the grid did experience higher winds. That happens. Weather isn’t uniform, especially in rural terrain. We get that. No one is asking for reckless operation or heroics.

But what is hard to understand is why the response was to shut down what felt like an area the size of Texas, instead of isolating the specific segments that were actually at risk.

Rural residents are used to targeted solutions.
If a fence goes down on the north pasture, you don’t shut down the entire ranch.
If a tree threatens one line, you don’t turn off power to half a county just in case another tree gets ideas.

Yet that’s exactly what happened.

Out here, wind knocks over lawn chairs.
It does not justify a four-day blackout across massive swaths of otherwise calm territory.

Meanwhile, life didn’t pause:
• Livestock still needed water
• Homes still needed heat
• Businesses still needed to operate
• Medical equipment still needed power

Preparedness is one thing.
Precision is another.

If the grid cannot distinguish between localized risk and widespread shutdown, then the issue isn’t wind — it’s system capability and decision-making.

Rural doesn’t mean expendable.
Caution doesn’t mean indiscriminate.
And four days without power for a half-hour of wind deserves real explanation.